Category: English

1 It was my bachelor party. But suddenly, out of nowhere, my closest friend, Logan, decided he wanted to place a massive bet with my fiancé, Maya. “I am going to guess how many candies you are holding in your hand.” “If I guess right, you have to do whatever I say. No questions asked.” “If I guess wrong, I will drink every single drop of alcohol left on this table.” “My guess is five.” Maya opened her right hand. Three candies. Logan laughed, tilting his head back, ready to chug his drink. But then, everything changed. “You win.” Maya reached into her pocket and pulled out her left hand. “The other two are right here.” Logan looked at her, a wide smile spreading across his face. But I could see the faint glint of tears in his eyes. He pulled out a folded slip of paper he had prepared beforehand and smoothed it out on the table. “Well, I apologize for this, but I did not actually expect to guess right on the first try.” “Your wedding is officially postponed for three years.” The entire room went dead silent in shock. But Maya just smiled. “We have been making bets with each other since college. None of us have ever backed down from a wager.” “A bet is a bet. I accept.” This was not the first time Maya had used me as a chip in one of her games. I looked up at the wall clock. It was just past midnight. My phone vibrated in my pocket. “Happy Birthday.” “You always said if we were both twenty seven and single, you would marry me. Does that still count?” I typed my reply without hesitating. “A bet is a bet.” After a brief, suffocating silence, the living room completely erupted. “Are you insane? You cannot bet on something like this!” “A wedding is not a game!” “Do you know how exhausted Liam is? He handwrote five hundred invitations! We have already notified all our relatives. How can you just cancel it on a whim?” A few of our friends crowded around them, their voices overlapping in panic. Growing more frantic, they all turned their attention to Logan. “Logan, come on, you are Liam’s best man! Say something! Tell her it was just a joke!” Logan was sitting in the corner, gently swirling the red wine in his glass. He completely avoided everyone’s eyes. “I am not joking.” “You guys know me. I never make a bet as a joke.” “It is bad luck.” The moment the words “bad luck” left his mouth, the air in the room completely solidified. Everyone suddenly realized the gravity of the situation. This wedding was actually over. The reason was simple. Except for me, who worked at an art gallery, everyone else in Maya’s circle was in the high stakes business of importing and trading unpolished diamonds and raw gemstones. Every single month, they flew out to international borders to bid on raw stones. In fact, the seed money for their entire startup came from a massive, incredibly risky gem auction they won back in college. ‘Never back down from a bet’ was the ironclad rule they lived their entire lives by. Nobody dared to say another word. I lowered my eyes and poured myself a glass of bourbon. “Maya, what is your call on this?” Maya looked at me, her eyes glazed with a hint of intoxication. She reached out, habitually pinching my cheek just like she always did when she wanted to appease me. “Liam, we can always just hold the ceremony in three years. We have the rest of our lives together.” “But breaking a promise and bringing bad luck down on the entire business just for a wedding date? It is just not worth it.” “You understand, right?” It was the exact answer I had anticipated. I kept my head down, forcing myself to swallow the bitter, burning sensation in my throat. When I finally looked back up, I had already pasted a perfect smile back onto my face. “I do not understand it, but I agree to it.” Maya let out a visible sigh of relief, smiling at me with genuine affection. “The fact that you are still keeping your cool means you aren’t too mad.” The temperature in the room plummeted. For a long moment, nobody spoke. Just then, the front door clicked open. Chloe was standing in the doorway. I had not even noticed her slip out earlier. She was pushing a massive, three tier cake into the room. The candles were already lit, and written across the icing were the words: ‘Happy 27th Birthday, Liam.’ “Happy Birthday!” Maya looked entirely startled for a second, before snapping out of her daze and being the first to start clapping. And just like that, my bachelor party bizarrely morphed into a birthday party. After a few more rounds of drinks. The private karaoke room was deafening, filled with the sound of dice hitting the tables and people screaming into microphones. I stood up and walked over to Maya. I reached straight into her jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of the wedding favors she had been carrying. “Why?” Maya gave me a small, guilty smile. “I knew I could not hide it from you.” She wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me tightly, her voice raspy from the alcohol. “If Logan lost, he would have had to drink all that liquor, and his liver cannot take it anymore. If you were in my shoes, you would have done the exact same thing.” I turned my head, looking at her dead in the eye. I desperately wanted to ask her if she had known what his bet was going to be beforehand. Had she prepared for this? But the words died in my throat. I realized asking would be entirely pointless. I pulled away from her and walked over to Logan. “Why?” Logan looked up at me. Through the haze of the alcohol, I saw an unapologetic, burning intensity in his eyes. “Because I am in love with Maya.” “But do not expect an apology from me. I have stepped aside and tolerated you for seven years.” It was the answer I expected, delivered with an arrogance I did not. This was the guy who had been my best friend since freshman year of college. I threw my head back and downed the rest of my bourbon. Everything happening right in front of me felt like some absurd, melodramatic soap opera. I set the glass down and reached for the bottle to pour another. A pair of hands firmly pressed down on mine. Chloe had quietly stepped up right behind me. She leaned in, her warm breath brushing against my ear. “Did you get the confirmation you needed?” “So, the wedding is in three days?” I tilted my head slightly, looking at Chloe. “I said a bet is a bet, but my birthday party literally just started. Are you that confident I have already lost?” Chloe flashed a wicked, knowing smile. “It does not matter. I have been waiting for seven years. One more day will not kill me.” I stood up, turned to face Logan, and raised my voice over the music. “Logan, I want to make a bet with you too.” The music in the room seemed to freeze for a fraction of a second. Everyone stared at me in total shock. The two guys I was closest with immediately caught on and started hyping it up. “Hell yeah! Maya lost the wedding date, but Liam can just win it right back!” “Exactly! I already rented a killer suit for this wedding. Canceling it now is a total waste. Let’s get another bet going!” But Maya’s expression instantly darkened. “Liam, stop acting like a child.” “I already agreed to the terms. The wedding is in three years, and that is final.” Right on cue, Logan covered his mouth, letting out a dramatic, sickening gag. Maya immediately rushed over to support him, snapping her head back to glare at me. “He is clearly way too drunk. Leave him alone. If you are that desperate to gamble, pick someone else.” I watched Maya instinctively shield Logan, and the very last shred of hope in my chest finally withered and died. “Sure.” I picked up the leather dice cup from the table and shook it hard. “Then I will bet against you. High or low?” I locked eyes with Maya. I felt like a desperate man putting his last dollar on the table. The truth was, the dice cup was completely empty. I was only asking to test her. If she was willing to play the game with me, if she was willing to give me one fair chance to fight for us… I was ready to wager every ounce of luck I had left in my life to cancel my promise to Chloe. I would wait the three years for her. Because when it comes to love, aren’t we all just desperate gamblers? But Maya’s expression grew even colder. She stared at me, her eyes filled with nothing but disappointment and absolute disgust. “So you lose once, and now you are going to harass people until you win? Liam, do you have absolutely zero dignity left?” I understood immediately. A bottomless, bitter wave crashed over me. “You are so terrified that you will not even play a simple game with me?” “Are you really that afraid I am going to force you to marry me?” The last remaining warmth in my heart turned to ice, piece by piece. Right in front of her face, I slowly lifted the leather cup. It was completely empty. Everyone stared at the empty cup in stunned silence. After a few agonizing seconds, someone whispered from the back of the room. “A blind bet… that is an automatic loss.” I forced a smile onto my face and looked at Maya. “I never even intended to beat you. Why were you treating me like I was the enemy?” Maya choked on her words. She stared at the empty cup, finally realizing what she had just done. She reached her hand out, desperately trying to grab my arm. “I… I just did not want you to lose…” But you already made me lose. I lost everything. I dodged her hand. Maya’s hand froze in midair, but then she forced a laugh. “I know how much you wanted this wedding. But it is just three years, right? Do you really have that little faith in our relationship?” “You aren’t worried you are going to change your mind in three years, are you? Because I wouldn’t change my mind even if it took ten.” I let out a harsh, involuntary laugh. In just a few sentences, she had perfectly twisted the narrative to make it sound like I was the one who was not committed enough. Seeing the atmosphere spiraling out of control, someone finally stood up to break the tension. “Alright, alright, it is past 3 AM. Let’s just call it a night, guys.” Everyone practically sprinted for the door, looking completely relieved. Maya helped Logan to his feet and turned to me. “I am going to drop him off at his place first, then I will take you home. It is on the way.” I smiled faintly. “No thanks. I am getting a ride with Chloe.” Maya opened her mouth to argue. But Chloe had already stepped into the elevator, holding the doors open, and called out to me. “Liam, let’s go.” I walked quickly into the elevator and left with her. The next morning, I woke up to a brutal hangover and my phone ringing off the hook. “Liam, what the hell are we supposed to tell the venue?” “Liam, your uncle just called me. Is this wedding actually happening or not?” “You idiot, why did you suddenly cancel the wedding? Get over here right now and explain yourself!” My head was splitting open. I sat frozen on the edge of the bed for a long time before I finally accepted that last night was not a nightmare. The wedding I had been dreaming about for seven years was actually gone, entirely destroyed by a stupid guessing game. I rubbed my temples and opened my messages. 99+ unread notifications. I tapped on a voice memo from Logan. “Liam… what was said last night is final. Deal with it.” Right below that was a text from Chloe. “I left some sliced apples on the counter for your hangover. Do not forget what you promised. A bet is a bet.” But Maya’s chat history was completely blank. Someone had posted a group photo on Instagram last night with the caption, “Happy Birthday, to a night we will never forget!” It had a warm, vintage filter. Everyone was smiling. I was standing in front of the birthday cake, the candlelight illuminating my face. I looked like I was actually happy. Someone commented below the photo, “When is the wedding getting rescheduled?” The guy who posted the picture replied, “Haha, classified information!” I took a deep breath and dialed Maya’s number. “Liam?” In the background, I could clearly hear Logan’s voice. “Maya, my head is killing me…” Before I could say a word, Maya started speaking rapidly. “Hey, can you handle telling your parents about the delay? Oh, and take care of canceling the venue too. I will cover whatever the penalty fee is.” “I am completely tied up right now. Logan threw up a few times and his stomach is still wrecked. I am taking him to urgent care for an IV.” Not a single word of apology. She just naturally assumed that I would do exactly what I had done for the past seven years. Unconditionally support her and clean up the mess she left behind. “Fine.” I gave a quiet response and hung up the phone. I pulled an empty cardboard box from the closet and started packing away everything that had to do with Maya. The scrapbook she stayed up all night making for our anniversary in college. It still held the dried rose petals she gave me junior year. When I brushed against them, they crumbled into red dust. The first pair of matching coffee mugs we ever made at a pottery class. The bottom still had her messy handwriting carving out ‘M & L’. The glaze had completely faded. And then there was the custom emerald ring. Senior year, our friend group pooled our money to hit a gemstone auction. She fought against everyone’s advice, insisting on buying this ugly, black, heavy rock that nobody else wanted. I emptied my entire savings account and gave her the cash to buy it. The moment they cut the stone open, she practically tackled me to the ground, kissing me in pure excitement. “Liam, I am going to use this emerald to make the most incredible ring just for you.” “Jewelry is about eternity, and you are my most priceless treasure.” Seven years. Over two thousand, five hundred days. I honestly thought we had already won the game. I never imagined she would casually throw our entire future onto a betting table. I tossed every single item into the cardboard box. I dragged it all the way down to the lobby. The building’s cleaning lady gasped when she saw it. “Young man, are you sure you are throwing this away? Some of this is really nice stuff!” I gave her a calm, peaceful smile. “I am sure.” “I do not need any of this anymore. If you want it, it is all yours.” The woman thanked me profusely and took the box. I pulled the custom engagement ring off my finger and dropped it right on top of the pile. “Oh, by the way, you can have this too.” The woman froze, staring at me in absolute disbelief. I hailed a cab and headed straight for the wedding venue. When the event manager saw me walk in alone, he looked confused. “Mr. Miller, are you here by yourself?” I nodded. “Yeah… my fiancé is busy contacting all the relatives to let them know about the date change.” The manager’s face lit up in understanding, and he nodded eagerly. “Oh, so it is just a date change! I was worried you were canceling altogether. What date are we moving it to? I will get the paperwork ready right now.” “The day after tomorrow. Thank you.” When I walked out of the hotel lobby, the midday sun was blinding. I looked up at the endless blue sky. I felt a massive, suffocating weight finally lift off my chest. This seven year fever dream. I was finally awake. When I got home that evening, Maya was already sitting on my sofa, waiting for me. I stopped in my tracks. “What are you doing here?” Maya’s brow was deeply furrowed, and her voice was tight with barely suppressed rage. “The venue called me. They said you did not cancel the wedding, you just pushed it back by two days?” So that was why she was here. I looked down and slowly took off my shoes. “Yeah. But I already wired the deposit money back to your account.” She clamped her jaw shut, looking like she was trying desperately to keep her temper in check. But finally, she snapped. “You really cannot wait three more years?” “Liam, is your entire existence just revolving around marrying me? Are you terrified no one else is going to want you?” She stood up and closed the distance between us. “We are in the gem business. Logan and the guys take luck incredibly seriously.” “Our company has been running perfectly. If we hit a bad streak now, everyone is going to blame us for backing out of a bet.” “I have sheltered you from reality for way too long. Do you think building this company was easy? Why can’t you just be mature about this?” She practically spat the words out before storming toward the front door. “I am not answering any more calls from that venue. You cancel the wedding yourself. Because if you do not, you are going to be the idiot standing at the altar with no bride.” “I am flying to Denver tomorrow with Logan and the team for a major auction. I will be gone for a week. Use that time to calm down and get your head straight.” The door slammed shut behind her. I stood in the entryway, listening to her footsteps fade down the hallway. I walked over to the electronic lock. I deleted our anniversary date from the keypad and reset the password to my own birthday. The next morning, Maya actually called me. “Liam, I am at the airport. I have about an hour before I need to clear security. Do you want to come… see me off?” In the past, every single time she left the city, I was there to drop her off and pick her up. It did not matter if there was a blizzard outside. “I can’t. I have plans today.” There was a noticeable pause on the line before her tone softened just a fraction. “I was a little emotional last night, so do not take what I said too seriously. I promise, the second you turn thirty, I am going to throw you the most incredible wedding.” “And what happens if Logan decides he wants to place another bet that day?” The line went completely dead. When she finally spoke, her voice was laced with deep irritation. “Liam, you are still fixating on that.” “I am not fixating on it. I am just saying, if a stupid party game is more important to you than a vow, you should never make a vow in the first place.” Another heavy, suffocating silence. I called her name quietly. “Maya.” “What?” In the background, I could hear the massive roar of jet engines spooling up on the tarmac. I smiled faintly and spoke softly into the receiver. “I just wanted to thank you for the last seven years.” Over the deafening noise of the engines, she sounded confused. “What did you say?” “Nothing,” I replied calmly. “Maya, have a safe flight.” “Okay.” She hesitated, as if sensing something was fundamentally wrong, and tried to offer some reassurance. “Liam, do not worry, I will never…” Before she could finish her sentence, Logan’s whiny voice cut through the background noise. “Maya, come on, they are printing the boarding passes!” I pressed the end call button. I opened my phone, scrolled to the group chat with Maya’s entire family, and tapped ‘Delete and Leave Group’. My phone rang again immediately. It was Chloe. “I am downstairs,” her voice was low and steady. “The wedding is tomorrow. Get down here so we can go fit your tuxedo.” “I am on my way.” I grabbed my jacket and walked out the door, feeling lighter than I had in years. That evening, in a luxury hotel suite in Denver. One of Maya’s partners, Kevin, was sprawled out on the lobby sofa scrolling through his phone. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright. “Holy shit!” He shoved his phone directly in Maya’s face. “Maya! Liam just posted on Instagram! He is getting married tomorrow!” Maya rubbed her temples, looking completely exhausted. “Let him.” “I am not flying back. Let’s see how exactly he plans to get married without me.” Kevin started stammering, beads of cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. “The bride is… the bride is…” “Look, just read it yourself.” He did not have the nerve to say it out loud, so he practically shoved the phone into her hands. Maya’s eyes casually swept across the screen, and then completely froze. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. She shot up from the sofa, completely ignoring Logan shouting her name in confusion from across the lobby. She bolted out the glass doors of the hotel like an absolute maniac.

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1 The newest romance movie was all anyone could talk about, and I managed to book two couple seats. By the time I reached the theater, my girlfriend had already picked up her ticket and gone inside, leaving mine at the counter. “You took too long. The movie already started, so Aaron and I went in ahead,” she texted. “I got you a ticket for the next showing in the theater next door.” Their movie ended before mine. “Aaron and I are going to grab food. Meet us when you’re done. And don’t be so slow this time.” I had to wait ages for a ride. By the time I reached the restaurant, they were already finished. Chloe looked at me, repeating her usual line. “Why are you always so slow?” The leftovers on the table weren’t even things I liked. I signaled a waiter and ordered two more dishes. “Oliver, don’t order more. We’ll have to wait,” she said. I swallowed hard and gave in. “Fine. I’ll just eat a few pastries, then we can go.” She sighed, calling my name again. “You chew too slowly. Hurry up, it’s getting late.” I was always too slow, always wasting her time. I tried to keep up, but I always fell short. The pastry was cold, dry, and chalky. I forced myself to chew it into a paste and swallow with difficulty. My stomach suddenly felt completely empty. “If that is the case, you two can head out first.” “I want to take my time and finish this meal.” I lowered my eyes, took a sip of water, and tried to ease the tightness in my throat. Chloe and Aaron did not hesitate. They left. “Sir, your leg is bleeding. Do you need some help with that?” A passing waiter looked at me with genuine concern. My nose stung. Suddenly, large, heavy tears started rolling down my face, dropping onto the table. I had planned my timing perfectly to get to the movie theater. But I got caught in rush hour traffic, compounded by a major accident on the bridge. The cars were gridlocked, not moving an inch. I was frantic. Finally, I gritted my teeth, paid the driver, and decided to run the rest of the way. Even the driver looked at me like I was crazy. “Where are you going in such a rush, man?” I pressed my lips together. “I am meeting my girlfriend for a movie.” “If I am late, she will not wait for me.” I ran so hard I could taste the metallic tang of blood in the back of my throat. I collided hard with someone on the sidewalk. She was tall and walking fast. The impact sent me stumbling, and my knees slammed brutally onto the concrete. My left calf was scraped completely raw, blood immediately streaming down my leg. I barely registered her apologizing or offering to take me to a clinic. I scrambled up from the pavement, covered in dirt, and limped the rest of the way as fast as I could. But no matter how hard I pushed, I was still late. The movie had started. I wanted to apologize to Chloe. Then I saw the text message she had sent ten minutes earlier. She said that she and Aaron had already started watching our movie. I stood frozen in the lobby. Suddenly, I did not know why I had run so hard. What was the point? Sweat dripped down my forehead and into my eyes, burning terribly. The pain in my leg was entirely numb. I did not even notice when the scab broke open again. I did not notice, and Chloe never saw it. When I got home, Aaron was still in the apartment I shared with Chloe. They were sitting close together on the sofa, seamlessly transitioning from talking about work to dissecting the movie they had just watched. They argued over the plot, each holding their ground, but the atmosphere between them was incredibly vibrant and harmonious. When Chloe saw me walk in, she tapped the face of her watch. “You took forever.” “I was starting to think something happened to you.” I chewed on her words for a moment. My voice came out dead and flat. “If you thought something happened to me, why didn’t you call or text to check?” Chloe actually froze for a second, caught off guard. Aaron immediately jumped in, playfully swatting at Chloe’s shoulder. “Oliver, do not worry, I will put her in her place for you.” “Chloe, what kind of girlfriend are you?” Then, slipping perfectly into the role of the peacemaker, he turned to me. “Do not be mad at her, man. Chloe and I just got way too deep into debating the climax of the movie.” He started rambling enthusiastically about the cinematography and the character arcs, trying to pull me into the discussion, asking for my take. I just shook my head, rejecting the invitation. Chloe gave a knowing, almost disappointed little sigh. “See, Aaron? I told you. You are better off just discussing it with me.” “Oliver does not really understand this kind of stuff.” I offered a soft, hollow agreement. “Yeah. I do not understand.” Back in college, they were the valedictorian and the salutatorian of their graduating class. Now, they were top performing partners at the same tech firm. They shared the same ambitions, the same drive. They always had an endless supply of things to talk about. There was a time when I tried to join their conversations. They had just stared at me for a few seconds before bursting into uncontrollable laughter. They never took my input seriously. They treated my thoughts like punchlines. Now, I did not even want to try. Aaron lived in the apartment exactly one floor below ours. When he first moved in, he and Chloe both agreed it was incredibly convenient. They could commute together, carpool to the office, and knock on each other’s doors whenever they needed something. Eventually, Chloe and my date nights morphed into a permanent trio. Three of us going for walks, three of us grabbing dinner, or the two of them instantly teaming up to veto any suggestion I made. They would get so caught up in their own world, leaving me trailing behind in silence. It would take them ages to finally turn around and ask, “Oliver, why are you being so quiet?” By this point, it had been almost a year since Chloe and I had gone on a single date, just the two of us. “Why did you watch our movie with Aaron today?” Chloe looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. “Aaron and I got off work at the same time. He had his gym bag and hopped in my car. What was I supposed to do, kick him out and tell him to find his own way?” “You were running late anyway, so I just watched it with him. It made sense.” She said it so naturally, without a shred of guilt. “Chloe, you and Aaron sat in a couple’s seat to watch a romance movie together. You really do not see anything wrong with that?” She let out a short, dismissive scoff. “Are you seriously throwing a tantrum over this?” “It is just a stupid seat in a theater.” “We have known each other since freshman year of college. You know exactly what my relationship with Aaron is like.” “Besides, whenever you and I fight, Aaron is always the one taking your side and trying to smooth things over, right?” “And now you are accusing me and him of something because of a theater seat? Oliver, do you not think you are being a little too insecure and petty?” I said nothing. Chloe leaned in, her hands reaching up to cup my face, rubbing my cheeks. “I really wish that brain of yours would work faster on important things, and slow down on stupid stuff like this. Stop overthinking everything.” “That way, I wouldn’t always have to rush you.” “Just go to sleep. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, so I will drive you to work.” The rain started falling just after midnight. By morning, it was a torrential downpour. “Oliver, hurry up! Aaron is already waiting downstairs.” Down in the parking garage, Aaron stomped his feet playfully, acting like he had just won the lottery. “Chloe, you are exactly one minute late today.” As they bantered, Aaron naturally slid right into the passenger seat. The interior of Chloe’s car was saturated with the mingled scent of her perfume and Aaron’s cologne. Even the backseat was cluttered with Aaron’s gym gear and protein shakers. He enthusiastically pointed out all the new dashboard ornaments he had bought for her car, looking over his shoulder at me. “Oliver, it feels like forever since we all rode to work together in Chloe’s car.” Unless it was pouring rain, Chloe never drove me to work. She always said my office was out of the way and it would ruin her morning schedule. So, for over three hundred days a year, Aaron was the one who left the house with her, and Aaron was the one who came home with her. My mind drifted as I stared at the relentless rain lashing against the window. I remembered a day exactly like this, about a year ago. I had asked her, “The rain is too heavy, and I cannot get an Uber. Can you please just drop me off?” Chloe refused. She said she was running late for a morning briefing and did not have the time. I ended up walking to the subway, gripping an umbrella against the wind, my pants soaked to the knees, looking entirely pathetic. I did not hear the delivery truck reversing until it was too late. The pavement was slick. The impact sent me flying, and I slammed onto the wet asphalt. My umbrella rolled away into the gutter. The freezing rain soaked me to the bone, washing away the blood pooling beneath my crushed leg. My entire body went into shock. I lay there shivering uncontrollably, my lips totally white, gasping for air. My phone screen was covered in water. My hands shook so violently I could barely wipe it clean. It took me four tries to dial Chloe’s number. She did not answer. In the final second before I blacked out on the asphalt, I looked across the intersection. I saw Chloe’s car stopped at a red light. I saw her look down at her phone, then place it back in the cup holder. I saw her turn to Aaron in the passenger seat and laugh at something he said. Then the light turned green, and the car drove away. By the time Chloe rushed into the emergency room, the surgeon had already informed her that my left tibia was shattered. I had just gotten out of surgery to have steel plates put in. She looked paler than I did, profusely apologizing, holding my hand. Because of that accident, from that day forward, Chloe started driving me to work whenever it rained. The memory faded, bringing me back to the present. They were still in the front seat, arguing over the fact that Chloe was one minute late. “You lost! That means you have to write my section of the quarterly report today!” Chloe raised an eyebrow, completely forgetting I was sitting right behind them. “Deal. Tomorrow, we will not wait for Oliver. I promise I will not be a single minute late.” It had been this way since college. Chloe and Aaron were the untouchable prodigies of our business school. They constantly competed, pushing each other to the limit. Everyone on campus jokingly called them the ‘Twin Stars of Wall Street.’ In school, they raced to see who could finish their exams first. In the corporate world, they raced to see who could pull in the biggest end of year bonus. Even in their daily lives, they set exact schedules down to the minute, competing to see who was more punctual. Their world was fast, loud, and brilliant. And I was just a spectator watching from the outside. They shared thousands of conversations inside this very car that I knew absolutely nothing about. Later on, I eventually asked Chloe what they had been talking about in the car on the day she ignored my call in the rain. Aaron had answered for her, tapping his chin in thought. “Oh, right. Chloe mentioned that you guys were probably going to get married soon, and she wanted to start looking at where to buy a house.” “So I rode around with her to check out a few different high end developments. We were debating which neighborhood had better property value.” The apartment they eventually picked out? I refused to sign off on it. “Chloe, does it really not bother you that you went to pick out our future home with Aaron?” She had frowned, visibly irritated. “Why does that even matter?” “If I left it up to you, you would have spent months agonizing over the decision. How long would I have to wait for you to finally make a choice?” I stood my ground. I went out, scouted a few different properties myself, and brought the brochures back for her to look at. Chloe barely glanced at them. “I still think the one Aaron found is way better than any of these.” She and Aaron were perfectly in sync. They bounced reasons off each other, listing all the pros of the apartment they found, and once again, I could not get a single word in. “Oliver, what are you spacing out for?” “We are here. Get out, Aaron and I need to get to the office.” Aaron leaned over from the passenger seat, flashing a teasing grin. “I swear, I have noticed Oliver zoning out all the time lately. What is he going to do without you, Chloe? His brain moves at the speed of a turtle.” He would not have to do anything. When I handed my resignation letter to my manager, she looked shocked. “Oliver, this is incredibly sudden.” “Did you not just tell me you were planning to get married this year? Are you two not settling down in the city?” I gave a faint nod. Strangely, the frantic anxiety that had been crushing my chest since the missed movie yesterday had entirely vanished. My heart felt perfectly calm. “We are breaking up. I am leaving the city.” After all, the only reason I had moved to this relentless, suffocating city in the first place was for Chloe. Back in college, Chloe was the girl everyone wanted. On graduation day, her dorm room desk was overflowing with confession letters. I had written one too. But there were so many guys crowding around her. I stayed in the back, gripping the envelope so tightly it wrinkled. Just as I turned around, ready to give up, she called my name. I turned back, stunned. She was looking at me, a brilliant, affectionate smile lighting up her eyes. “Oliver, are you always this slow, even when you are trying to give someone a love letter?” She and Aaron had both been accepted into elite graduate programs in the city. My grades were only good enough for a state school back home. But Chloe wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me close. “Oliver, I do not want to do long distance.” So, I took a gap year. I spent twelve months locked in my room, studying until my eyes bled. I cried a lot that year from the sheer stress. Chloe would stay on the phone with me, coaxing me through the breakdowns. “Just hold on a little longer, Oliver. You have to hurry up and catch up to me.” So I started running. I spent the next several years constantly sprinting, trying to reach her. Through grad school, straight into the corporate grind. Chloe was still pacing herself against Aaron. They talked about conquering the city, mapping out which executive titles they wanted by the time they hit thirty. Sometimes, she would look at me and let out a heavy sigh. “Oliver, you really need to put in more effort. You have to catch up to us.” I tried. God knows I tried everything I could to meet her impossible standards. But the rhythm of this city was too fast. Just like Chloe. And Oliver, the guy who was always a little too slow in her eyes, had finally run out of breath. No matter how hard I gritted my teeth, I could not take another step. I finally admitted it to myself. This city was not meant for me. And neither was Chloe. The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started. Chloe texted me in the afternoon. “Sun is out. I will not be picking you up tonight.” Her message read like she was relieved to cross a chore off her list. I felt relieved too. When I pushed open the apartment door, she was in the bedroom packing her suitcase for a business trip. Aaron was standing by the closet, pointing out which blazers she should bring, operating with perfect synchronization. I had tagged along on one of their business trips before. Once their meetings were done, I pulled up a detailed itinerary I had made, showing Chloe all the quiet, scenic spots I wanted to visit. Aaron took one look and scoffed. “That is way too far out, and honestly, it looks boring. Why don’t we go hit the clubs downtown instead?” He pulled up a completely different location on his phone. Chloe immediately agreed. Then she turned to me, gently patting my arm, telling me that majority rules. They had an amazing time that night. They were completely in their element. I watched them now, laughing as they recalled that exact trip. I did not realize Chloe had shifted her gaze to me. “What is so funny?” she asked. I paused, suddenly realizing there was a faint smile on my face. “Nothing. I just finally figured some things out.” She gave a dismissive “Oh,” clearly not interested enough to ask what I meant, and went back to folding her clothes. She was leaving for her trip, and I was moving out. The timing was perfect. The day Chloe returned from her business trip happened to coincide with the university’s annual alumni gala. She had been invited back as the keynote speaker. Chloe stood at the podium, tall, elegant, and radiating absolute confidence. She looked just as breathtakingly brilliant as the day I first saw her. At the end of her speech, she leaned into the microphone. “…The most important thing is finding the right people to walk alongside you.” “Take my colleague, Aaron, for example. We are fierce rivals, but we are also the best of partners.” “We share the same vision, the same frequency, and we constantly push each other to break our own limits.” “Neither of us holds the other back. We simply make each other better.” “I wish all of you the absolute best in finding that kind of soulmate in your own careers.” The auditorium erupted into thunderous applause, mixed with excited whispers from the undergrads. “Oh my god, they are literally the ultimate power couple!” “Right?! I love that dynamic. Equals pushing each other to the top. It is so romantic!” “They just have this insane, exclusive magnetic field around them. Nobody else could ever fit into it.” Then, a disappointed voice chimed in. “Wait, I thought I heard a rumor that Chloe already has a boyfriend? Some guy who also went here?” The conversation quickly pivoted, with the students trying to guess what kind of guy I must be. They threw around a few theories. “Probably some quiet, submissive beta male who just stays home.” “Ugh, whatever. I still think Aaron and Chloe are endgame. That is what a real partnership looks like.” It was not just the naive college kids who thought that way. At the cocktail reception afterward, one of the older alumni walked right up to Chloe with a glass of champagne. “You two look like you belong on the cover of a magazine together. How are you not married yet?” When Chloe politely corrected him, stating that her boyfriend was actually me, standing right next to her, the man looked completely unfazed. He had clearly had a few drinks. He let out a loud, obnoxious laugh and winked at Aaron. “Hey, I get it, I get it.” “You keep the quiet, comforting guy at home, but you keep the real alpha by your side to conquer the world, right?” Later, as we waited outside the hotel for our Uber. Chloe had drank quite a bit. She leaned against a stone pillar, tugging slightly at the collar of her silk blouse to let the evening air in. The shadows from the oak trees fell across her face, making her look distant and ethereal. “Chloe, are you in love with Aaron?” I asked the question without any warning. Her dark eyes shimmered in the streetlights. “Every single person who looks at you two thinks you belong together. Your entire speech tonight was dedicated to him. You admire him, you trust him completely, and you have never once complained that he is too slow.” My words seemed to sober her up instantly. Her brow furrowed deeply, as if she could not comprehend why I was suddenly bringing this up. A heavy silence settled over us. Aaron was the one who broke it, letting out a laugh fueled by alcohol and pure arrogance. “Oliver, seriously? Are you throwing a jealous fit right now?” “You and I are not in the same league, man.” “Chloe keeps you around because you are sweet, you look good on her arm, and you take care of her basic needs.” “She keeps me around because we walk at the exact same pace. We actually understand how the world works.” “You need her to protect you. I am the guy who can actually stand next to her in the trenches. We are fundamentally different.” “I guess Chloe was right. You really do spend all day obsessing over pointless, petty drama.” His tone was entirely too practiced. It sounded exactly like the kind of conversation they had probably had behind my back a thousand times. For a split second, my stomach dropped, completely hollowing out again. “When you two talk about me behind my back, is this the exact tone of voice you use?” The casual, dismissive superiority. The veiled mockery. “You are being ridiculous.” Chloe brushed past my shoulder, offering only those four words. The black SUV pulled up to the curb. She and Aaron got into the back seat smoothly, without a second thought. When Chloe noticed I was not moving, a flash of deep irritation crossed her face. “What is taking you so long now?” “If you do not get in, we are leaving without you.” I looked at them. And then, I smiled. “You two see each other. You acknowledge each other as equals, as real people.” “The rest of the world sees you too. Everywhere you go, it is Director Chloe and VP Aaron.” “But neither of you has ever actually seen me.” I had spent years running after them. My only identity was ‘Chloe’s boyfriend’ or ‘the guy who isn’t as good as Aaron’. I was just an accessory they dragged along. Nobody had ever looked at me as an equal. “You two go ahead.” “I ordered my own car. I am not going the same way you are.” For the first time in my life, I reached out and shut the car door for them. I closed the heavy door, officially sealing myself out of their world. The engine roared to life. Before the car could pull away, I spoke my final words through the open window. “Chloe, we are done.”

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“You’re nothing but a feral little stray dragged out of the borderlands. You don’t possess a fraction of Jessica’s grace. Get off my ranch!” That was the last thing I heard in my previous life, right before my own parents locked the gates of the Holloway Estate and left me to freeze to death in the howling teeth of a northern winter blizzard. I died with a chest full of ice and a heart black with rot. But then I woke up. I was standing right back at the wrought-iron gates of the ranch, on the very day I first arrived. Only this time, I didn’t come back alone. I brought back the Inquisitor’s toll—a quiet, terrifying curse of absolute honesty that forced anyone in my presence to speak their raw, unfiltered truth. Jessica, the girl who had spent her life living in my stolen bedroom, ran down the grand staircase. She wore that sweet, doll-like smile I remembered so well. She opened her mouth to say, “Sister, I’ve been praying for the day we’d finally meet.” But her tongue betrayed her. The words twisted in her throat, spilling out the ugly reality of her mind: “Damn it, they actually found this useless little piece of trash. I have to find a way to make Mom and Dad throw her out to the wolves before she ruins everything.” Jessica’s eyes went wide. She slammed her hand over her mouth, her face turning a violent shade of crimson. The cavernous foyer fell into a dead, suffocating silence. Every ranch hand, maid, and butler stood frozen, their eyes pinned to the golden daughter of the Holloway family. Well, well, Jessica. I swallowed the cold laugh rising in my throat. Let’s see how you perform when the script is stripped away. 1 My parents, Richard and Martha Holloway, stared at her as if she had suddenly grown a second head. “Jessica! What on earth is wrong with you? You don’t speak like that!” Martha gasped, her hand fluttering to her collar. “We raised you to be a lady,” Richard boomed, his face darkening. “How dare you use such foul language? You sound like one of those filthy drifters from the borderlands!” My chest tightened, a familiar, dull ache settling behind my ribs. They weren’t angry at her malice. They didn’t care that she had just openly wished for my death. They only cared that their carefully sculpted, high-society daughter had cracked her porcelain veneer. The ugly truth of her words meant nothing to them; the vulgarity of her delivery was the real crime. In my past life, I had spent years begging for their love, believing that if I just tried harder, they would see me. Now, the veil was gone. They didn’t care if I lived or died. I was simply an inconvenient stain on their immaculate reputation. Jessica quickly recovered, squeezing a tear from her wide eyes. She trembled, throwing herself at Martha’s knees. “I… I don’t know what happened,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t control my mouth. Those weren’t my thoughts, I swear it…” She looked up, casting a terrified glance in my direction. “Father, Mother… I don’t want to sound crazy, but the moment Hazel stepped through that door, a horrible, freezing weight settled over me. It felt… unnatural. Like she brought some dark, wicked curse from the borderlands.” My parents snapped their heads toward me, their eyes instantly hardening into chips of ice. “Hazel,” Richard snarled, stepping between me and Jessica. “What kind of backwater witchcraft did you learn out there in the dirt? Are you hexing your sister?” “If you are going to carry the Holloway name,” Martha spat, “you will leave those vulgar, heathen ways in the gutter where you found them. We brought you back out of duty, not to have you make a laughingstock of us in front of the whole town!” My older brother, Tyler, leaned against the mantlepiece, idly spinning his pocket watch. He looked at me with deep disgust. “The moment the stray walks in, Jessica starts talking like a possessed barmaid. It’s obvious. She brought some nasty borderland rot into this house. We need to cleanse the place, or I won’t sleep a wink.” “I didn’t do anything!” I cried out, trying to play the part of the confused, frightened girl they expected. “She’s just telling you who she really is!” But they didn’t hear me. They never did. Richard immediately sent a stable boy to fetch Reverend Thomas, the local “spiritual advisor” who spent his days grifting wealthy landowners and drinking himself to sleep at the town saloon. Thomas arrived within the hour, smelling faintly of cheap whiskey and peppermint. He was a fraud, and he knew exactly which side of his bread was buttered. He caught Jessica’s eye, a silent, transactional look passing between them, before he assumed a heavy, mournful expression. “The girl is indeed clinging to a dark spirit,” Thomas declared, placing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Simple prayer will not suffice. The flesh must be chastised to drive the rot out. And since the spirit is targeting young Jessica, she must be the one to administer the penance. Forty lashes with the braided leather crop. Only then will the demon flee.” Without a single second of hesitation, my father nodded to the ranch hands. “Tie her to the post in the yard.” They dragged me out. The rough hemp rope bit into my wrists as they bound me to the hitching post. Jessica stepped forward, holding the heavy leather whip. Her eyes gleamed with a rabid, intoxicating joy. “I’m so sorry, Hazel,” she whispered loudly enough for our parents to hear, her voice dripping with fake pity. “I’m only doing this to save your soul.” She raised her arm, but as the leather whistled through the air, the Inquisitor’s curse snatched her tongue once more: “Watch closely, you filthy little stray. Our parents will always choose me. I can tell them you’re a witch, and they will watch me flay the skin off your back. In this house, you are nothing but a dog beneath my feet!” At the back of the yard, Richard and Martha merely frowned. “Keep striking, Jessica!” Richard called out, his voice cold and impatient. “Drive the devil out of her!” Jessica swung with all her might. The leather bit through my thin homespun shirt, tearing into the flesh of my back. One. Ten. Twenty. Forty. By the time they untied me, my knees buckled, and I collapsed into the dirt and straw, gasping through the white-hot agony radiating across my shoulders. As a couple of maids moved to help me up, Reverend Thomas held up a hand. “Wait,” the priest murmured. “The demon thrives in comfort. She must not sleep in a soft bed, or the evil will return. A damp, dark place is best to keep her spirit humble.” My mother didn’t even look at me. “The old root cellar under the barn is empty. It’s small, and there’s no bed, but…” “Perfect,” Thomas said. “Let her suffer a little. It builds character, and it starves the devil.” 2 They threw me into the root cellar. It was a suffocating, windowless stone box that smelled of damp earth and rotting potatoes. I curled into a ball on the dirt floor, shivering as the fever of my wounds set in. In my past life, I had wept until my throat was raw. Tonight, I lay in the dark, listening to the drip of condensation, and let the pain harden into stone. The heavy wooden door creaked open. Jessica stepped down the stone stairs, a lantern in one hand and a cruel smirk on her face. “You did something, didn’t you?” she whispered, leaning over me like a vulture. “You made me say those things. But you’re so incredibly naive, Hazel. What did you think would happen? Even when I tell them the truth, they don’t care. They will always choose me.” She sneered, kicking a bit of loose dirt onto my bloody shirt. “You’re just a broken little thing from the borderlands. You honestly thought you could take my place? Pack your bags and crawl back to the gutter…” The crunch of gravel sounded outside. Jessica’s face instantly shifted from cruel triumph to sheer, unadulterated terror. “No! Hazel, please don’t! Don’t hurt me!” she shrieked. She grabbed a rusty skinning knife from the tool shelf and sliced it deep across her own forearm. The cellar door burst open. My parents and Tyler rushed down, shoving me violently against the damp stone wall as Martha caught a weeping Jessica in her arms. “Hazel! What did you do to her?!” Richard roared. I wiped the dirt from my cheek, my voice flat and dead. “I didn’t touch her. She did it to herself. It’s a very touching performance, don’t you think?” “You expect us to believe she cut herself?!” Tyler snarled. “You’re out of your mind!” Jessica sobbed against Martha’s chest, her body shaking. “I… I just wanted to bring her some water… I was worried she’d be cold… but she grabbed the knife… she hates me so much…” Richard raised his hand to strike me, his face twisted in fury. “You cold-blooded monster—” But before his palm could land, Jessica’s voice rang out, clear and loud, overriding her own tears: “I came down here to rub it in her face that she’s nothing in this family, and then I cut myself so they would finally throw this bitch out of the house!” She clapped both hands over her mouth, her eyes bulging in horror. My father’s hand froze mid-air. The silence in the cellar was so thick you could hear the oil sizzling in the lantern. I looked at my mother, then at my father. “You heard her. That’s the truth.” Tyler let out a harsh, nervous laugh, trying to break the suffocating tension. “The priest was right. The exorcism didn’t take. The demon is still in her, manipulating Jessica’s voice to make us turn on each other.” Richard and Martha didn’t say a word. They didn’t look at Jessica’s arm. They just signaled Tyler to carry her upstairs. As they turned to leave, leaving me in the dark, I spoke up. “Why?” My voice was quiet, but it stopped them at the foot of the stairs. “You heard her. You know she’s lying. You know she cut her own arm just to frame me. Why do you still protect her?” Martha paused, turning her head just enough for the lantern light to catch the sharp, aristocratic line of her jaw. There was no warmth in her eyes—only a cold, transactional calculation. “Love isn’t a matter of blood, Hazel,” she said, her voice dripping with quiet disdain. “It’s built over years. For eighteen years, Jessica has been our daughter. We poured our lives, our money, and our pride into making her the perfect lady.” She looked me up and down, her nose wrinkling at my dirt-caked clothes. “Look at her. She is elegant, highly educated, and poised. She represents the Holloway name. And you? You are a wild, unpolished creature from the mud. You are an embarrassment.” “Then why did you bother bringing me back?” I whispered. Richard sneered. “You think we wanted to? The sheriff made a massive spectacle of finding the ‘lost Holloway heir.’ It was in every local paper. If we had left our biological daughter in the borderlands, the high-society circles in Boston and Chicago would have torn us to pieces.” He turned back to the stairs. “We will keep you fed. But do not ever think you will replace Jessica.” They climbed the stairs, shutting the heavy oak door and leaving me in pitch blackness. I sat in the dark, and for the first time since my rebirth, I smiled. The last shred of foolish hope had died. I didn’t want their love anymore. I wanted their ruin. 3 The next morning, I slipped out of the estate and rode into town to find Bryan Powell. The Powell and Holloway families had been locked in a marriage contract for years—a business transaction designed to secure the Holloway Ranch exclusive freight rights on the Powell rail lines. Bryan, the sole heir to the rail empire, loathed the arrangement, but he was trapped under the thumb of his tyrannical father. When I walked into his private study at the railway office, he looked up from his ledger. He looked exhausted, his handsome face masked in cold indifference. “Well,” Bryan said, leaning back. “Has the Holloway family decided to swap brides?” “I’m not here to marry you,” I said, sitting opposite him. “I’m here to offer you a deal.” He raised an eyebrow. “What kind of deal?” “I know you don’t want this marriage. You’re only doing it because your father wants the Holloway land for his northern expansion. If Holloway Ranch went bankrupt tomorrow and lost every acre of its land, your father wouldn’t have a reason to force the wedding, would he?” I leaned closer. “I can give you the leverage to tear their empire down.” Bryan sat up, a sharp, cynical laugh escaping his lips. “So the lost daughter returns, only to realize blood isn’t thicker than water. What do you want in exchange?” “One hundred thousand dollars in gold bullion. Paid upfront into a secure account at the town bank. And when the bank inevitably forecloses on the Holloway Estate, I want you to buy the deed and transfer the title to my name.” Bryan stared at me, searching my face. “That’s it? Just the house?” “Just the house.” In my last life, they had kicked me out of that house to freeze. In this life, I would watch them pack their bags from the porch. “Tearing down Richard Holloway won’t be easy,” Bryan murmured, reaching into his desk. He pulled out a leather-bound bank slip and handed it to his secretary. “The gold will be in your account within ten minutes. But how do you plan to do this?” “Next week is the Founder’s Day Gala,” I said, a cold smile touching my lips. “Make sure there’s a new segment on the program. An inheritance showcase. Every heir must stand on stage and share a story of their upbringing.” Bryan looked confused. “That’s it? A speech?” “Just trust me,” I replied. “Get her on that stage, and watch the house of cards fall.” A week later, the gold-embossed invitation arrived at the estate. When Jessica saw the new program, she practically squealed with delight. “It must be Bryan’s doing!” she gushed to Martha. “He’s too shy to ask me about my childhood, so he set up this beautiful stage just to hear me speak! Oh, I must write the most perfect speech!” She turned her eyes to me, her lips curling into a smug pout. “Mother… surely Hazel isn’t expected to speak? What would she even say? A touching monologue about shoveling manure in the borderlands?” 4 My parents looked at me with immediate disgust. “This is a high-society event,” Richard warned, his voice sharp. “The Governor will be there. Hazel, you will keep your mouth shut. We are bringing you because we have to, but you will not speak to anyone.” “Smile, nod, and stay in the shadows,” Martha added. “Don’t let anyone see the feral, uncultured thing you are. And I heard you went to see Bryan last week? Do you honestly think that just because you have our blood, a man like Bryan Powell would ever look at you?” She laughed, a dry, grating sound. “Look in a mirror, child. From now on, you do not leave this ranch without my permission.” Jessica smirked, thoroughly enjoying my public humiliation. “Don’t worry, Mother. I’ll make sure the Holloway name shines brighter than ever.” I watched her walk away to write her little speech. Write it well, Jessica. Choose every word with care. Because when you stand under those gaslights, the script won’t save you. The night of the gala arrived. The Town Hall was a sea of glittering crystal chandeliers, velvet drapes, and wealthy patrons in fine silks and wool coats. Jessica walked in on Tyler’s arm, radiant in a French lace gown, with Richard and Martha beaming behind them like proud royalty. I followed behind, a shadow in a plain, cheap wool dress. As guests whispered and stared at me, Martha grabbed my elbow, her fingers digging painfully into my skin as she forced me forward. “Yes, this is our lost daughter, Hazel,” she told a group of wealthy ladies, her smile tight and strained. “The poor thing spent her formative years in the rough borderlands. She’s terribly awkward, but we are doing our best to civilize her.” The ladies offered polite, pitying nods. “At least you have Jessica to keep the family standard high.” Across the room, Jessica was batting her eyelashes at Bryan. “Bryan, you must promise to sit in the front row for my speech.” The gala proceeded, and soon, it was Jessica’s turn to take the stage. She glided up to the brass microphone, smoothing her skirts, and smiled warmly at the crowd. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. As many of you know, I was adopted by the Holloways as an orphan. They gave me everything a girl could ever dream of…” Suddenly, her jaw locked. Her eyes went wide with terror as her tongue twisted, and the raw, unfiltered truth poured out of her mouth: “—And by everything, I mean my biological father planned the entire thing from the very beginning.”

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1 On the eve of our college graduation, I got pregnant. Oliver knelt before me, his eyes bloodshot with tears as he slipped a cheap ring onto my finger, weeping as he promised to spend the rest of his life making me happy. After that, I stayed home to raise our child while he threw himself into the brutal grind of starting a business from scratch. He used to look at me with such fierce devotion, whispering, “Elena, I’m going to give you the grandest wedding this city has ever seen. It’s the least I owe you.” Now, our daughter is five years old. I was currently preparing our wedding for the sixth time, personally selecting every single crystal flute for the champagne tower. But once again, Oliver stood me up. “Elena, this Chicago merger is make-or-break for the company. I have to fly out tonight.” “Let’s find another date for the wedding. I just can’t pull myself away right now. Next time, I promise!” I opened my mouth, wanting to ask him if his work was truly more important than his own family, when a soft, familiar voice drifted through the receiver. “Oliver, I booked the spa hotel. Once we’re finished with the clients, we can go for a soak.” Isla’s voice, sweet and light, detonated like a bomb in my mind. He had time to travel to Chicago and soak in a hot spring with his new assistant, but he couldn’t spare a single afternoon to stand at the altar with me. I calmly closed my fingers, crushing the crystal champagne flute in my hand. There won’t be a next time, Oliver. I don’t want this wedding anymore. … Sharp shards of glass dug deep into my palm, and hot, crimson blood began to seep down my wrist, dripping onto the pristine white roses on the table. I stared at the stains, unable to feel any physical pain. Oliver was too busy to marry me, but he had all the time in the world to pamper his assistant. But in the beginning, it wasn’t like this. The year we graduated, we lived in a damp, cramped basement studio. Even when we were down to our last dollar, he would always pick the only piece of sausage out of the instant noodles and force me to eat it. When my morning sickness started, he was running himself ragged trying to secure clients, drinking until he threw up. He would lean against the bathroom door, his face pale as he offered me a weak, exhausted smile. “Elena, trust me. I’m going to build a real future for you and our baby.” We were so young back then. We honestly believed the future was ours for the taking. We believed that love could conquer any obstacle, that the sacrifices of youth would eventually pay off. I had stolen my own birth certificate from my parents’ house, defying their wishes to elope with him. The day I left, my mother had slapped me across the face, her hands shaking with rage and grief. “I didn’t pay for your education just so you could drop out and become a housewife the second you graduate!” I had clutched my pregnant belly, stubborn and defiant. “Mom! I know he’s the one! I’m not making a mistake!” Now, as my tears mingled with the blood on my hands, the bitter truth finally settled in. I had chosen the wrong man. “Mommy, you’re bleeding! Let me blow on it so it stops hurting!” My daughter’s soft, lisping voice pulled me back from the edge of my memories. My mother let out a sharp gasp, rushing over with a first-aid kit to wrap my hand. I quickly pulled my hand behind my back, trying to force a reassuring smile. “I’m fine, Mom. Can you take Grace to the playground? I don’t want to scare her.” My mother looked at me, her eyes filled with a mixture of pity and quiet rage. “Oliver cancelled again, didn’t he? He—” “Mom, please. Not in front of Grace.” My mother closed her mouth, instantly masking her anger with a bright smile for her granddaughter. “Come on, Grace, let’s go get some ice cream.” The front door clicked shut, the silence of the apartment settling over me like a heavy shroud. Was there any point in continuing this marriage? In the end, I had failed to escape the oldest cliché in the book. Once a man climbs to the top, the first thing he cuts down is the woman who held the ladder. After the clinic doctor finished dressing my hand, I sat on the plastic chairs in the hallway, watching the bustling crowd. I saw couples holding hands, mothers kissing their toddlers, siblings laughing. And then, I saw a husband and his muse. Oliver and Isla. “Oliver, I’m so incredibly sorry,” Isla murmured, her face pale but her eyes sparkling with a delicate, helpless look. “If my cramps hadn’t started acting up, we wouldn’t have missed our meeting with the Chicago team.” “Don’t worry about it,” Oliver said softly, carrying a small pharmacy bag as he walked right past my bench without noticing me. “We can always reschedule the clients. Your health comes first.” I stared at their retreating figures. Isla was holding his arm, her head resting lightly against his shoulder. They looked like a beautiful, devoted young couple. I was the only outsider. He could reschedule the clients. He could reschedule our wedding. But he could never, under any circumstances, allow his sweet assistant to suffer. Cramps. I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Oliver had completely forgotten that I suffered from severe menstrual pain too. It was a lingering complication from a difficult postpartum recovery when he was too busy to hire a nurse. In the beginning, I used to tell him about the pain, and he would rush to help. I’ve got the heating pad, the medication, and some warm tea ready for you, babe. But as the years went on, his sympathy mutated into irritation. “Just take some Advil and get over it, Elena. I’m dealing with a multi-million dollar merger right now. Stop being so dramatic.” Eventually, I stopped talking about it. And eventually, he forgot it even existed. During those agonizing nights when the pain kept me awake, I would lay in the dark, listening to the steady, rhythmic sound of his snoring, weeping silently as I whispered his own words back to myself. Just get over it. Stop being so dramatic. You’re a mother now. You have to be strong. Late that night, after my mother and Grace had fallen asleep, I sat alone in the dark living room, making phone calls. “Yes, I’d like to cancel the venue. No, not a postponement. A complete cancellation. There will be no wedding.” “I understand the deposit is non-refundable. Please process the paperwork according to the contract.” “And the invitations? Yes, please toss them in the trash.” I didn’t realize my mother was standing behind me until I felt her hand rest gently on my shoulder. The dim light from the hallway caught the tears shimmering in her eyes. “Mom,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “You were right. I chose the wrong man.” She pulled me into a tight, warm embrace. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Times have changed. No one says you have to spend the rest of your life paying for one mistake.” “I just want to be alone for a bit.” “Alright.” Years ago, my mother had threatened to disown me when I packed my bags to run away with Oliver. But during my darkest days, when I was recovering from childbirth in that freezing basement, she was the one who showed up to cook my meals and watch the baby. I sat on the sofa for two hours, staring at the blank television screen. The sound of the electronic lock chimed at the door. I looked up, expecting Oliver, but the door opened to reveal Isla. “Mrs. Cole,” Isla said, offering a polite, practiced smile. “I came to pack some of Oliver’s suits. The Chicago trip is going to be extended, and he needs some fresh clothes.” I stared at her, my blood turning to ice. Oliver had given the passcode to our family home to an assistant. “Isla, my husband is your boss, not your college roommate. You should address him as Mr. Cole.” “And you seem to have a habit of crossing boundaries.” Isla didn’t look remotely bothered. “But Oliver always tells me to call him by his first name. We went to the same university, you know. I’m only a few years behind him.” She watched me closely, a spark of malicious triumph in her eyes. “By the way, Mrs. Cole, I heard you got pregnant right after graduation. Is the child actually his? People at the alumni association said you ruined your own reputation back then, and Oliver was just playing the hero to save you.” Her words hit me like a physical blow. For a split second, I wanted to shatter my mug against her face. But my mother and my daughter were sleeping in the next room, and I refused to disturb them. “Get out,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “Wait in the hallway. I’ll pack his bags myself.” I threw three suits into a garment bag and shoved them into her hands, locking my eyes onto hers. “This is my home. If you ever set foot in here again, I will have you arrested for trespassing.” Isla glanced down at the bandage on my hand and let out a soft, mocking chuckle. “Honestly, Mrs. Cole, my cramps weren’t even that bad today. But Oliver was just so frantic to take care of me, I couldn’t stop him.” “Oh, and I saw you at the clinic. You looked very lonely.” The heavy door clicked shut, her smug, youthful face vanishing from sight. Even though my chest was bursting with a wild, suffocating rage, I still made sure the door closed with a quiet, gentle click. I immediately pulled out my phone and sent a message to Oliver. Why did you give our house passcode to an assistant? An hour later, his reply arrived. I’m in the middle of a major presentation, Elena. I’m incredibly busy. Can you please stop starting fights over nothing? I won’t be home tonight. Pulling an all-nighter at the office. I clutched the phone until my fingers turned white, the freshly wrapped bandage on my hand beginning to stain with fresh blood. What presentation could possibly be so important that he had to stay up all night? And if he was so busy, how did he have the time to personally escort his assistant to the clinic earlier? I dialed his number. “Oliver, about the wedding—” His exhausted, irritable voice cut me off immediately. “We’ll do it when this merger is settled, Elena! I promise!” “Stop nagging me! I am working myself to the bone here!” “Can you, just once, try to be supportive of my career?” Perhaps realizing his tone was too harsh, his voice softened slightly. “The stress of starting this business is killing me, Elena. I have fifty employees depending on me for their livelihood.” “And everything I do, I do for you and Grace.” I hung up. Every time he claimed his neglect was “for the sake of the family,” a wave of absolute disgust washed over me. Over the past five years, he hadn’t just neglected me—he had completely missed our daughter’s childhood. By three in the morning, the silence of the apartment became unbearable. My heart was pounding, my hands shaking as my mind spun out into a spiral of dark, painful thoughts. An empty office. Late at night. Just the two of them. Were they kissing? Were they holding each other? Without thinking, I grabbed my car keys, ran down to the garage, and floored the accelerator toward his office. I was going to kick his door open. I was going to scream at them, to let the entire world know what a hypocrite he was. Oliver, you absolute bastard, I’m divorcing you! But when I reached the executive floor, the office was entirely dark. The only light came from the glass conference room at the end of the hall. Oliver was slumped over the mahogany table, fast asleep. Drafts and financial reports were scattered all around him. He really had been working. Isla was standing beside him, quietly organizing the papers into neat folders. She looked up and caught sight of me standing in the shadows outside the glass door. Our eyes met. And then, with agonizing slowness, she leaned down and pressed a soft, lingering kiss onto Oliver’s lips. Oliver stirred, rubbing his eyes as he woke up. They stared at each other, Isla deliberately leaning forward so that her low-cut collar brushed against his arm. Oliver’s gaze dropped to her exposed skin, his eyes lingering there for a long, quiet moment. “Oliver,” Isla whispered, her voice sweet and teasing. “If you postpone the wedding again, won’t your wife be heartbroken?” Oliver looked away, a smug, self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips. “No. She’s been with me for eight years, and our daughter is five. She has nowhere else to go.” “Her reputation was ruined in college, and she has no professional skills. She’s stuck with me for the rest of her life.” Isla smiled, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she leaned in for another kiss. “I’ll never leave you, Oliver. I’d gladly have your babies, and I don’t care about a piece of marriage paper.” Oliver didn’t push her away. Separated by a single sheet of glass, they embraced, while I stood in the dark, listening to the sound of my own heart breaking. It was a sharp, clean sound. Like a crystal glass shattering on stone. Whether they had actually slept together was no longer important. This marriage was over. I drove like a lunatic on the highway, the roaring engine echoing my silent screams. I pushed the car to its absolute limit, the wind howling past the windows as my chest felt ready to burst. I almost crashed into the concrete barrier. With a deafening screech of tires, the car fish-tailed and came to a sudden halt, the silence of the night rushing back to fill the cabin. My fingers were shaking violently, and the bandage on my hand was completely soaked through with blood. I gripped the steering wheel, my chest heaving as I gasped for air. I had almost killed myself over a pathetic, cheating coward. I raised my hand and slapped myself hard across the face, the sting of it clearing the remaining fog from my mind. Love is not that important, I told myself. And marriage is nothing but a contract. My phone buzzed. It was my mother. “Elena, where are you? Grace woke up crying, looking for you.” My daughter’s small, trembling voice came through the line. “Mommy, please come home. I want a hug.” I wiped the tears from my face, my voice softening instantly. “I’m on my way, sweetie. Mommy will be home in five minutes to hold you.” Thank goodness I had hit the brakes. Thank goodness I was still alive. A notification popped up on my screen. It was a photo from Isla. She was lying in Oliver’s arms, his shirt partially unbuttoned to reveal several dark red marks on his collarbone. Old lady, I know you saw us tonight. He told me you’re like a dead fish in bed anyway. I looked at the screen, my mind completely calm. I tapped the screen and saved the photo to a secure drive. My daughter was waiting for me. Compared to her, my husband was nothing. His assistant was nothing. At dawn, a text from Oliver arrived. I’m boarding my flight to Chicago now. I’ll bring back a souvenir for you and Grace. Take care of the house, you’re the only one I trust to handle things. Followed immediately by a message from Isla. Heading to Chicago for a spa retreat with Oliver! Aren’t you jealous, old lady? During the week Oliver was away, I prepared the divorce. I hired a prominent family lawyer to handle the asset division, while I focused on systematically erasing his presence from my daughter’s life. For seven days, Oliver didn’t call me once. I only knew his schedule because Isla was posting daily updates of their luxurious hotel suite and private dinners. It was almost comical. Without his mistress’s posts, I would have had no idea where my own husband was. Our social circles were completely separate. In the beginning, I used to fight about this. “Oliver, I’m your wife! We’re legally married! Why isn’t there a single trace of me on your social media?” And he would always offer the same soothing lies. “I want to wait for the wedding, babe. I want to introduce you and Grace to the world with a grand, unforgettable celebration.” Now, I realized he simply never wanted anyone to know we existed. I went to pick up Grace from school as usual, but a horrific drunk-driving accident near the gates left several children injured, and Grace was rushed to the emergency ward with minor cuts and bruises. As I sat by her bed, wrapping her scratches, she looked at the other children whose fathers were holding them, her eyes turning red. “Mommy, why do all my classmates have their daddies here? Why is it always just you?” “Be good, sweetie. Daddy is on his way.” Isla’s posts from yesterday confirmed they had returned to the city. But Oliver hadn’t sent a single message to check on us. I dialed his number. He answered after several rings, his voice hushed. “I’m driving to a client’s office right now, Elena.” “Okay. Drive safe.” I hung up, looking at the disappointment in my daughter’s eyes. I felt a crushing wave of guilt, unable to explain to her that we were about to become a single-parent family. “Mom! I heard Leo was admitted! I came as fast as I could!” Isla’s panicked voice echoed down the hallway as she rushed into the pediatric ward. Behind her stood Oliver. The boy in the next bed was Isla’s younger brother. The boy’s mother looked up, offering a grateful smile. “Mr. Cole, thank you so much for coming personally.” Oliver smiled warmly. “Isla’s family is my family. It’s the least I could do.” “Daddy!” Grace’s high, trembling voice cut through the room, making everyone freeze. Oliver turned, his eyes widening in absolute horror as his gaze met mine. “Elena… I—” “So, your important client is your daughter’s classmate’s family,” I said, my voice dead and empty. “And your priority is Isla’s brother.” “I’ll leave you to your family duties. We’re going home.” I scooped Grace into my arms and walked out without looking back. Oliver tried to follow, but Isla caught his sleeve. “Oliver, the Chicago clients are waiting at the office. They’re verifying our production line tomorrow.” Oliver stopped. He didn’t follow us. He only shouted down the corridor: “Elena, take Grace home first! I’ll explain everything tonight!” I didn’t want to hear another word. His lies had become second nature. If I hadn’t run into him myself, his excuses would have been flawless. I had probably been lied to a thousand times over the last five years. I held my daughter tight as we walked to the car, whispering in her ear. “Grace, sweetie… would you be okay if Mommy found us a new home? Just the two of us?” Grace rested her head against my shoulder, her voice soft and sweet. “Only if the new home makes you happy, Mommy.” My chest ached. She was so young, yet she understood everything. That evening, Oliver actually sent me a text detailing his schedule. Elena, I’m so sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to lie to you. I was just worried you’d misunderstand. Once I finish with these Chicago clients, I’ll come home and make it up to you, okay? I didn’t bother replying with a paragraph. Let’s get a divorce, Oliver. I’m exhausted. Since you don’t want a wedding, we don’t need one. Oliver immediately sent a transfer of fifty thousand dollars to my account. Elena, stop throwing tantrums. Everything I do, I do for our future. You need to be more understanding of the pressure I’m under. Why did he think this was just another tantrum? At seven that evening, I walked into the VIP dining room at the Celestial Hotel, pushing the door open to reveal Oliver, Isla, and their clients. “Elena? What are you doing here?” Oliver gasped, dropping his fork. Isla stood up, looking outraged. “We are hosting key clients, Mrs. Cole. What do you think you’re doing barging in like this?” I ignored her, walking straight to the head of the table and dropping a thick folder onto Oliver’s chest. “Divorce papers. I want full custody of Grace, and we split the assets fifty-fifty. Sign it.”

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1 On the day of the Spring Charity Fair, my son called me in tears. “Dad, they’re saying I stole money. I didn’t!” By the time I rushed onto the school grounds, Toby was standing on the edge of the athletic field. A piece of stiff cardboard hung around his neck. Written on it in thick black marker was a single word. Thief. Brenda, the PTA President, was projecting her voice for all the surrounding parents to hear. “The charity fund is short three thousand dollars. He was the only one who touched the cash box.” “Kids will be kids. But if they have sticky fingers, you have to nip it in the bud and teach them a hard lesson.” Her own son was standing proudly near the podium. Pinned to his chest was a glossy ribbon that read: Charity Ambassador. Toby’s homeroom teacher, Ms. Collins, stepped up and tried to pacigate me. “Toby’s dad, just have the boy apologize for now. Let’s not blow this out of proportion. You reimburse the missing cash, and we can move on without ruining the charity event.” My son was trembling, crying so hard he was gasping for air. He just kept repeating the same words. “Dad, I didn’t take it. I promise.” I glanced at the inventory list taped to the craft booth, then looked toward the massive donor appreciation board at the far end of the field. Every single item sold at this charity fair had been donated by my company. The master ledger and the complete inventory lists were sitting right in my email inbox. I pulled out my phone and shot a text to my finance director. “Send me the live cash registry and inventory counts for today’s school charity fair immediately.” If they wanted to settle the accounts, we were going to do it right here, in front of everyone. When I walked up to Toby, he instinctively shrank back. Usually, he loved nothing more than to launch himself into my arms. But in that moment, he kept his head bowed, as if he genuinely believed the cardboard sign around his neck would dirty my clothes. I reached out and lifted the sign over his head. The red string had bitten into the tender skin of his neck, leaving a raw, shallow welt. Brenda immediately raised her voice. “Carter, what do you think you’re doing? A kid needs to remember his mistakes. If you coddle him now, he’s going to end up in a jail cell later.” I ignored her completely and locked eyes with Ms. Collins. “Who hung this on him?” The teacher’s face paled, her expression turning unnatural. “It wasn’t a formal punishment or anything. We just wanted him to stand to the side and reflect. The money really is missing today. The other parents are watching, and the school has to give everyone an explanation.” “Reflect?” I held up the piece of cardboard. “Hanging a ‘Thief’ sign on an eight-year-old boy and parading him on the edge of the field for people to photograph. Is this what you call reflecting?” Several parents who had their phones out awkwardly lowered their hands. Brenda let out a cold scoff. “Stop using emotional manipulation. He was the only one who moved the cash box. If he didn’t take it, who did?” Toby grabbed the hem of my shirt, sobbing uncontrollably. “Dad, I didn’t take it.” I crouched down and gently wiped the tears from his cheeks. “Dad believes you.” Brenda immediately chimed back in. “What good does your belief do? The charity fund is short three thousand bucks, and he is the one who carried the box away. There are dozens of us here as witnesses. Are you saying we’re all framing a child?” Whispers rippled through the crowd of onlookers. “It’s normal for a kid to get greedy for a second.” “Three thousand dollars isn’t pocket change, though.” “If they don’t discipline him now, he’ll turn into a habitual offender.” Hearing those words, Toby’s small shoulders shook even harder. I grabbed his hands and held them tight. “Did you touch the cash box?” He nodded, then shook his head frantically. “I touched it. But Mrs. Brenda was the one who told me to carry it.” Brenda’s face shifted ever so slightly. I asked him to clarify. “Where did she tell you to carry it?” Toby sniffled, trying to catch his breath. “Tyler’s booth said they needed to make change for a big bill. Mrs. Brenda told me to bring our booth’s cash box over to them. Tyler told me to leave it on the back table because his mom was coming right over.” “And then?” “And then I walked back to get some packaging bags for my classmate. A little while later, Mrs. Brenda told me to carry the box back to our craft booth. After that, the volunteers said the box was missing three thousand dollars.” Brenda’s pitch skyrocketed. “There! You all heard him, right? He just admitted to carrying the box away!” I stood up to my full height. “Who was the first person to discover the shortage?” Ms. Collins opened her mouth to speak, but Brenda aggressively stepped in front of her. “What’s the point of interrogating people? The money is gone. Your son had his hands on the box. Those are the facts.” She pointed a manicured finger toward the main stage. “The awards ceremony is about to start. Carter, I strongly advise you not to blow this up. Make your kid apologize, reimburse the stolen cash, and we can sweep this under the rug.” A nearby dad chimed in to play peacemaker. “Yeah, man. The kid is still young. If he admits his mistake now, people will just gossip for a day or two. If you make a huge scene out of this, how is your boy supposed to show his face in class ever again?” I glared at the man. “So even though he didn’t do it, he’s supposed to plead guilty?” The man choked on his words and backed off. Brenda crossed her arms over her chest. “Whether your son is a thief or not, everyone has eyes. The facts are the facts. Being in denial won’t save you.” Her son, Tyler, was standing near the edge of the stage, proudly puffing out his chest to show off his Charity Ambassador ribbon. Toby had been prepping for that exact same ribbon. Just last night, he had stood in our living room, eagerly reciting his charity pitch to me. He told me he wanted to sell as many kits as possible so the kids in the mountains could get brand new backpacks. And today, he was wearing a sign branding him a thief. I turned my attention back to Brenda. “You’re in a terrible rush to force a confession out of him. Are you worried about delaying the ceremony?” She lifted her chin arrogantly. “Obviously.” “Or are you terrified that someone might actually audit the books before the awards are handed out?” The smug smile on her face froze completely. 2 Ms. Collins led us to a makeshift registration tent near the edge of the field. Two school desks had been pushed together. Sitting on top were the cash boxes, registration clipboards, and inventory sheets collected from the various booths. A volunteer wearing a neon vest was busy counting stacks of bills. As soon as we stepped under the tent, Toby hid behind my legs. Brenda snatched a registration sheet and slammed it down in front of me. “Look for yourself.” Third Grade, Room B. Craft Booth. Premium Stationery Kits. Quantity: 15. Price: $200 each. Expected Revenue: $3,000. Actual Cash Received: $0. Written at the very bottom in glaring red ink were the words: Shortage: $3,000. Responsible Party: Toby. I tapped the red ink with my index finger. “Who wrote this?” Ms. Collins lowered her voice nervously. “When the volunteer checked the box, the kits were completely sold out, but the cash didn’t match. Brenda mentioned that Toby had carried the box away, so we just recorded it for now.” “Recorded it for now?” I stared her down. “My son was forced to stand by the field wearing a thief sign. Was that also just for now?” All the color drained from the teacher’s face. Brenda tapped the desk impatiently. “The main issue here is the missing money. Nitpicking over wording is just pathetic, Carter.” I picked up the inventory sheet. This specific batch of premium stationery kits was funded by my company’s annual education grant. Every kit contained a high-end backpack, pencil cases, art supplies, and picture books, valued at exactly two hundred dollars. To ensure strict auditing, every package had a serialized tracking code. When a kit was sold, the volunteer had to cross out the corresponding code on the sheet. All fifteen codes had been cleanly crossed out. That meant the inventory was entirely sold out. Yet the cash box was short three thousand dollars, and Toby had indeed admitted to carrying it. On a surface level, this was enough circumstantial evidence to convince a crowd of angry parents that Toby was the culprit. And that was exactly why Brenda had forced the sign onto him so ruthlessly. Staring at the red ink that branded Toby as the responsible party, a very clear theory clicked into place in my mind. Maybe Brenda hadn’t originally planned to make a massive public spectacle. If no one had audited the box early, she could have easily let Tyler stroll onto the stage to accept his award, then fudged the master ledger after the event wrapped up. But the volunteer caught the discrepancy too quickly. The moment a cash box comes up short, everyone asks the same question. Who touched it? She had to plant a scapegoat in everyone’s minds before anyone could investigate properly. Toby touched the box. Toby was quiet and easily intimidated. Toby’s dad rarely showed up to PTA meetings or school events. As long as this terrified little boy cried and accepted the blame, and as long as I blindly wrote a check to cover the missing three grand, the whole scandal would be buried before the principal even handed out the first trophy. This wasn’t discipline. This was a gag order. I turned to the volunteer. “Who brought the cash box here for auditing?” The volunteer glanced nervously at Brenda, then at Ms. Collins. Her voice was barely a whisper. “Two kids from the craft booth dropped it off. Toby was standing right next to them.” Brenda immediately pounced. “Did you hear that? He was right there.” “My question was, who discovered the shortage?” The volunteer bit her lip. “I did. When I checked the inventory list, I saw all fifteen kits were sold, but there wasn’t any cash in the box to match the sales.” “And what did you do after you found out?” She opened her mouth to answer, but Brenda cut her off loudly. “She notified me and the teacher, obviously! I’m the PTA President. The logistics of this event fall under my jurisdiction.” I stared right through Brenda. “And your first act of jurisdiction was to hang a sign on my son?” “That was to teach him a lesson.” “Did you review the security footage?” Brenda’s expression cracked. “It’s a school charity fair. Where would we get security cameras? Carter, stop pulling ridiculous excuses out of thin air just to whitewash your kid.” I looked across the athletic field toward the main supply tent. Standing right next to the event banner were two tripod-mounted cameras. My company, Apex Outreach, had set them up for corporate promotional materials and financial auditing records. The school had sent out a notification to the parent group chat before the event began. But Brenda had clearly forgotten. Those fixed cameras weren’t there to invade anyone’s privacy or film close-ups of the kids. One was pointed at the main stage to record the speeches. The second was pointed directly at the charity booths and the supply tent to verify that the donated goods were distributed according to the manifest. But when the cash box was carried behind Tyler’s booth, it fell perfectly into the peripheral edge of the second camera’s frame. If Brenda had only told Toby to get change, the footage wouldn’t prove a thing. But if someone had tampered with the box during that window, everything would be captured in high definition. My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was a text from Rachel, my finance director. [Mr. Carter, initial audit complete. Third Grade craft booth inventory is sold out. Cash box is confirmed short $3,000. The fixed camera captured the box being taken behind Tyler’s booth. Pulling the video file now.] I locked my phone screen. Brenda was already turning her back to me. “We can’t delay the awards any longer. Toby shouldn’t go on stage today. It sets a terrible example.” Hearing those words, Toby’s tears started falling all over again. I grabbed his small hand. “Fine.” Brenda stopped in her tracks. I looked at her, my voice turning ice-cold. “Then we’ll clear up the missing money right now. In front of the entire school.” [Paywall: Unlock the next chapter to continue reading] 3 Brenda’s face darkened into a furious scowl. “Carter, don’t push your luck.” Ms. Collins quickly stepped between us. “Brenda, please. The children are watching.” I didn’t bother arguing with her. I held Toby’s hand and walked him straight toward the craft booth. Room B’s booth was set up on the east side of the field. As we walked, parents and children turned to stare. A boy pointed a finger at Toby and whispered loudly. “Is that the kid who stole the money?” A little girl standing next to him tugged on his sleeve. “Stop it. His dad is right there.” Toby’s footsteps slowed to a crawl. I could feel his small palm sweating profusely against mine. He wasn’t ignorant of the humiliation. He was just too young to know how to defend himself when adults pinned a filthy label on his chest. When we reached the craft booth, there was nothing left on the table except a few handmade bookmarks and empty display crates. Toby pointed at the empty surface. “Dad, the stationery kits were stacked right here.” I looked down. Stuck to the corner of the folding table were the inventory barcode stickers my company required. Apex Outreach A-01 through A-15. Fifteen units. Completely sold out. A little girl from Toby’s class was standing nearby. She hesitated for a long time before she finally spoke up in a tiny voice. “Mister, Toby didn’t take the money.” Her mother immediately yanked her backward by the arm. “Don’t speak out of turn.” The little girl looked frantic. “I saw Toby carry the box to Tyler’s booth. Mrs. Brenda told him to do it. But when he came back, he was helping me pack the bookmarks into bags. He never opened the box.” Brenda had followed us over. When she heard the girl’s testimony, her expression turned venomous. “Little girl, you can’t just make things up. Were you staring at him the entire time? How do you know he didn’t open it when you weren’t looking?” Terrified by the aggressive tone, the little girl hid behind her mother’s legs. Brenda turned her venom on me. “Do you see this? This is the consequence of you making a scene. Now you’ve got other children lying to cover for your son.” Toby let out a choked sob of pure frustration. “She wasn’t lying.” Brenda sneered. “You can’t even get your own story straight, and you’re defending someone else?” Over by the main stage, the PA system crackled to life. “Will all nominees for the Charity Ambassador Award please report to the main stage.” Tyler ran over, his face flushed with excitement. “Mom, it’s my turn!” Brenda immediately grabbed his hand. She lowered her voice, but kept it just loud enough for me to hear. “Some kids get famous by stealing money. Other kids get on stage by showing pure kindness. Tyler, stand up straight.” Toby’s head dropped so low his chin touched his chest. I watched as he desperately tried to shove the ripped cardboard ‘Thief’ sign into his backpack. I crouched down and looked him in the eye. “Why are you hiding it?” His voice was a broken whisper. “I don’t want my friends to see it.” My heart felt like it was being pierced by a needle. I pulled the cardboard sign out of his bag and snapped it in half. “Toby. You are not the one who should be embarrassed.” He looked up at me with wide, teary eyes. I gripped the broken pieces of cardboard. “The only person who should be ashamed is the one who hung this on you.” Brenda was already leading Tyler toward the steps of the main stage. The emcee spoke cheerfully into the microphone. “From Third Grade Room B, Tyler has shown outstanding dedication to today’s cause. He is hereby awarded the title of Charity Ambassador!” Polite applause rippled through the crowd. Tyler was just about to step up to the podium. I projected my voice across the field. “Hold the award.” The entire athletic field fell dead silent. The school principal, who was standing on the side of the stage, frowned deeply at me. “Sir, if you have a dispute, we can discuss it after the event. We are in the middle of a ceremony. Please do not disrupt the children.” Brenda’s eyes instantly welled up with crocodile tears. “Principal, this is Toby’s father. His son stole from the charity fund, and not only is he refusing to take accountability, but now he’s actively trying to sabotage the awards.” The crowd erupted into furious whispers. “Is that the dad of the kid who had the sign?” “How does he have the nerve to cause a scene at the stage?” “Talk about delusional parenting.” Toby’s hand felt like ice. I pulled him behind me, shielding him from the stares. “My son did not steal a single cent.” Brenda let out a sharp laugh. “Then where did the three thousand dollars go? He was the one holding the box. If he didn’t take it, did the money just sprout wings and fly away?” She pulled Tyler tightly against her side, playing the fiercely protective mother. “My son prepared for this charity fair for a whole week. He stayed up late cutting ribbons and making price tags. He earned this award with his own sweat and blood. Why should his special moment be ruined by a thief and his arrogant father?” Tyler looked a bit uncomfortable being squished against her, but he stood quietly. Brenda wiped a fake tear from her cheek. “We’re just ordinary parents. We just want our kids to have a nice, decent Charity Fair. Their son commits a crime, and they turn around and bully us. How is that fair?” It was a brilliantly manipulative speech. She positioned herself and her son as helpless victims being crushed by a bully. The crowd predictably began to sway in her favor. “The kid worked hard for his award.” “Adults shouldn’t ruin things for the kids just because they’re arguing.” I ignored the whispers and looked directly at the principal. “I am officially requesting the school pull the footage from the fixed cameras by the supply tent.” The principal blinked in surprise. Brenda’s pitch hit the stratosphere. “Are you insane? You want to delay a school-wide event and force everyone to watch security footage just because your kid got caught red-handed?” I walked up to the edge of the stage and slammed the broken cardboard sign onto the official’s table. The word ‘Thief’ was perfectly visible to the entire crowd. “When you publicly humiliated a child and hung a target around his neck, nobody seemed to care about delaying the event.” Brenda’s face flushed with ugly, defensive rage. “Who knows if your precious cameras are even real? Or if you edited the footage! It’s probably AI-generated trash to save your reputation!” I didn’t give her another second of my time. I turned toward the supply tent. Rachel was already walking over, holding a sleek tablet. Dangling from a lanyard around her neck was her official Apex Outreach corporate badge. “Mr. Carter.” The moment she said my name, the principal froze. Brenda blinked, a sudden flicker of uncertainty crossing her eyes. A parent in the front row muttered in confusion. “Mr. Carter? Like, the CEO?” I spoke loudly enough for the microphone to pick it up. “I came here today simply to be Toby’s father.” “But since someone decided to use the inventory my company donated as an excuse to hang a ‘Thief’ sign on my son’s neck, I am going to audit this event down to the last penny.” Rachel plugged her tablet into the display monitor positioned next to the podium. I locked eyes with Brenda. “It’s true that my son touched the cash box.” “But he isn’t the one who reached inside.”

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1 To make me lose interest in him, Derek had me deliver a box of Durex to his apartment on a night with a raging blizzard. The box was wrapped in a brown paper drugstore bag, making me assume he was sick. I was in such a frantic rush to get to him that I slipped and took a hard fall on the icy road. But when the door opened and I saw the warm, intimate glow of the apartment behind him, everything became painfully clear. From that night on, I began to slip out of his life. When he injured his knee during a major basketball game, his roommate tracked me down in the hallway. “Derek took a really bad fall, Grace. Are you going to go see him?” I shook my head. Even when he got into a serious car accident a few weeks later, I didn’t step foot in the hospital. When the winter break arrived and he asked to drive home together, I manufactured excuses to stay behind. “I still have exams to study for.” But then, he ran into me on the street while I was walking hand-in-hand with my boyfriend. His eyes narrowed, a cold, sharp edge cutting through his voice. “I thought you were in the middle of exams, Grace?” “And since when are you dating? Why didn’t I know about this?” … I used to be a permanent fixture at every single one of Derek’s basketball games. He was Columbia’s star computer science major, notorious for being untouchable. Most of the university’s sports clubs had to drag students in by their ID numbers to fill the rosters, but the basketball team never had that problem. Whenever Derek was on the court, the bleachers were packed to the rafters. He was the campus’s “ice prince,” completely aloof and detached. During his first two years, he hadn’t dated a single person, leaving everyone to whisper about who would finally be the one to melt his frozen heart. I was the only girl allowed within his inner circle. After a game, he would casually toss his sweat-dampened team jacket over my head, ruffle my hair, and offer a lazy, murmured, “I’m heading to the showers.” The other girls would watch us with intense envy, and I quietly let myself drown in the sweet, dizzying warmth of that ambiguity. I was naive enough to believe his refusal to date anyone else was because he was waiting for me. Until that snowy night, when he chose a different way to reject me. A way far more cruel than a simple, face-to-face “no.” He wanted to humiliate me, to make me feel like a pathetic clown. Since that night, I had stopped reaching out to him. I stopped attending his games, choosing to spend my Saturdays tucked away in the quiet corners of the library instead. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, my phone buzzed. It was Zach, Derek’s roommate. “Hey, Grace. Derek took a nasty spill on the court. Are you coming over to check on him?” Hearing that he was hurt still sent a sharp, involuntary pang through my chest. But I had my pride, and I had my dignity. “I’m not on campus today, Zach. I won’t be able to make it.” Zach let out a quiet sigh of surprise. “No wonder you weren’t in the stands today. He kept looking for you.” I offered a quiet murmur of agreement and hung up. Leaving the library, I grabbed a lonely dinner at the dining hall and immediately returned to my books. Derek and I had entered a silent, unspoken truce; we hadn’t exchanged a single message in over two weeks. In truth, I had always been the one driving our connection. The moment I stopped reaching out, our world simply fell apart. Besides, he had a girlfriend now. It was only right that we stopped speaking. The night of the blizzard. Derek had texted me, asking me to deliver a package to his apartment. Earlier that morning, I had finally mustered the courage to slip a handwritten confession letter into his locker. He hadn’t acknowledged it all day. It wasn’t until the snow began to pile up on the pavement that he finally sent a message, telling me he had left a bag with Zach for me to bring to his place. By the time I ran to his building, my breath was coming in ragged gasps. Derek stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame. “Thanks,” he murmured, reaching for the bag. My fingers were so stiff from the biting cold that my grip slipped. The paper bag tore, and its contents spilled across the welcome mat. I looked down. It wasn’t cold medicine. It was a sleek, blue box of condoms. I froze, the breath catching in my throat. Derek crouched down, his expression entirely natural as he gathered the items. We locked eyes for a long, quiet second. My gaze drifted past his shoulder, peering into the warm, dimly lit apartment behind him. A girl’s slender silhouette was visible in the soft glow of the hallway. She was wrapped in his sheets, her bare shoulders pale against the dark fabric. The air in the room felt thick with a lazy, post-coital warmth. A heavy, suffocating pressure settled over my chest, and my entire world seemed to crumble into dust. The freezing wind howling outside was nothing compared to the absolute numbness spreading through my veins. Then, the girl’s soft, sleepy voice drifted out to the doorway. “Derek? Are you coming back to bed?” Derek looked back at me, a faint, polite smile playing on his lips. “My girlfriend is waiting, Grace. I won’t keep you. It’s freezing out there, so be careful on your way back.” I didn’t even have the strength to ask him when he had started seeing her, or why he hadn’t told me. The heavy door clicked shut in my face. The moment the elevator doors closed on the first floor, I collapsed against the wall and began to sob. The bag had been a standard brown paper drugstore bag, which was why I had desperately assumed he was sick. I had run so fast through the storm that I had taken a hard fall on the black ice, scraping my knee so badly it was still throbbing. As I stumbled out into the freezing night, my phone rang. Derek’s name flashed on the screen. “Grace,” his voice came through, cool and detached. “Wait in the lobby. I told Kevin to come pick you up.” I didn’t dare speak, terrified that the tremble in my voice would betray my tears. I simply let out a quiet murmur of assent and hung up. I had no intention of waiting. At this hour, the subways were delayed, the buses had stopped running, and finding a cab in a blizzard was practically impossible. But I kept my head down, burying my face in my jacket as I began the long, freezing walk back to my dorm. The profound, aching weight in my chest made me entirely numb to the cold. If a pair of strong, steady hands hadn’t caught my shoulders, I probably would have collapsed in the snow without even realizing it. A tall, dark silhouette stepped into my path, shielding me from the biting wind. The pale streetlamp illuminated his sharp, striking features and the snow dusted across his dark hair. “Grace?” My mind scrambled to place him. Kevin Pierce. He was Derek’s former roommate from freshman year. We had met briefly at a campus party, and though we hadn’t spoken much, his quiet, intense presence had left a lasting impression on me. He was exceptionally handsome, though far more reserved and aloof than Derek. “Kevin?” I whispered, my eyelashes heavy with frost. He nodded, his dark eyes searching my face. “Didn’t I tell you to wait for me in the lobby?” Despite the freezing temperatures, a light sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. His chest was heaving slightly, his breath curling into white plumes in the dark. He didn’t sound angry or demanding; he simply sounded relieved to have found me. “Where were you planning to go?” he asked softly. I realized with a jolt that the dorms had already locked for the night. There was no way back inside. “I… I suppose I’ll find a hotel,” I murmured. Kevin’s lips twitched with a faint, dry amusement. “The blizzard has shut down the transit lines. Every hotel in the area is booked solid or charging triple. Come to my place.” Seeing the hesitation in my eyes, he glanced down at his watch. “It’s past midnight, Grace. I have an early morning flight to catch to go visit my family for the weekend. Once I drop you off at my apartment, I’m heading straight to the airport. You’ll have the place to yourself.” “It’s much safer than wandering the streets in a storm.” I looked at his sincere, calm expression and nodded. “Okay. Thank you, Kevin.” A fleeting smile touched his lips, so brief I almost thought I had imagined it. “You’re freezing,” he muttered, quickly unbuttoning his heavy wool coat and wrapping it around my shoulders. He unwound his thick scarf and wrapped it gently around my neck, his fingers brushing my chin. When we reached his apartment, he set his suitcase by the door and looked down at my torn jeans. “You fell?” “How did you know?” I asked, startled. Kevin retrieved a small medical kit from the bathroom and placed it in my hands. “Can you apply the ointment yourself?” I nodded. He grabbed his suitcase, offering a quiet nod before heading out into the storm. “Lock the door behind me, Grace. Text me when you’re back in your dorm tomorrow.” I watched him leave, feeling a strange, quiet warmth bloom in my chest for the first time all night. Though Derek had never formally replied to my letter, his actions had given me an unmistakable answer. He didn’t love me. And so, I quietly stepped back, erecting a polite, impenetrable wall between us. Late one evening, as I walked back from the library, a message from Zach popped up on my screen. It was a photo of Derek’s knee, wrapped in a thick compression bandage. Just finished icing it. He’s doing fine. I stared at the photo for a moment before typing a polite response. Glad to hear. Hope he recovers quickly. When I walked into my dorm room, my roommates immediately swarmed around my desk. “Grace, did Derek actually get a girlfriend?” I paused, placing my books on the shelf, and nodded. “Yes.” Sophia sighed. “I knew it. I ran into him downstairs earlier. He was dropping off Victoria Ashford, the law major.” Jade joined in, her eyes wide. “They look like something out of a magazine. It’s almost unfair.” That night, the campus forums were practically overflowing with threads about them. Heartbroken. Columbia’s golden boy is officially off the market. Honestly, they’re perfect together. Both of them are gorgeous and wealthy. It’s a visual masterpiece. Thank goodness. I was getting tired of seeing that plain girl trailing behind him like a shadow. Derek was always out of her league anyway. My chest tightened slightly as I scrolled through the comments. I closed the app, looking at my roommates. “They really do make a lovely couple,” I said quietly. And it was the truth. Everyone on campus thought so. Derek and I were childhood friends. Our families lived next door to each other in Greenwich, Connecticut. For years, it was just him and his mother, and we had always assumed his father was out of the picture. But when we were in middle school, a sleek, black luxury sedan parked at the end of our street, drawing the curious gazes of all our neighbors. It turned out Derek’s father was the CEO of Shaw Enterprises, one of the most powerful developers on the East Coast. Derek’s mother had refused to leave our quiet neighborhood, so his father simply bought the historic estate at the end of the lane and renovated it from top to bottom. Derek had always excelled at everything, easily outshining me in academics. I had barely scraped by to get into Columbia, while he had been accepted with honors. Growing up, my mother’s voice was a constant refrain: Look at Derek, Grace. Why can’t you be more like him? To which I would always shoot back: Look at his father’s company, Mom. Why can’t you be more like him? That usually kept her quiet. Now that we were of college age, my mother frequently brought him up during our weekly phone calls, dropping heavy hints. Derek’s mother and I were just talking, Grace. It would be so lovely if you two ended up together. Back then, those words would make my cheeks burn with a shy, hopeful heat. But now, the mere mention of his name made me want to run in the opposite direction. I was sitting in the dining hall with Sophia when Derek’s tall, unmistakable figure appeared near the entrance. He stood out effortlessly in the crowd, his broad shoulders easily clearing the students around him. Sophia nudged my arm, pointing toward the door. “Grace, your boy is here.” Hearing that old designation made my chest ache. “Sophia, please don’t say that. He has a girlfriend, and we aren’t close anymore.” “Are you finished eating? Let’s go.” As we stood up to leave, Derek and Zach began walking in our direction. Derek’s eyes locked onto mine, but I quickly averted my gaze, guiding Sophia toward the exit without looking back. It was the first time I had actively ignored him. That evening, I received a text from him. Have you been busy lately? I stared at the notification, waiting until midnight to type out a brief, formal reply. Yes, we have a lot of final projects this week. A few days later, our department hosted a guest lecture. Attendance was mandatory, and the seats were assigned by student ID. To my dismay, Derek was seated in the same row. As he walked down the aisle toward me, I quickly spotted an empty seat a few rows down, nestled between two strangers. I slid into it before he could reach me, letting out a quiet sigh of relief. Derek’s eyes darkened as he watched me sit down. Once the lecture started, my phone buzzed in my lap. Why didn’t you sit with me? There was an empty space. I typed back a simple lie. Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you. When the lecture ended, I slipped out through the side exit before the crowd could block the aisles. Why did you run off? his next text arrived. I manufactured another excuse. My roommate forgot her student ID and needed me to bring it to her exam room. My mother sent me a massive care package filled with her homemade beef jerky. She had specifically added a note, reminding me to share. Derek loves the spicy ones, Grace. Make sure you hand-deliver the red jar to him. I looked at the jar, feeling an old, stubborn lump in my throat. I dialed Derek’s number, intending to ask him to meet me in the courtyard to get it over with. But when the call connected, a girl’s soft, elegant voice answered. “Hello?” My heart stuttered. Even though I had spent weeks telling myself I was over him, hearing his girlfriend answer his phone still felt like a physical blow. I hung up without saying a word. I quickly dialed Sophia instead. “Hey, Sophia. My mom sent a ton of beef jerky. Can you come down to the lobby and help me carry it up?” Sophia’s voice squealed with delight. “Oh my god, yes! I’m on my way!” We shared the snacks with the entire floor. An hour later, my phone rang again. It was Zach, his voice frantic. “Grace! Thank goodness you picked up. Are you in your dorm?” “Derek got into a bad car accident. He’s at Columbia Presbyterian.” My fingers tightened around my phone, a cold spike of panic shooting through my chest. But then, I forced myself to breathe. “I can’t go, Zach. I have plans today.” “You should call Victoria.” Zach let out a strained, dry laugh. “Why on earth would I call her?” I remembered my brief encounter with Victoria in the library courtyard a few days prior. She had stopped me, offering a polite, razor-sharp smile. Grace, right? Derek’s little childhood friend. I’ll be honest with you. I absolutely despise the concept of a ‘childhood best friend’ when it comes to men. I’m sure you understand. Nobody wants their boyfriend to have a surrogate sister hovering around. I had offered a tight, forced smile and nodded in agreement. “Zach,” I said now, my voice steady. “It’s not appropriate for me to go. Call his girlfriend.” I hung up. The next morning, I was woken up by a call. I answered sleepily, my voice raspy. “Hello?” “Grace,” Derek’s voice came through, thick and exhausted. “I’m in the hospital.” Annoyed at having my sleep disrupted, I muttered, “Then call a doctor, Derek. I’m not a physician.” The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. And in that quiet, I finally woke up, realizing exactly what I had just said.

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Bennett and I were each other’s first loves. We were together from the age of eighteen to twenty-three. Later, I personally drugged his drink and sent him into my sister’s bedroom. He desperately escaped and came looking for me, only to overhear the conversation between my friend and me. “All these years of history, and you’re just throwing him away?” I swirled the wine in my glass, a careless smirk on my face. “Friends are like limbs; men are just clothes. She’s my sister. What’s wrong with letting her have some fun with him?” Since then, Bennett cut all ties with me. We hadn’t seen each other in three years. Three years later, some were newlywed, while some slept eternally in a quiet southern town. My name is Norah Vance. I am the eldest daughter of the wealthy Vance family. For as long as I can remember, I lived in the family’s old estate in the historic district, raised by my grandmother. My parents, Arthur and Evelyn, lived with my younger sister, Pearl, in a luxury penthouse downtown. The old estate was only a thirty-minute drive from their place, but to me, we were separated by mountains, living in two completely different worlds. My parents rarely came to see me. I only saw them during major holidays. Grandma always told me that they loved me, but they were just too busy with the family business to have the energy to care for me. I believed her. Yet, the resentment in my heart grew like wild grass, suffocating me. I couldn’t help but wonder—if they were so busy, why wasn’t Pearl sent to the old estate too? Why did they have time to raise Pearl, but not me? The historic district was an exclusive neighborhood where old money retirees lived. There weren’t many left-behind kids in this area, but Bennett and I were the exceptions. The Vance and Cole families had been close for generations. Bennett’s parents worked abroad year-round, so they left him in the care of his grandparents. You would think two kids in the same boat would look out for each other. But I hated Bennett from the bottom of my heart. I had hated him since we were toddlers. He was the textbook “perfect child.” He always ranked first in school, excelled in AP math, piano, and golf, and was always polite and well-mannered. Meanwhile, I was the neighborhood rebel, spoiled by my grandmother. I skipped classes, scaled school fences, and got into fights. To make matters worse, our names—Norah and Bennett—sounded like opposite poles. Every time I got into trouble, the elders and teachers would compare me to him. “One goes north, the other goes south,” they would say. Over time, I declared a one-sided war on Bennett. I did everything to ruin his day. Seeing him miserable was the only thing that made me happy. But Bennett was no pushover. Throughout middle school, our petty wars never stopped. I tore his worksheets, he pulled my hair. I put earthworms in his desk, he drew stupid caricatures on my test papers. In a flash, we turned fifteen and ended up in the same high school. Bennett got into the honors class with the highest score and became the Student Council President. I barely scraped into the regular class, remaining the troublemaker who gave teachers headaches. Whenever he hosted a school assembly, I would catcall and shout his name from the crowd, trying to embarrass him in front of the entire school. After one assembly, he cornered me in the stairwell. Frowning, his voice deep, he asked, “Norah, we’re not in elementary school anymore. Can we please make peace?” I rejected him outright, pushed past him, and walked away without looking back. At fifteen, all I wanted was for my parents to look at me, even if it was just a glance. And messing with Bennett, the golden boy, was the perfect way to get attention. I hoped Bennett would lose his patience and complain to my parents. I hoped my parents would finally come to discipline me. But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Bennett never told on me, and my parents’ eyes remained fixed solely on Pearl. Pearl was five years younger than me, the absolute princess of the family. She actually liked me. Whenever we met during holidays, she would sweetly call me “Sis” and stuff candy into my hands. But I hated her. I was jealous of her—jealous of the unconditional love she received. I took my anger out on her. Every time we met, I gave her the cold shoulder, snatched her gifts, and threw away her candies. I thought I would keep being a rebel until I grew up.

I never expected that in the winter of my fifteenth year, fate would deal me a crushing blow. Grandma suffered a sudden brain hemorrhage and was rushed to the ER. A few days later, she woke up. The doctor told us it was just a final rally before the end, and we should prepare for the worst. I rushed into the ICU and threw myself beside her bed. Grandma looked at me, her eyes overflowing with tears. She gently stroked my hair and began to tell me the secrets she had hidden for fifteen years. She told me I was not Evelyn’s biological daughter. She said my parents had been married for seven years without any luck of having a child. Desperate for an heir, Grandma took advantage of a time when Evelyn was visiting family out of state. She got my father heavily drunk and arranged for another woman to be in his bed. That single night resulted in a pregnancy. And then, I was born. When Evelyn found out, she cried, screamed, and almost filed for divorce, but eventually compromised. She had only one condition: she would never raise me. “Norah, don’t blame your parents. Blame me. It was your old grandma who lost her mind,” she whispered. “I thought, since your mother couldn’t conceive, she would eventually accept you over time.” “But when you were five, Pearl came. It was fate. Your mother is innocent; she has suffered so much.” “I’m sorry, my sweet Norah. I will make it up to you in the next life…” Grandma’s voice faded into nothingness, and her hand fell limp. At that moment, all my anger and resentment collapsed like a house of cards. Yes, how pitiful my mother was. Every time she looked at me, she saw the living proof of her husband’s betrayal. And Pearl was even more innocent. She did nothing wrong, yet she had been the target of my bitter jealousy. Could I blame Grandma? She was the only one who truly loved me. I couldn’t hate her. Could I blame my father? Manipulated by his mother and resented by his wife, his life was its own kind of hell. In the end, the only person left to blame was myself. Why was I even born? Grandma’s funeral was grand. Bennett came too. He stood in the crowd, dressed in a black suit, his eyes cast down. I didn’t talk to him, nor did I talk to anyone else. I was like a puppet without a soul. After the funeral, I moved into my parents’ penthouse—the place I had dreamed of living in since childhood. The apartment was massive, with plenty of rooms, yet I felt like I didn’t belong anywhere. The moment I learned the truth about my birth, all my past rebellion felt like a joke. Overnight, I went from a loud, arrogant brat to a silent shadow. But just as I was shutting myself away in the dark, two people forced their way into my locked heart. One was Bennett, whom I had hated for a decade. The other was Pearl, whom I had envied for just as long. After learning the truth, I started avoiding Bennett on purpose. But he quickly noticed my change. He started clinging to me, being so incredibly sweet that it threw me off. In the cafeteria, he would always sit across from me, moving all the best food from his plate to mine. When I hid on the school rooftop to cry, he would always find me and silently sit by my side. After school, when I didn’t want to go home, he would walk with me through the streets, buying me ice cream. His warmth acted like a gentle current, melting the icy walls around my heart. And Pearl, sensitive as she was, noticed the tense atmosphere at home. She began tirelessly trying to mend the cracks in our family. She would constantly sweet-talk our mother: “Mom, thank you for giving me a sister. I love Norah so much.” “Mom, look, the backpack Norah packed for me is so neat, much better than yours!” “Mom, I’m so happy I get to go to school with Norah every day.” Gradually, the coldness in Evelyn’s eyes when she looked at me began to fade, replaced by a gentle warmth. Eventually, she even started warming up a glass of milk for me whenever she made one for Pearl. Under the warmth of Bennett and Pearl, I slowly came back to life. I finally realized that Pearl was never my enemy. She was my sister. And as for Bennett, we naturally became a couple. Our families were old friends, and our social status matched perfectly. Both sets of parents were happy to see us together. After we started dating, our dates almost always included a little tagalong—Pearl. Bennett would playfully complain to me, “Norah, when do we get some alone time?” Pearl would jump out from behind, hands on her hips, glaring at him. “Are you trying to get rid of me so you can take advantage of my sister?” Watching them bicker, my heart swelled with pure happiness. I thought this beautiful life would last forever.

But the year Pearl turned eighteen, everything shattered. First, Bennett’s parents suddenly returned to the country. They were fiercely against our relationship and even locked him in his room. Then, I received my medical report from the hospital: late-stage stomach cancer. I had three years left to live, at most. When I walked through the door that day, it wasn’t a cheerful Pearl who greeted me, but my mother. Without saying a word, she handed me a diary. With trembling hands, I opened it and turned the pages. “Went to the Cole estate with Norah again today. Finally saw him. His smile is so beautiful.” “Norah has been so busy lately and hasn’t visited the Coles. Ugh, I miss him so much.” “Saw him again today! Following Norah around is definitely the best decision ever.” Every word felt like a dagger piercing my chest. Pearl was in love with Bennett. My mother remained silent for a long time before she finally spoke. “Do you know why Bennett’s parents suddenly opposed you two?” “I called them. I told them you are just an adopted daughter, and that everything in the Vance estate will belong to Pearl in the future.” With one simple phone call, she destroyed any future Bennett and I could have had. That night, Bennett escaped through his window and found me. “Norah, let’s run away. Anywhere, as long as I’m with you.” Looking at his desperate face, my heart bled. Run away? If he did, he would lose his inheritance. His five cousins would tear him apart and take everything he owned. He would have nothing. And what could I give him in return? If we ran away, I could only give him three years of my life. Was I supposed to ruin the rest of his life for just three years of togetherness? I couldn’t. I absolutely couldn’t. Pearl loved him. They grew up together, and they were perfect for each other. More importantly, I couldn’t let Bennett waste his youth on a dying girl. It was better to make him hate me. Looking at the passionate young man in front of me, I forced a bright smile. “Okay, let’s run away.” I tricked him into drinking a glass of red wine laced with sleeping pills, then carried him into Pearl’s bedroom. I didn’t drug him with anything else like Grandma did. I just wanted him to hate me. As for his relationship with Pearl, I decided to let nature take its course. Then, I went to a noisy VIP club, hired a couple of handsome escorts to sit with me, and called my best friend over. I wanted to say my goodbyes to her while waiting for Bennett to find me. At the same time, my mother burst into Pearl’s room with the housekeepers. Bennett and Pearl woke up to the commotion, completely bewildered. My mother demanded angrily, “Bennett, what did you do to my daughter?” Confused and panicking, Bennett blurted out, “How is this possible? I was with Norah last night!” The moment the words left his mouth, he remembered the glass of red wine and my unusually bright smile. A terrible realization washed over him. He quickly corrected himself, “I’m sorry. I drank too much last night and stumbled into the wrong room.” Pearl quickly chimed in, “Bennett and I are fully clothed! Nothing happened, Mom. He must have been looking for Norah and got into the wrong room because he was drunk.” After calming my mother down, Bennett ran out of the house. He had to find me. We had each other’s locations shared on Snapchat. I watched the little icon on my screen get closer and closer to the club. The icon stopped just a few feet away from my VIP table. My friend asked, “All these years of history, and you’re just throwing him away?” I swirled my drink, laughing carelessly. “Friends are like limbs; men are just clothes. She’s my sister. What’s wrong with letting her have some fun with him?” After that night, Bennett vanished from my world. He blocked me on Snapchat, and our families stopped speaking to each other. Pearl became the most anxious one. Every day, she would hover around me, her eyes filled with worry. “Norah, what happened between you and Bennett? Did you guys have a fight?” I just shook my head and smiled, saying everything was fine. Refusing to give up, she tugged at my sleeve and explained for the hundredth time. “That night, I was fully clothed, and so was he.” “He smelled so strongly of alcohol. He really just got drunk and walked into the wrong room.” “Norah, I swear!” I pinched her nose gently. “You’ve said that so many times. I know.” Pearl’s voice softened, filled with a young girl’s hope. “Then can we go visit the Coles? I haven’t seen Bennett in so long. Just go with me, please?” Looking at her bright, hopeful eyes, a dull ache spread through my chest. She really did love him that much. What I did was right. I turned my face away and said quietly, “Go by yourself. I’ve been feeling a bit tired lately.” Pearl looked at my pale face, wanting to say something, but stopped herself. The side effects of chemotherapy were getting worse. I started vomiting constantly, unable to keep any food down. My weight dropped rapidly, and my hair began to fall out in clumps. I became terrified of brushing my hair because every brush brought away a handful of strands. I couldn’t stay here anymore. I was terrified Pearl would discover my secret. Even more, I was terrified Bennett would suddenly show up and see me in this pathetic state. I packed a small suitcase, left a letter, and left the city. I moved to a quiet, sleepy town in Georgia. There were peaceful, flowing creeks and endless fields of wild yellow flowers. I rented a tiny cottage and spent my days watching the sun rise and fall. I kept taking my chemo pills, and the dosage only got stronger. Whenever the pain became unbearable, I would curl up by the window, clutching my knees, picturing Pearl’s bright smile and remembering the warmth of Bennett’s hand in mine. In the blink of an eye, three years passed. One day, I was casually watching the news on TV. “The eldest son of the Cole family is engaged to the daughter of the Vance family. The wedding will take place in three months.” Pearl and Bennett were getting married. So, they really did end up together. My departure had indeed paved the way for them. I should be happy, shouldn’t I? I had achieved my goal. But why were my tears pouring down like rain? I sat in my rented cottage, staring into the dark all night. I wanted to see them one last time. Just once. Before I died, I wanted to lay eyes on the two most important people in my life. I booked a flight back and began my journey home.

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On Christmas Eve, my sister, Chloe, had a mild allergic reaction to mangoes. My parents frantically rushed her to the emergency room. Yet, I had been severely allergic to fish since childhood, but fish was served on our dinner table every single day. My parents always told me: “Allergy? That’s just a weak immune system. Eat more of it, and once your body gets used to it, you won’t be allergic anymore.” Staring at the Christmas dinner slowly turning cold on the table, I couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh. I didn’t even realize my face was already drenched in tears. Suddenly, a notification popped up on my phone. It was a Snapchat message from Mom: [Summer, Chloe refuses to get a blood test. She says she’s terrified of needles and is crying for you. Get over here now.] I pulled at the corner of my mouth. Terrified? No, she wasn’t. She just didn’t want them to find out she was pregnant. Mom, Dad, your precious little golden child isn’t just pregnant. I walked back into the hospital. At the ER entrance, Nurse Lily looked up in surprise. “Dr. Miller? I thought your shift ended. Why are you back?” I gave her a weary smile. “My sister was admitted. Allergic reaction.” I headed toward the trauma bay. Behind me, I heard Lily muttering to herself, “Weird. Isn’t Dr. Summer a doctor here? Why do her parents need to bring her sister to the ER for a mild allergy?” To my parents, Chloe’s allergy was a life-or-death crisis. How could they ever risk their “golden child” when they had me—their “trial run”—to experiment on? Outside the treatment room, Mom was buried in Dad’s chest, sobbing uncontrollably. “Richard, we are such terrible parents. How did we not know Chloe was allergic to mangoes?” They had actually been perfect parents to Chloe. There had never been a single allergen in our house since the day she was born. But Chloe was pregnant. The pregnancy had triggered a new, sudden allergy, and they simply didn’t know yet. The moment Mom saw me, she grabbed my arm roughly, her voice dripping with blame. “What took you so long? Don’t you know a severe allergy can kill someone?” “She refuses to do the blood test, so they can’t start the IV. She kicked us both out of the room. Go in there and do something!” I looked into her tear-filled eyes. For the first time in my life, I talked back. “I know exactly how deadly allergies are, Mom.” “So tell me—why is it that when I was allergic to fish, you mashed a whole bowl of cod into my rice and forced me to eat it?” Not only that, but when my throat began to swell, they told me to “tough it out” so I could eat fish normally in the future. It was only when a neighbor visited, gasped in horror, and screamed at my parents for being criminally negligent that I was finally rushed to the ICU. The doctor said if I had arrived five minutes later, I would have been brain-dead. Mom froze for a second. Then, her face flushed with deep annoyance. “What nonsense are you talking about? I never did that!” “Even if I did, why bring up the past now? Look at your sister! She’s breaking out in hives!” With that, she pushed me into the hospital room, shutting the door behind me. Chloe was sitting on the gurney, scratching her neck frantically. “Summer! Thank God you’re here. You have to save me. Only you can help me now.” I pulled back her collar to inspect the rash. “You need an IV antihistamine. It’ll clear up faster.” She glanced nervously at the closed door and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Summer, cut the crap. I know you found the folic acid pills in my vitamin bottle.” “I know I can’t hide it from you. Please, Summer, help me. I can’t take any medication that might hurt the baby.” I stared at her, my expression completely flat. “So? You’re going to keep it? You’re only a sophomore in college…” “Summer!” she interrupted, her voice snapping with irritation. “Just because Mom and Dad ruined your relationship when you were in college doesn’t mean you get to rain on my parade.” “Mom and Dad actually allowed me to date. I just haven’t figured out how to tell them about the pregnancy yet.” Right. She had to remind me. When I fell in love in college, my parents threw a massive scene at the Dean’s office. They used the most vicious language to humiliate me and that boy at school. They even threatened to report him to the police for sexual assault, despite me screaming that we hadn’t even kissed. They wouldn’t let it go. In the end, unable to bear the public humiliation and pressure, the boy withdrew from college. His entire future, which he had worked so hard for, was destroyed by my parents. After that, no one at school dared to be my friend. And I never dated again. But when Chloe went to college, my parents saw that I had become an “old maid.” Fearing they had been too strict, they suddenly became open-minded and encouraged Chloe to date.

To ensure she had a “healthy social life,” they raised her allowance to $1,000 a month. They claimed they didn’t want her “begging boys for money.” Meanwhile, when I was in college, they gave me exactly $150 a month. I had to work three part-time jobs just to afford groceries and textbooks. Later, Mom actually bragged on Facebook about how she “fostered independence” in her eldest daughter. The post was flooded with mockery from local moms. [If you don’t want to cherish your daughter, someone else will.] [Treating your kid like that is how you end up in a cheap nursing home.] Panic-stricken by the online backlash, they immediately added another $500 to Chloe’s monthly allowance. Every wrong decision they made with me, they corrected by doubling the love on Chloe. “Summer!” Seeing me space out, Chloe gave me a hard shove, her tone reverting to her usual bossy self. “I looked it up on Google. There are allergy meds safe for pregnant women. Prescribe me that. I’m itching to death!” “I’m not lying for you, Chloe. Tell Mom and Dad yourself.” I turned to leave. “Summer! Don’t you want to know what Grandma Sarah said right before she died?” I stopped dead in my tracks. Grandma Sarah was the only person in this world who had ever truly loved me. When I was little, I proudly brought my report cards and academic awards home, taping them to the living room wall to surprise my parents. They only gave them a cold, passing glance. “Take them down. It looks messy. You think this deserves a trophy? Summer, you’re still far from good enough.” But Grandma Sarah would bake blueberry muffins to celebrate my B-plus. She would hug me and say, “My Summer is the smartest girl in the world.” She carefully taped together the certificates my mother had ripped down. “Bring them all to Grandma’s house, sweetie. Seeing them makes me happy.” Eventually, my awards covered an entire wall in Grandma’s living room. She boasted about me to every neighbor who walked by. But when Grandma was terminally ill, my parents hid it from me. They claimed they didn’t want to “distract” me from my medical school entrance exams. Because of their lie, I never got to say goodbye. Yet, when Chloe was stressed during her junior year of high school, they let her take a gap year to travel across Europe. How was I ever supposed to forgive them for that? Suppressing the sharp ache in my chest, I turned back to Chloe. “Fine. I’ll write the prescription.” The moment I stepped out of the room, my parents swarmed me. “How is she? Is Chloe okay?” “I’m getting her meds.” I averted my eyes and walked past them quickly. They immediately pressed their faces against the glass window of Chloe’s room. “Chloe? Sweetie, are you okay?” “Okay, okay, Daddy and Mommy won’t come in. Just don’t scratch your face, okay? It’ll scar, and we can’t have our beautiful girl scarred!” I forced myself to block out their voices. But my chest felt like a hollow cave, with cold wind howling through the empty space. From childhood to adulthood, they had nothing but criticism for me. Even when neighbors complimented my looks, Mom would scoff: “Beautiful? Her eyes are as small as a mouse’s. And she has such a gloomy personality. I don’t know who she got those genes from.” Only Grandma Sarah ever told me I was beautiful. I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there at the end. Back in the room, I handed the pills to Chloe. “Take three. We need to keep you overnight for observation.” The moment she swallowed them, I asked, “What did Grandma say before she passed?” “Do you really want to know?” Chloe arched an eyebrow, a smirk playing on her lips. “No wonder Mom and Dad say you’re an ungrateful leech who only cared about that old lady.” I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. “Tell me.” She slid back down onto the pillows. “Tell Mom and Dad to go home first. You stay here and nurse me tonight.” “Chloe.” “Don’t think your pregnancy is the only secret I know.”

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At our Thanksgiving dinner, I happily announced that Chloe was pregnant. My dad, Arthur, immediately proposed: “Chloe, let me hire an eight-pack male housekeeper for you.” “You’re pregnant, you shouldn’t be doing any chores. Having a handsome male housekeeper will not only keep the house clean but also satisfy your physical needs. We wouldn’t want you to feel frustrated during pregnancy!” Chloe almost choked to death on her turkey. I slammed my fork down in displeasure: “Dad, what kind of sick joke is that!” Arthur glared at me with a sinister look: “I’m not joking. What woman doesn’t cheat?” “When your mother was pregnant with you, she hooked up with our male housekeeper. Every woman in this world cheats, so why would your wife be any exception?” A sudden surge of anger rushed to my head. Just because his wife cheated on him, why the hell did my wife have to cheat on me too! Chloe looked like she was sitting on pins and needles. She nervously wiped her sweat, then tightly held my hand. “Arthur, please don’t test me. I promise I will never do anything to betray Ethan!” My dad’s smile froze on his face. Jealousy quickly crept into his eyes. “Oh, my silly daughter-in-law, Ethan has already betrayed you a long time ago. Why are you being so loyal to him?” My eyes widened in disbelief. “Dad, what nonsense are you talking about now? I have never done anything behind Chloe’s back!” Arthur smirked triumphantly. As if he had been prepared for this, he pulled a crumpled piece of loose-leaf paper from his pocket. He slid the paper into Chloe’s hands and lowered his voice: “This is the creepy letter Ethan wrote to a girl back in high school. I intercepted it. I even made a hundred copies of it and plastered them all over his school.” “Harassing a girl at eighteen—I would never do something so shameless. What does this prove? It proves Ethan is a degenerate creep. He’s definitely messing around behind your back.” “Even a good man like me got cheated on. You don’t need to treat a trash guy like him like a king. If you want to cheat, just do it.” My dad let out a cold snort. His expression was filled with utter contempt. I clenched my fists so hard that my nails dug deep into my palms. The sharp pain was burning, but I couldn’t feel it over the numbness in my chest. Those suffocating memories instantly flooded back to me… Growing up, my dad’s favorite phrase was: “If I didn’t have it, why should you?” “I didn’t even have clean underwear when I was a kid, why should you? Just wrap yourself in any old rag!” “I’m not buying you a razor. No one bought me one when I was young, so why should you use my money? Figure it out yourself!” I grew up with no new clothes, no decent underwear, and not even a proper razor. When I was eighteen, a kind girl in my class noticed my struggle. She hesitantly handed me a bag one day. Inside were clean underwear, shaving cream, and a brand-new razor. She quietly told me to ask her for help if I ever struggled again. I was so moved that I wrote her a heartfelt thank-you letter. But my dad insisted it was a “harassment letter.” He called me shameless and claimed the girl only bought me those things because I had threatened her. My dad dragged me to a clinic for a reproductive exam. He yelled in the hallway for everyone to hear: “Check if he’s even functional, or if he’s just a sexually frustrated freak!” When the results came back completely normal, he looked dazed, almost utterly disappointed. But quickly, he changed his narrative. “So what if you’re physically normal? You wrote creepy letters to a girl at eighteen. Your mind is already filthy. You’re just a lowlife. No decent girl will ever want you.” “I was clean and decent, yet I ended up with a woman like your mother. A piece of trash like you is only fit to marry a worthless whore.” My dad heavily edited my thank-you letter, turning it into a truly disgusting, explicit note. He posted a hundred copies of it around the school. From then on, that girl avoided me like the plague. My classmates looked at me with disgust and mocked me daily. I didn’t have a single friend. Even the teacher who used to like me the most started looking at me with pure loathing. Later, I worked hard and escaped that small, run-down town. My career took off, and I started earning more and more. My dad actually apologized to me back then. He said he was only trying to prevent me from dating in high school so I wouldn’t ruin my future. I thought he had finally changed. But now, he was bringing up the past again just to trash me in front of my wife! After reading the “letter” with a look of utter confusion, Chloe looked at my dad as if he were a lunatic: “Arthur, whether this thing is real or fake, it’s ancient history.” “I don’t care about the past. I only care about our future.” “I am very happy with Ethan. Don’t worry, I will never betray him.” 2 Chloe squeezed my hand. Her warmth slowly melted the icy chill in my bones. Most of my anger faded away. Ever since the letter incident, my dad kept drumming it into my head that I didn’t deserve a good girl. After I started working, he kept setting me up on horrible blind dates. A girl under house arrest, a convicted scammer, a woman who had been divorced three times… My dad always said that since he couldn’t get a good woman, I certainly didn’t deserve one either. But Chloe had never let go of my hand from the very beginning. Chloe’s loyalty only made my dad furious. No matter what lies he spewed, Chloe stayed by my side. So, he turned his target back onto me. “Ethan, how many months along is she?” I answered warily, “Almost four months.” My dad smiled, looking relieved. “Four months… Heh, then you’re about to become impotent soon.” “Ethan, you’re finally going to taste this misery. When your mother was pregnant, I worked myself to the bone to support the family. My body broke down, and your mother called me a useless excuse of a man. That’s why she slept with the male housekeeper.” “Once you ruin your own body from stress, Chloe will definitely find someone else.” Looking at the satisfaction in my dad’s smile, I couldn’t help but shiver. A cold, desolate sadness washed over me. We were father and son, not enemies. Why was my dad so eager to see me fail? Why did he desperately want my wife to cheat on me? Shouldn’t a father want his son to be happy? At the thought of me being betrayed, the excitement on my dad’s face was completely unmasked. He gestured wildly as he rambled on: “Being impotent is nothing. That’s the least of your worries.” “With Chloe pregnant, you’ll have to work like a dog to support the family. You’ll go bald, get wrinkles, grow a beer belly, and look so ugly that Chloe will want to throw up just looking at you! Once you turn into that monster, Chloe will naturally jump into another man’s bed.” “I had to go through all that pain. Why shouldn’t you experience it too?” Even Chloe, with her gentle temper, was thoroughly enraged now. She glared at my dad coldly: “Arthur, that’s not going to happen.” “My family has money. Ethan doesn’t need to destroy his health to work. He only needs to do what he loves. I am going to use my entire trust fund to support his startup.” “Besides, even if Ethan does end up looking like that, I would only feel heartbroken and blame myself. Why would I ever cheat on him?” My dad opened his mouth, his eyes turning blank. I thought he was going to throw another tantrum. Tantrum about how hard he worked in his youth to the point of ruining his body, and why I got to have it easy. But he didn’t. My dad silently kept putting food onto Chloe’s plate, muttering, “Eat more.” In his eyes, there was jealousy, but even more, there was deep loss and misery. My heart suddenly gave a sharp, painful throb. No matter what, my dad had raised me all by himself. His jealousy was real, but his twisted love didn’t seem entirely fake either. He was old. Chloe and I should try to tolerate him as much as we could. The Thanksgiving dinner ended in a bizarre, tense silence. Soon, Chloe reached her second trimester. Chloe took me to see the office space she had rented for my startup, but we were stopped by the property manager. “Mr. Miller, the lease was canceled by your father.” “If you have any questions, you should talk to him.” With a loud *thud*, my heart sank to the bottom of my chest. I rushed back home immediately to confront him. The moment I stepped through the door, my eyes were blinded by the brand-new Rolex on my dad’s wrist. I didn’t even have to guess where the money came from. Furious, I grabbed his wrist and demanded: “When I got married, you said you didn’t have a new watch when you married, so why should I. I felt bad for you, so I gave you the watch Chloe bought for me without a second thought.” “Dad, if you wanted a new watch, you could have just told me! I would have bought it for you! Why did you cancel my office lease?!” Hearing the words “office lease,” my dad’s eyes instantly turned bloodshot. 3 He gnashed his teeth and glared at me, a terrifying hatred emanating from his eyes. He slapped me hard across the face: “You have the nerve to ask?!” “When I wanted to start a business back then, nobody helped me! I had to be a slave to corporate America my entire life! Why? Why is Chloe willing to give you her trust fund to support your startup? You don’t deserve it!” I held my burning cheek, completely dazed. That phrase again. I felt incredibly wronged and helpless. Why did my dad lose his mind every time my life got slightly better? Could a father really envy his own son to this extent? While I was lost in thought, my dad suddenly lunged at me and violently yanked at my pants. His eyes shone with a manic, excited light, filled with twisted anticipation: “Chloe is over five months pregnant now. You must be exhausted. Let me see how pathetic and shriveled you’ve become!” The moment he saw that I was perfectly healthy and functional, the wild grin froze on his face. He rubbed his eyes, staring in absolute disbelief. Finally, he had to accept the bitter truth that my body was perfectly fine. My dad burst into tears, ripping open his own shirt to point at his worn-down, frail chest, glaring at me with pure hatred: “To raise you, I ruined my own health! Your mother called me a useless piece of trash and cheated on me!” “I became a broken man, so why the hell do you get to be perfectly fine?!” My dad roared. Amidst my anger, a wave of pity washed over me. His life had indeed been bitter. Perhaps it was the decades of misery that had twisted him into this monster. Trembling, I opened my arms, wanting to hug my dad, wanting to repair this broken father-son relationship. “Dad, everyone’s body is different.” “I’ll take you to a specialist. We can slowly get you treated, okay?” My dad opened his arms too. I thought he was going to hug me, to accept my peace offering. But I was dead wrong. In the next second, my dad raised his foot and violently kicked me straight in the groin. He used all his strength, stomping on me repeatedly. “To hell with your ‘different bodies’! You just had it easy, enjoying all the luxury!” “I became a useless wreck just to raise you. If the father is a wreck, the son must be one too!” My dad stood over me, panting heavily, the tip of his shoe stained with my blood. That kick had landed directly on my most sensitive part with maximum force. My vision went black from the agonizing pain, and I collapsed onto the floor, curling into a ball. I looked down; my inner thigh was already swollen, bruised a horrific shade of purple and red. To make me just like him, my dad was actually trying to castrate me. Enough. This was enough. As if the pain and despair weren’t enough, my dad raised his foot again, preparing to stomp down once more. In absolute terror and despair, I screamed for help: “Chloe!” Chloe burst through the door, horrified by the bloody scene. She flew to my side. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Clutching my bleeding groin, I blacked out. In the hospital, Chloe held my hand, her voice trembling with lingering fear: “Don’t worry, Ethan, you’re going to be okay.” “Your dad is insane. I’m already looking into some reputable psychiatric facilities. We are cutting him off after this.” I nodded in agreement. When we returned home from the hospital, we found my dad sitting in our living room. I instantly regretted ever giving him a spare key to our apartment. Seeing my hospital gown, my dad rolled his eyes in annoyance: “I didn’t even go to the hospital when I chopped off my finger at work, and you ran to the ER over a little scratch? Why do you get to go to the hospital?” “Chloe, you need to control him. Going to the hospital is a waste of money. He has absolutely no backbone!” My already shattered heart stabbed with pain once more. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. My dad happily got up to answer it. He respectfully welcomed a young man inside. The guy was young and handsome, dressed in flashy clubwear, with his eight-pack abs faintly visible through his semi-sheer shirt. Chloe and I exchanged a confused look. 4 Like presenting a prize, my dad pushed the young man toward Chloe with a sly grin: “Chloe, this is Justin. The personal assistant I hired for you guys.” “Look at him, he’s fit and capable. Isn’t he a million times better than that pale, sickly husband of yours?” Justin licked his lips and gave a suggestive, charming smirk. I stared at them coldly, my heart dropping into a bottomless ice cave. My dad was doing it again. Just because my mother cheated during her pregnancy, he was hell-bent on making my wife cheat too. Before I could even lose my temper, Chloe’s face darkened, and she began pushing them out: “Dressed like that? Does he look like he’s here to do housework?” “Arthur, I will hire a professional service myself. As for this ‘gentleman,’ please take him and leave immediately.” With that, Chloe shoved them toward the door. But my dad was stubborn. He grabbed the doorframe, refusing to budge. He gave Chloe a highly suggestive look: “Oh, Justin is very ‘capable’ in more ways than one!” “You have to give him a one-day trial. If he really is useless, I’ll take him away. But you can’t judge a book by its cover and rob this poor young man of a job opportunity!” Justin also blinked his large, puppy-dog eyes and pleaded in a deep, sultry voice: “If I don’t find a job soon, my family is going to sell me to offshore illegal casinos to pay off their debts.” “Chloe, Ethan, please, just give me a chance!” My head was throbbing from their badgering. Fine. It was just one day. What could they possibly do in twenty-four hours? If they refused to leave tomorrow, I would just call the police. Seeing my silent compliance, my dad and Justin exchanged a knowing smile. Though they smiled brightly, a chill ran down my spine. The next morning, I woke up to find the bed beside me empty. I called out Chloe’s name, but there was no response… until I checked the guest bedroom. Chloe and Justin were lying in bed together, completely naked. Their faces were flushed, their bodies tangled in an extremely intimate position. Even with my eyes closed, I could guess what had happened. An overwhelming wave of agony crashed over me. I roared in fury, grabbing a glass mug from the nightstand and smashing it onto the floor. My dad walked in, looking at me with absolute triumph, as if he had just won the lottery. “Your mother cheated when she was pregnant, so why shouldn’t your wife?” “Hmph, I had to live with a cheating whore my whole life, why do you get to have a perfect woman like Chloe? Now look at you, your wife is a cheater too.” My dad grabbed my arm: “Come on, don’t embarrass yourself here. Stop ruining their post-sex bliss.” “Divorce Chloe. I’ll introduce you to a woman who is actually a perfect match for you. I think Scarlett would be great.” I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat feeling like a razor blade. I knew Scarlett. She had been married five times, divorcing each husband immediately after taking their money. She had had countless abortions, and she even had a severe, incurable STI! I thought my dad was just jealous of me. This wasn’t jealousy. This was pure, unadulterated hatred! He hated seeing me happy, and he only felt joy when I was dragged down into the mud. My eyes fell upon a bottle of heavy-duty liquid aphrodisiac sitting on the corner of the table. My heart seized. To force my wife to cheat, my dad had actually resorted to drugging her. I violently shook off my dad’s hand, casting away the very last shred of familial affection I had left. Unlocking my phone, I dialed 911: “Yes, I’d like to report a crime. Someone has been poisoned and physically assaulted. The address is…”

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After my wife reached a seven-figure salary, she put me in her slide presentation of life shames during her speech at the annual industry summit. On the massive screen, she projected photos of me wearing an apron, frying fish, and kneeling on the floor scrubbing the toilet. Next to the photos, she wrote in bold, humiliating letters: “A depreciating asset!” “A stumbling block to progress!” “An obstacle that must be cleared on the road to success!” In an instant, I became the laughingstock of the entire venue. But what she didn’t know was that I used to be a legendary algorithm genius in the tech world. I only hid my brilliance and returned to the kitchen because I loved her. Now, this marriage? I’m done with it. My wife, Vivian, was giving a keynote speech titled “My Decade” at the prestigious Annual Tech & Industry Summit. The presentation slides had finally reached the “Acknowledgments” section. I remembered her telling me last night that she wanted to give me a special thank-you today. I secretly wondered if she would show a sweet couple photo of us. However, the first slide popped up. It was a photo of me wearing a grease-stained apron, looking messy and flustered while frying fish. Giggles and whispers immediately rippled from the back rows. Then, the second photo appeared. It was a shot of my back as I knelt on one knee, scrubbing the toilet bowl. The angle was awkward, making me look incredibly submissive, as if I were worshiping the toilet. The entire hall erupted into laughter. And there I was, sitting in the front row, invited as the “supportive spouse.” The camera panned to my face, which had gone completely pale. I could clearly hear the whispers from the seats next to me. “Is that Vivian’s house husband? The one living off her?” “No wonder she’s so successful. She cut off the dead weight to fly higher.” “It couldn’t have been easy for Vivian, climbing to the top with a useless drag like him.” The voices were loud. They wanted me to hear them. I froze in my seat, feeling every gaze in the room burning into my skin like flashlights. On stage, Vivian looked radiant, her voice confident and sharp. “In the career growth phase, we must learn to subtract. We have to identify and clear out the burdens that slow us down…” For the next ten minutes, she dissected my daily chores—cooking, cleaning, taking care of our daughter—as if they were corporate business cases. Sunk cost, opportunity cost, negative return on investment… Every business term she used felt like a cold knife twisting in my heart. The audience erupted in thunderous applause as her speech ended. Vivian smiled and bowed gracefully on stage, basking in the spotlight. She was glowing. Meanwhile, I slouched my shoulders and quietly walked out of the hall, blending into the shadows. When I got home, I sat on the dark sofa. I didn’t turn on the lights. I just stared at the silhouettes of the furniture in the silence. We had been married for five years. When Vivian said she wanted to push for her career, I said okay, I’ll handle the home. When she said she hated chores, I said okay, I’ll do them. When she said having a baby would ruin her career path, I said okay, I’ll raise Lily. I thought this was a partnership. I thought this was what a family was supposed to be. Only today did I realize that in her eyes, I was just a parasite, a “depreciating asset” holding her back. The front door clicked open. Vivian stumbled in, smelling of alcohol. Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes still held the excitement of her big night. She flipped the light switch and frowned when she saw me. “Leo, why are you just sitting there in the dark? Go make me a black coffee. I have a massive hangover.” I didn’t move. I just stared at her. “Vivian, what am I to you, really?” Vivian pushed past me impatiently. “Leo, what is your problem now?” “Today’s slides. Those photos. Those words.” I questioned her, my voice trembling but steady. “In your heart, I’m just a burden, aren’t I?” Vivian turned around, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. I knew that posture. It was her negotiation stance, the one she used when dealing with difficult clients. “Leo, today was the biggest day of my career. I don’t want to fight. Those were just case studies for the presentation. I needed them for the stage effect.” I let out a dry laugh. “Case studies? Using photos of your husband scrubbing toilets as a joke?” “What did you want me to do?” Vivian raised her voice. “Show a cheesy couple photo? Tell everyone my success is because I have a great husband? Who would buy that in our industry?” She walked closer, her breath smelling of wine. “Leo, this is my moment. Can you please not ruin it?” I looked at her, suddenly feeling like she was a complete stranger. The woman who had shared my bed for five years was someone I didn’t know at all. “So, to you, I really am just a negative asset that needs to be cleared out of your way?” Vivian went silent for a few seconds. “So what if you are? What if you aren’t? Leo, grow up, will you?” She turned and walked toward the bedroom. “I’m exhausted. I have a meeting with investors tomorrow.” The bedroom door slammed shut. I stood up and went into the study. At the very bottom of the bookshelf, there was a dusty cardboard box. I pulled it out and opened it. Inside were relics of my past life: my collegiate coding championship medals, a faded team photo, and an old black phone. I plugged it into a charger. As soon as the screen lit up, a five-year-old text message popped up. “Leo, are you really not joining us? Name your price. The offer stands.” The sender was Cole Sterling—the man who was now the billionaire founder of the tech giant Apex Tech.

Five years ago, Cole’s company was just a team of five people, including me, operating out of a cramped rented apartment. He had told me we were going to change the world. But I had told him I was getting married, and Vivian needed me. Cole had tried to convince me. “Leo, think about it. Opportunities like this only come once in a lifetime.” I had replied without hesitation, “A marriage also only comes once.” He had been silent for a long time before replying, “Alright. But I will always keep a spot open for you. Come back whenever you’re ready.” Later, his company, Apex Tech, became a global tech giant. And I became the pathetic back profile scrubbing a toilet on a slide screen. After a moment of hesitation, I dialed his number. It rang only once before it was picked up. “Hello?” Cole’s voice came through, sounding slightly tired but alert. “Cole, it’s me. Leo.” The other end went dead silent. A few seconds later, Cole’s voice exploded with disbelief and excitement. “Leo?! Is that really you?” “Yeah, it’s me.” “Man! You finally woke up!” Cole’s voice sounded like fireworks. “The shares I promised you back then? I’ve kept them untouched. Where are you? Tomorrow—no, right now, I’ll send a car to fetch you. We’re actually stuck on a major security protocol loop right now, and your brain is exactly what we need…” He talked incredibly fast, his familiar passion warming my cold heart. My eyes grew misty. “Cole, I can’t come over just yet,” I interrupted him, my voice a bit raspy. “Why?” Cole’s excitement died down, replaced by confusion. “I need to handle some personal stuff first. But you can send me the files of that security loop. I’ll take a look.” “Awesome!” Cole didn’t ask further. “Leo, with you on this, we’re already halfway to solving it!” Minutes later, the data was transferred to my laptop. The dense code, the complex architecture… it was so familiar, like riding a bike. For the next three days, life went on as usual. I took Lily to preschool, did the groceries, cooked, and cleaned. Vivian still left early and came home late, completely absorbed in her work. We barely spoke. The atmosphere in the house was colder than living with a stranger. But during the late nights when Lily was asleep, and in the brief pockets of time between chores, my brain was running at maximum speed. On the third night, I sent a security patch and a detailed analysis report to Cole. A few minutes later, Cole called back, his voice cracking with pure excitement. “Holy shit, Leo! You’re a freaking god! Not only did you patch the leak, but you optimized the entire defense logic! My senior devs are literally staring at your code right now like it’s a miracle!” Listening to his praise, I managed a small smile. But my heart was surprisingly calm. It felt like I had just done something as natural as breathing. “Send me your bank account details. I’ll wire your payment.” I hesitated for a second, then agreed. I needed the money now. Not to prove anything, but to buy back my own life. Soon, my phone buzzed with a bank notification: $5,000,000 had been deposited. I gasped. I called Cole back. “Cole, this is too much. It was just a patch.” “Too much?” Cole yelled through the phone. “Leo, do you know how many millions we would lose a day if our competitors exploited that bug? It’s easily double this amount. I actually feel like five million is insulting your genius. Just take it, or I’ll be pissed!” After hanging up, I stared at the long string of zeros. For the first time, I realized how ridiculous my five years of “sacrifice” had been. Vivian had worked her ass off for five years to reach a million-dollar salary. And I had made three times her annual income in just three days, in the middle of doing chores and raising our kid. With the money, I started to change. First, I went to a high-end boutique and got myself a few tailored suits. I joined a premium gym, hired a personal trainer, and started working out again. I also bought a luxury watch—a brand only true connoisseurs would recognize. When I stood in the living room looking completely transformed, Vivian was visibly stunned. She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my watch for a second before she let out a mocking laugh. “Leo, since when did you care about brand names? Wearing a fake watch out? Aren’t you afraid of getting laughed at? What, having a midlife crisis and trying to feel important?” Her words were like cold needles, but they couldn’t pierce the emotional armor I had built over the last few days. However, the real blow came without warning. A few days later, I was playing with Lily at the community playground until a bit late. As we walked back, I saw a black Mercedes-Maybach parked near our building. Vivian got out of the passenger seat. From the driver’s seat came a wealthy-looking, middle-aged man. The man naturally reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind Vivian’s ear. Then, they shared a brief, intimate hug. It was a gesture too practiced to be their first time. The man drove off. Vivian turned around with a lingering smile on her face, which instantly froze when she saw me standing in the shadows. A flash of panic crossed her face, but she quickly masked it with her usual defensive attitude. “My company is bidding for a massive contract worth over a hundred million dollars,” she said defensively. “That was Robert, the head of the procurement committee. In business, sometimes you have to play the game.” I didn’t say a word. I just watched the tail lights of the Maybach disappear. At that moment, the very last spark of hesitation in my heart died. If that’s how it is, Vivian, let me show you what you’ve actually thrown away and trampled on. The “depreciating asset” who only knew how to clean toilets in your eyes is about to become the mountain you will never be able to climb.

I pulled out my phone and sent a Snapchat message to Cole. “Help me look up Starlight Corp’s biggest bidding project recently, and find out what technical issues they are facing.” Starlight Corp was Vivian’s company, a publicly-traded electronics manufacturer. Within two hours, Cole sent me a highly detailed report. The report showed that while Starlight Corp looked successful on the outside, they were under massive pressure. Their revenue and net profit had plummeted over the past year, and their stock price was tanking. They desperately needed a win to restore investor confidence. The multi-million smart IoT terminal project from Omni Group was their holy grail. It wasn’t just a lucrative contract; more importantly, Starlight wanted to secure a long-term partnership with a giant like Omni Group. The core requirement of the bid was to design a smart management system that could seamlessly integrate with Omni’s standards while maintaining flawless quality control. Starlight’s tech team had been working day and night, but they couldn’t solve the integration lag. On top of that, another company was eyeing the project. Vance Technologies, a smaller but highly innovative firm. However, Vance Tech was also stuck on the exact same technical bottleneck. I closed the file and leaned back, closing my eyes to think. Since Starlight and Vivian had bet their entire future on this, I would strike them exactly where they were weakest—their technology. Once my plan was set, I contacted Cole again and asked him to introduce me to Marcus Vance, the CEO of Vance Technologies. Cole’s efficiency was unmatched. The next afternoon, I met Marcus Vance in a private VIP room of an exclusive club. I didn’t waste time on small talk. I pushed a technical proposal across the table. It contained the exact solution for the Omni Group project. Marcus, having a strong engineering background himself, scanned the paper. I watched his expression go from skepticism to absolute shock. He sat straight up, his eyes wide. “Mr. Miller… this is genius! This system doesn’t just solve the compatibility issue; it increases the overall efficiency by twenty percent! How did you develop this so quickly?” I replied calmly, “How I did it doesn’t matter. What matters is, can this proposal win you the Omni Group contract?” “Yes! Absolutely!” Marcus said, his voice shaking with excitement. He looked at me eagerly. “Mr. Miller, please join Vance Tech. The Chief Technology Officer position is yours. We can start at a million-dollar base salary plus stock options!” It was an offer that would tempt anyone, but I shook my head. “Thank you, Mr. Vance, but I have no interest in joining full-time. However, I can act as your special technical consultant for this project to help your team implement it.” “I have only one condition: my identity must remain strictly confidential until the contract is signed.” Marcus nodded vigorously. “Deal. I’ll personally handle the NDA. Having you on our side is the best thing that ever happened to Vance Tech.” On the day of the bidding event, I arrived early and sat in a quiet, dimly lit corner at the back of the auditorium. Vivian, representing Starlight Corp, was the lead presenter. She wore a sharp white suit, her makeup was flawless, and she exuded authority. She stood on stage, demonstrating her polished slides and explaining Starlight’s solution. Her delivery was perfect, her data was solid, and her confident aura had the judges and Omni Group executives nodding in approval. Everything seemed to be going exactly as she had planned. Until the Q&A session. Marcus Vance raised his hand. He took the microphone and skipped the pleasantries, pointing directly at a flaw in Vivian’s presentation. “Vivian, your high-concurrency data solution might look good on paper, but under real-world testing, it will cause severe latency on Omni’s assembly lines.” The question was highly technical and sharp. Vivian’s face paled for a fraction of a second, but she quickly forced a bright smile. She adjusted her headset and responded smoothly. “Thank you, Marcus. Our team actually anticipated that risk. We have designed a three-tier dynamic buffer to handle it. In our industry right now, this is the absolute best solution available.” Vivian’s quick thinking was impressive, and she quickly regained control of the room. But Marcus just smiled, a sharp edge in his eyes. “The best solution? I beg to differ. Ladies and gentlemen, Vance Tech has developed a brand-new system architecture. It doesn’t just fix the latency; it boosts overall system efficiency by over twenty percent. I’d like to invite our special technical consultant to explain the details.” A murmur ran through the crowd. Vivian’s brow furrowed, a trace of anxiety flickering in her eyes. But mostly, she looked annoyed. She didn’t believe Vance Tech could have a better solution, let alone some random “consultant.” Under the spotlight, I slowly stood up, straightened my suit jacket, and walked toward the stage under a sea of curious eyes.

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