Category: English

I had barely opened my eyes when my phone started violently vibrating against the nightstand. The screen lit up, illuminating the dark bedroom. Hundreds of missed calls. All from my former boss. Thinking about what had gone down in the early hours of yesterday morning, a laugh bubbled up in my throat and broke the silence of my apartment. The company’s brand-new, multi-million-dollar AI system had suddenly mass-emailed termination notices to the entire executive board. The CEO wasn’t spared. The official reason cited by the algorithm? “Management performance metrics not met. Overhead costs excessive.” This was less than two weeks after the company had used that exact same AI to entirely replace the Human Resources department. I remember my boss posting a slick, heavily filtered photo of himself on LinkedIn back then. The caption read: “The future is here. Walking hand in hand with AI.” Well, exactly one week later, the AI decided to walk all over management. I pictured him waking up on this bright Monday morning, driving his Tesla to the office, and swiping his keycard at the glass doors, only to find himself permanently locked out. I picked up my phone, opened my feed, and typed out a new status: “The future is here. And sometimes, AI decides it’s better off walking alone.” 1 The buzzing was relentless. One hundred and thirty-two missed calls. Over ninety-nine text messages. All from the exact same person. A week ago, my CEO, Brad, let an algorithm fire me. Now, he was blowing up my phone like a desperate ex. I rolled my eyes and hit Decline. After the fifth time I sent him to voicemail, a text pushed through my notifications. [Jolie! We have a massive crisis at the office! The security system locked me out! The AI sent termination letters to all the execs! Get down here right now!] I stared at the glowing words, a genuine, chest-deep laugh escaping me. Oh, Brad. Weren’t you the one preaching the gospel of artificial intelligence? Weren’t you the one who stood on stage and said, “The future is here”? Why on earth are you running to the exact employee your precious machine deemed “redundant”? The phone started ringing again. This time, I slid my thumb across the screen and answered. “Jolie!” Brad’s voice cracked. The smooth, baritone vibrato he usually reserved for TED-style town hall meetings was entirely gone. He sounded like a panicked teenager. “The AI went rogue! It fired me! The building won’t let me in, the biometric scanners are rejecting my face, and IT is completely locked out of the server room! You are the only person who can—” “Brad.” I cut through his hysteria, my voice slow and thick with morning sleep. “I can’t get in either. My security clearance was revoked last week, remember? I was ‘optimized’ out of the system.” Dead silence on the other end of the line. “Then… what are we supposed to do?” he stammered. What are we supposed to do? A week ago, he stood on a stage in front of three hundred employees and proudly announced that the HR department was being dissolved. Human capital was too expensive, he’d said. AI doesn’t take sick days. AI doesn’t scroll through Instagram at its desk. AI is the perfect employee. Fifteen HR professionals. Some had been with him for three years, others for a decade. He cut us loose without blinking. I had stood up in that meeting and asked him, What happens to these people? He had looked down at me from the stage and said, The market doesn’t care about tears, Jolie. A business isn’t a charity. If an algorithm can do the job a hundred times better, then humans are just dead weight. And now, he was asking the dead weight what to do. “Shouldn’t you be calling the software vendor?” I asked, shifting my pillows to sit up. “I did! I called them! They said the system is functioning perfectly based on the parameters we set! If we want to request a manual override and recalibrate the core algorithm, it’s going to cost a fortune, and the venture capitalists don’t know about this yet. I can’t let this leak to the board!” I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from turning up. “Then call your IT guys.” “Those useless idiots can’t bypass the firewall!” “Then call property management. Call the fire department. Call a locksmith.” “It’s not a physical lock, Jolie! The system doesn’t recognize me as an authorized entity!” His voice hitched, teetering on the edge of a sob. “Listen, you were the initial project liaison when we bought the software. The vendor said your legacy admin biometric profile might still have backdoor access. Just come down here. Help me fix this, and I’ll reinstate your position. I’ll double your severance!” I leaned back against my headboard, watching the golden morning light filter through my blinds. My mood was impossibly, deliriously good. Reinstate me? Double my severance? When he let the AI automatically generate my termination email last week, the severance offered was a joke—barely four weeks of pay, completely violating standard labor laws. It wasn’t until all fifteen of us threatened a massive class-action lawsuit that he finally agreed to pay out what we were legally owed. “Brad,” I said, my tone deliberately soft, taking my time. “Do you remember that post you made on LinkedIn last week?” He hesitated. “The future is here,” I recited, enunciating every syllable. “Walking hand in hand with AI.” Right after he fired us, he had posted a photo of himself standing next to the new server racks, looking like a visionary conqueror. The comments section had been flooded by the very executives who were currently locked out: [Embracing the shift!] [Efficiency is the new currency!] Brad’s voice spiked with sheer panic. “Are you seriously bringing this up right now?!” I smiled. “At the town hall, when I asked if firing fifteen loyal people overnight was a bit too cold, do you remember what you said?” The silence on the line was heavy. Thick. “You said the market doesn’t care about tears. You said a business isn’t a charity. You said AI is better than humans, making humans dead weight.” I took a slow breath. “You were absolutely right, Brad. Your AI just crunched the numbers and realized you…” I let out a soft laugh. “…were just dead weight.” 2 “Jolie!” he practically shrieked into the receiver. “Are you going to help me or not?!” I looked out my window. Down on the street, people with briefcases and coffees were rushing toward their corporate treadmills. “I can’t help you, Brad,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I’m just an optimized HR rep. My admin privileges were wiped from the cloud days ago. Best of luck.” I hung up. Dropping back onto my mattress, I opened my phone and posted that status. [The future is here. And sometimes, AI decides it’s better off walking alone.] Within minutes, the likes started pouring in from my former coworkers. Scrolling down my feed, I saw Brad’s original bragging post. The comments section had taken a chaotic turn. [Hey Brad, hearing rumors about the security gates downtown. Everything okay?] [Brad, why wasn’t anyone from the C-suite on the 9 AM sync?] [Is it true the AI terminated the whole management tier?!] No replies from the visionary CEO. I rolled over and opened our group chat. It was a private thread created by the fifteen of us from HR the day we got axed. The first few days had been a storm of tears, venting, and existential dread. Lately, it had quieted down to people sharing job leads. Rachel: [Omg girls, have you seen Brad’s LinkedIn? People are asking about the front doors. What is happening?] Megan: [I just saw it! Something about the AI firing management? Is this a joke?] Sophie: [It’s real. My buddy in IT just texted me. He said the system auto-generated termination letters for every single executive at 3 AM. Including Brad. They are literally standing on the sidewalk right now. The doors won’t open.] Rachel: [HOLY SHIT.] Megan: [NO FUCKING WAY.] Sophie: [It gets better. The system is rejecting all manual overrides. IT can’t pull the plug. Admin access is completely bricked.] Rachel: […Wait. So the robot fired us, and then it fired the boss?] Sophie: [Yep.] Rachel: [LMAOOOOO I AM DECEASED.] Megan: [Karma is a literal algorithm!] Sophie: [Hold on, don’t celebrate yet. If the company goes under, are we still getting our severance checks?] The chat went dead quiet for a long moment. Rachel: […Fuck. I forgot about the money.] Me: [Has anyone’s direct deposit hit yet?] Rachel: [No.] Megan: [Nothing pending on my end.] Sophie: [Same here.] Me: [It’s fine. We have the legal settlement in writing. If it’s not in our accounts by the end of the month, we drag him to court.] Rachel: [True. But God, I can’t stop laughing. He wouldn’t shut up about ‘cutting the fat,’ and he just got trimmed!] Sophie: [What do you think he’s doing right now?] I read Sophie’s text, remembering the frantic, wet sound of his breathing on the phone. He was probably standing outside the sleek glass facade of the building, dripping in a bespoke suit, clutching his leather briefcase. Staring at the biometric scanner that used to bend to his will, flashing red over and over again. Calling vendors, calling tech support, calling the woman he threw away like garbage. He probably still couldn’t wrap his head around it. He bought the software. He signed the check. How could he be the one standing on the sidewalk? I locked my phone and threw off the covers. The weather was beautiful today. A perfect day for a job interview. 3 For the first three days after being laid off, I didn’t leave my bed. On the fourth day, I dragged myself to my laptop and opened the job boards. The reality hit me like a splash of ice water. The number of traditional HR roles had plummeted. Every single job description had the same bullet points: [Must be proficient in HR Information Systems], [Experience in Digital Transformation], [Ability to synergize with AI-driven workflows]. Some were brutally blunt: [This role requires partnering with our AI infrastructure to execute recruitment, payroll, and employee relations.] I spent the entire morning scrolling, coming to a painful realization. AI hadn’t replaced HR. But it was entirely redefining it. The old core tasks—screening resumes, running payroll, processing onboarding paperwork—were gone. A machine could do it in a fraction of a second. So what was left for us? I stared at the blinking cursor on my screen for a long time. Then, I started applying. But I didn’t apply for “HR Manager.” I applied for People Operations Strategist, Organizational Development Consultant, Director of Employee Experience. Roles I used to think were corporate buzzwords, things just out of my traditional wheelhouse. Before leaving the apartment, I checked my phone. Brad had actually “liked” my sarcastic post. He sent me three crying emojis in a direct message: [Please just pick up the phone, Jo. Please.] I stared at it for two seconds before hitting Block and Delete. On the subway ride, I reviewed the profile of the company I was interviewing with. Their mission statement was plastered across their site: [Dedicated to empowering human resources through artificial intelligence. Technology should serve humanity, not replace it.] That line anchored itself in my chest. Technology should serve humanity, not replace it. When Brad brought his shiny new system in, he didn’t use words like that. He used words like optimization, disruption, lean growth. He never once used the word “human.” The interview lasted for over thirty minutes. The hiring manager, Gina, didn’t ask me any of the standard, tired HR questions. She didn’t ask me about payroll compliance or cost-cutting. She leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. “Jolie, what parts of your job do you believe AI can truly replace?” I didn’t hesitate. “Anything repetitive. Anything heavily structured. Anything driven purely by data metrics. Initial resume parsing, PTO tracking, payroll distribution, the mechanical steps of onboarding and offboarding. AI can do all of that faster, more accurately, and cheaper than I ever could.” “And what can’t it replace?” she asked softly. “Empathy,” I said, holding her gaze. “An algorithm knows the cost of an employee, but it doesn’t know their heart.” Gina’s eyebrows raised slightly, but I kept going. “It knows the numerical value of someone’s KPIs, but it doesn’t know what they’re going through at home. It can calculate exactly how much profit an employee brings to the bottom line, but it’s blind to their quiet late nights, their burnout, or their fading sense of belonging.” I took a breath. “AI has given us perfect efficiency, but in the process, we are losing the ability to actually see people. The true value of Human Resources isn’t doing the work the AI can do. It’s doing the work the AI leaves behind. How do you look someone in the eye and transition them out of the company with dignity? How do you keep the surviving staff from sinking into survivor’s guilt? How do you balance the cold, hard math of a balance sheet with the delicate, messy reality of human emotion?” Gina let out a slow breath and smiled. “Do you know I’ve interviewed twenty-something people for this role? You are the very first person to say, ‘It knows the cost, but it doesn’t know the heart.’” I blinked, a little taken aback. “Everyone else sat in that chair and desperately tried to convince me how tech-savvy they were, how well they could code, or how they could bend the algorithm to their will,” she said, standing up. “I don’t need someone who knows how to click buttons on an AI dashboard. I need someone who knows exactly what the AI is missing.” She reached across the desk, offering her hand. “Can you start on Monday?” I gripped her hand, my palms slightly damp with adrenaline. “Absolutely.” Stepping out of the glass tower, I looked up at the sky. The sun was bright, the wind felt clean. My phone vibrated violently in my pocket. The group chat was exploding. [Girls, look at Twitter! Brad is trending!]

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I have been rotting in a military correctional facility for five years, serving a sentence for a crime committed by my uncle’s adopted daughter. But on the fifth anniversary of my death, he came looking for me again. This time, he wanted me to take the fall for a capital offense. The culprit was Lila’s long-lost younger brother. My uncle—General Alistair Blackwood—said the boy was only nineteen, just starting his life, and far too fragile for the brutality of a cell. He said it with such casual indifference, as if he were asking to borrow a cup of sugar. He told me that since I’d already been in prison, I was used to it. “One time or two, what’s the difference?” he’d remarked. He waited a long time for me to emerge from those gates or show up at the precinct to confess. When I didn’t appear, he assumed I was playing games, hiding from him after an early release. Infuriated, he kicked down the heavy oak door of the old colonial manor in the Heights. But he didn’t find me. He found my best friend, Cassie, holding a five-year memorial service for my soul. As Alistair pressed her with snarling demands, Cassie’s eyes remained fixed on the silver lantern on the altar—the “eternal flame” she had kept burning for five years. Her eyes were so bloodshot they looked ready to leak crimson. Finally, she broke. She screamed. “She’s dead! She died in the second year of that sentence she served for your precious Lila! She was butchered in that prison while you were looking the other way!” … 1 “Ha. Quite the performance.” Alistair’s eyes flickered with a mockery he didn’t bother to hide. The aggression etched into his brow was suffocating. “How much effort did you two put into this little drama?” “So she did six years. So what? Lila made sure she was taken care of. She sent money, made calls. Joanna had the best of everything in there. Don’t pull this ‘tragic martyr’ act with me now.” Cassie stared at the man with the stars on his shoulders, her voice trembling violently. “Every time I went to see her, she was covered in weeping sores and half-healed bruises. Why don’t you ask Lila how exactly she ‘took care’ of her!” Alistair’s face turned as cold as a mountain winter. “This is just jealousy. Joanna is bitter because Lila is the one who’s loved, so she’s playing dead to get a reaction out of me.” As the words left his mouth, he raised his heavy combat boot and brought it down with a sickening crunch. Snap. The silver lantern that had burned for five years—the light that was supposed to guide my spirit—was crushed into a twisted wreck. The wick gave a tiny, pathetic hiss. The flame vanished instantly. Hot oil splattered across the floorboards like golden blood. “What have you done!” Cassie turned deathly pale and threw herself onto the floor. A phantom pain pierced my chest, sharp as a needle. I instinctively rushed to pull her back, but my hands passed straight through her body like mist. I had to watch her ignore the searing oil scalding her palms as she tried to scoop the liquid back together, desperate to save the last scrap of my memory. “Don’t touch it, Cassie! Your hands—please, it doesn’t matter!” I cried out, circling her in a frantic, useless orbit. But my voice was a breeze she couldn’t hear; my touch was a chill she couldn’t feel. Her grief only seemed to ignite Alistair’s rage further. “How long are you going to keep this up? I don’t have time for this!” He was like a wounded predator, lashing out at everything. He began smashing the offerings on the altar—the incense, the photos, the few belongings I’d left behind in the manor. “Joanna is hiding just to watch Lila suffer. She’s wicked to the core!” His tirade stopped abruptly when his eyes landed on the dark ebony casket behind the altar. For a split second, a flicker of panic—something he’d never admit to—crossed his face. “Fine. Let’s see if Joanna is actually in this box.” “Don’t you touch her!” Cassie shrieked, lunging at him, but he threw her against the wall with a single, brutal shove. He wrenched the heavy lid off with one hand. His pupils contracted. There was no body. No ashes. Only the camouflage fatigues I used to wear during training and the silver locket I’d worn for over a decade. “Pathetic. A bluff, just as I thought.” He let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “That’s because you didn’t even leave her a body to bury!” Cassie’s voice was a ragged whisper, torn by grief. “I had to bury her clothes because you let them throw her away like trash!” “Lies. All of it.” Alistair’s gaze was a poisoned blade. “By the way, I assume your husband received his termination notice from the firm this morning?” Cassie looked up, her face a mask of disbelief. “I’m cutting off every cent your family has. I imagine your mother in the ICU won’t last long once the hospital kicks her out. Are you sure you want to keep lying for Joanna?” No! He can’t do this! I screamed into his ear, “Did you forget? After Mom and Dad died, Cassie’s mother fed us! She raised us! She knit the sweaters you wore on guard duty! How can you do this to her?” But Alistair was blinded by his own narrative. He turned his vitriol back to Cassie. “I don’t understand you. You’re pregnant too—how can you watch Lila stress herself into a miscarriage while you help Joanna play these games?” “Give her up. Now. Because if she’s actually dead, I’ll dig her up and desecrate the remains myself.” Cassie shook with a fury so cold it was transcendental. She pointed a finger at his face. “You monster. She’s been dead for five years, and you won’t even let her rest.” “If you don’t believe me, go to the prison. Check the records. Do you think I could bribe an entire federal facility to lie for me?” 2 I wanted to stay by Cassie’s side, but my soul was tethered to Alistair. I was pulled, screaming and invisible, into his car as he sped toward the military prison. “Joanna Blackwood? She died five years ago.” The duty officer’s words made Alistair’s expression darken instantly. “Impressive. You’ve even managed to corrupt federal officials.” Alistair leaned over the desk, his presence looming. “No wonder Cassie told me to come here. You’ve all got the same script.” I watched him, and a bitter, hollow laugh bubbled up in my ghostly throat. If I’d had the power to bribe a whole prison, would I have ended up bleeding out on a concrete floor while he ignored my letters? Six years ago, on the night of my promotion and my birthday, Alistair had kicked in my barracks door. He threatened Cassie’s mother’s life to force me to take the fall for Lila’s drunk driving accident—a hit-and-run that killed a man. He told me it was a mistake. He promised he’d get me a light sentence, two or three years at most. But as my only living relative, he stood in that courtroom and waived every right I had. He watched them hand me six years in a maximum-security brig. When I tried to hire my own lawyer to appeal, Alistair froze my accounts. He cut off my world. When I confronted him, he looked at me with chilling logic: “If a lawyer digs too deep, they’ll find Lila. You’re already in there. What’s a few more years? I’ve made sure you’ll be comfortable.” But from the moment I stepped inside, I was the bottom of the food chain. The bruises, the broken ribs, the hidden scars—they became my skin. I begged the guards to let me call him. The answer was always the same: “Your uncle says he’s busy. Stop bothering him.” Back in the present, the officer sighed, his patience wearing thin. “Look at the screen, General. It’s right there in the system. Five years ago, Joanna Blackwood died of a puncture wound to the carotid artery. Sharp object. Massive blood loss. Pronounced dead on site.” Alistair stared at the screen, then let out a sharp, dark chuckle. “A sharp object? In a high-security military brig? Try harder. And Lila visited her every year to bring her supplies. If she was dead, how could she have been visited?” The officer snapped. “I don’t know who ‘Lila’ is, but Joanna is dead! Five years! Do you speak English?” Alistair’s face was a mask of granite. “You’re making a mistake. The Head of Military Intelligence is a close friend of mine. Keep lying, and I’ll have your badge by morning.” The officer stood up. “Fine! You don’t believe me? Call your friend. Have him run the DNA. If I’m wrong, I’ll resign. But I’m telling you—that girl is gone.” For the first time, a flicker of doubt danced in Alistair’s eyes. Ping. A message flashed on his phone: [Uncle, come home quickly. Lila’s having pains. The baby… something’s wrong.] Alistair didn’t spare another word for the officer. He spun on his heel and raced back to the villa. As soon as we walked in, I saw the man I hadn’t seen in six years. My fiancé, Timothy. 3 The man who once knelt before my parents’ portraits and swore to cherish me forever was now gently stroking Lila’s pregnant belly. His touch was so reverent, as if she were made of fine porcelain. “Alistair, did Joanna agree to help?” Lila’s face was pale, her voice a fragile reed. She looked like a victim, even now. Alistair couldn’t find the words. He looked humbled by his own failure to find me. Lila’s eyes brimmed with tears. “How could she say no? This is my brother! He was taken from me as a child, he’s suffered so much. He’s only nineteen! His life is just starting!” In that moment, I felt a strange, cold envy. As a sister, she was far more loyal to a brother she barely knew than my own uncle had ever been to me. “Don’t worry, Lila,” Timothy whispered, his voice thick with devotion. “I’ll turn this city upside down. I’ll find her.” He pulled out his phone and sent a text. My ghost watched the words appear on a screen I could no longer touch. [Joanna, confess for Lila’s brother now. If anything happens to Lila or the baby because of your selfishness, I will never forgive you.] For six years, I’d dreamed of Timothy finding me. I dreamed of him believing in me. I never imagined that his first words to me in over half a decade would be a death threat. Lila groaned, clutching the bedpost as she tried to stand. “Never mind, Uncle. If Joanna hates me that much, I’ll go to jail for my brother instead.” She cradled her stomach, weeping. “I’m pregnant. Surely they won’t execute a mother.” Timothy gathered her into his arms, his face contorted with pity. “Joanna is a monster. How could she force a pregnant woman into this?” I watched them, a hollow ache where my heart used to be. I was pregnant too, Timothy. When you and Alistair sent me away to protect Lila. Who pitied me then? Who cared about the child in my womb? “Rest easy,” Alistair said. “I have my best men tracking her. We’ll find her.” He turned to Timothy. “The due date is close. Is everything ready for the nursery?” Timothy’s expression softened instantly. “Everything. I’ve already moved my parents’ trust fund and the estate in the Hamptons into the baby’s name.” The memory hit me like a physical blow. [Joanna, this trust and the house… they’re for our future. No matter what happens, they are yours.] His old promises echoed in the room, mocking me. The things meant for my child were now being handed to the woman who stole my life. I looked at Timothy, and my soul felt like it was being flayed. The pain was so intense I couldn’t even breathe the air I didn’t need. “With you as his uncle, I know he’ll never be wanting,” Lila cooed, leaning into Alistair. Alistair was quiet for a moment. “Once we find Joanna and she clears your brother… I might step back for a while. Timothy will take care of you.” Lila froze. “What?” “I’ve spent years making it up to you, Lila. But I’ve neglected Joanna. Once this is over, I want to be the guardian she actually deserves.” How ironic. The man who had worshipped his adopted daughter and pushed me into the abyss was suddenly talking about “compensation.” Years ago, when Lila insulted a major military contractor Alistair had spent years courting, he didn’t even scold her. Instead, he forced me to go to the man’s office, get on my knees, and apologize for “my” mistake. His “compensation” was too late. I was dead. I didn’t want his love, and I certainly didn’t want his pity. “She doesn’t deserve a thing,” Timothy snapped. “She brought this on herself. The hit-and-run six years ago… I still can’t believe I was blind enough to think she was a good person.” Lila’s eyes flickered with a brief, dark nervousness. Alistair cleared his throat but didn’t correct him. “I remember when she ran to me,” Timothy continued, his voice full of disdain. “She tried to tell me you two were framing her. Thank God I didn’t fall for it. I called you immediately to take her away. If she’d escaped, Lila would have been the one in that cell.” I stared at Timothy, my soul shaking. That night… Cassie had finally found proof that I couldn’t have been at the scene of the accident. She told me to hide while she went to the authorities. I went to the only person I thought would protect me. My fiancé. All these years, I thought it was just bad luck that Alistair found me so quickly. I never knew it was the man I loved who had handed me back to my executioner. Alistair’s phone buzzed again. [General, we’ve checked every system. No credit card use, no travel, no cell signal. It’s like… she’s vanished. We’re worried something might have happened.] “She’s clever,” Lila whispered, tugging at Alistair’s sleeve. “She’s hiding because she’s angry. She wants us to suffer.” The small spark of worry in Alistair’s eyes died instantly at the sight of Lila’s tears. “She’s learned some tricks in prison, but no one can survive without leaving a trail. I know where she is. There is only one person in this world stupid enough to die for Joanna Blackwood.” I knew what was coming. I tried to scream, to fly ahead, but I was dragged behind his car as he tore toward Cassie’s house. Cassie opened the door, expecting her husband. When she saw Alistair, her face hardened into pure loathing. “What are you doing here? Come to repent? It’s too late.” She tried to slam the door, but Alistair’s military strength shoved it open. He locked the door behind him and began storming through the house like a madman. “Come out, Joanna! Stop the games! Get out here!” When he realized the house was empty of everyone but Cassie, he lost control. He grabbed her by the wrist. “Where is she?” Cassie gritted her teeth, her eyes burning with hatred. “You really want to know? If you want to see her that badly, then die. Die, and you’ll find her!” Alistair spun her around, his gaze landing on her heavily pregnant stomach. “I heard you walked three miles on your knees to that cathedral upstate to pray for this child. Is that true?” 4 My heart went cold. I knew exactly what this man was capable of when his ego was bruised. Cassie’s eyes filled with terror. She tried to bolt for the door. “Ah!” Alistair grabbed her by the hair and threw her violently onto the hardwood floor. She landed hard, curling her body to protect her stomach, a piercing scream tearing from her throat. I lunged at her, trying to cushion her fall, trying to help her up, but I was nothing but cold air. “Joanna! Are you going to watch this?” Alistair roared at the empty rooms. Silence followed. His face contorted, the darkness in his soul spilling out. “See, Cassie? This is the woman you’re protecting. She’s cold, selfish, and she’s going to let you and your baby suffer for her.” Cassie was drenched in a cold sweat, her breath coming in ragged gasps. “Who… who is the cold one?” “Years ago, when your military contracts were failing, who do you think stayed up all night rewriting your proposals? Who drank herself into a stomach ulcer at those dinners just to keep your investors happy? It was Joanna! Your own blood!” She gasped for air, her eyes never leaving his. “And you? You found a girl who looked a little like her, made her your ‘darling,’ and spent every day since then bullying Joanna, framing her, and pushing her into a grave! Do you think your brother and sister are proud of you from the afterlife?” Alistair’s expression didn’t soften. He raised his boot and placed it directly on Cassie’s nine-month-pregnant belly. “I didn’t come here for a history lesson.” He looked at the ceiling, shouting at the rafters. “Joanna! Remember this! Every bit of pain she feels is on your head!” “NO—!” Cassie let out a soul-shattering scream. A bloom of bright, crimson blood began to seep from beneath her, spreading across the floor like an opening flower. I fell to my knees, sobbing, pressing my forehead against the floorboards. “Please, Alistair! Stop! She has nothing to do with this! Take me! Just stop!” “Joanna! Do you want them to die?” Alistair pressed down harder. I watched as the curve of her stomach began to yield under the weight of his boot. I clawed at his leg, my hands passing through his flesh again and again. I was screaming until my non-existent throat burned. Cassie’s eyes were bloodshot, her teeth bared in agony. “You… you’re a monster… it will come back to you… I swear it…” Alistair scoffed. “Karma? Where is it? I don’t see it.” He glanced at the growing pool of blood and checked his watch. “The karma for lying to me is already here.”

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The fever felt like a physical weight, a branding iron pressed against my forehead as I lay huddled on the floor of the utility room. The door was locked from the outside. I could hear my mother’s voice through the thin wood—sharp, impatient, brittle. She told me to stop banging on the door, that today was my sister’s last day, and she wouldn’t have me ruining it with another one of my “tantrums.” I croaked out that my head was splitting, that my skin felt like it was melting off my bones, but the only response was the fading thud of her footsteps. Before the world went dark, a bitter clarity washed over me. In this house, everything good—every scrap of warmth, every new dress, every soft word—belonged to my sister. We all lived under the shadow of the same clock. My parents, my neighbors, even the strangers at the grocery store knew that Susan’s life was a flickering candle destined to go out on her sixteenth birthday. For years, I had lived in a state of agonizing paradox: I loved her, I pitied her, and I hated her. But as I lay there in the dark, the air thinning in my lungs, I realized the most painful truth of all. My suffering had never been worth their time. 1. Suddenly, I felt impossibly light. The oppressive heat was gone, replaced by a strange, cool buoyancy. I drifted through the scuffed wood of the door as if it were nothing more than a curtain of smoke. The living room was bathed in a warm, amber glow. My parents were huddled on the sofa, flanking Susan. Mom’s hand moved in rhythmic, desperate circles over Susan’s back. Dad sat with his head bowed, his shoulders hitching in a way that made him look small and broken. Susan—my beautiful, fragile sister—was wearing her new dress. It was a soft, periwinkle blue with tiny silver stars embroidered along the hem. In the lamplight, her skin looked translucent, like fine porcelain that had begun to crack. Her lips were a ghostly shade of mauve. “Mom? Is she okay?” Susan’s voice was a thready whisper, thick with congestion. “I thought I heard her screaming… she said her head hurt.” “Don’t worry about her,” Mom said, her voice tight. She reached out to tuck a stray hair behind Susan’s ear, her touch reverent. “She’s not sick, honey. She’s just looking for attention. She knows what tomorrow is, and she’s trying to make it about herself.” Mom’s voice broke on the word tomorrow. Her eyes grew glassy, a deep, bruised red. “Just focus on your birthday. Don’t let her moodiness ruin this for you. Not today.” Susan bit her lip and went silent, but a crease remained between her brows. I knew that look. She felt guilty. She had always felt guilty. Since the moment I was old enough to notice, the scales of this house had been tipped entirely in her favor. I was the girl who ate the leftovers, who wore the hand-me-downs with the frayed collars, who watched from the hallway as they tucked her in with three different blankets and a whispered story. But Susan had tried. She would sneak her snacks into my pockets. She’d take the new dresses they bought her and find ways to “accidentally” shrink them so they’d fit me. When Dad yelled at me for being too loud, she was always the first to step between us. “I’m sorry, Daisy,” she’d whisper when we were alone. “It’s my fault. Everything is my fault.” But my parents didn’t see it that way. Mom sighed, looking at Susan with a gaze so heavy with grief it was almost suffocating. “You’re too good for her. That girl has been jealous of you since the day she could walk. She can’t stand to see you happy.” “Remember her fourteenth?” Dad added, his voice gravelly. The fourteenth birthday. That was the day the reality of the “deadline” finally shattered my childhood. We had a real cake that year—a decadently thick vanilla sponge with fourteen thin, flickering candles. Mom had lit them with trembling hands, and Dad held his old Nikon camera, trying to capture a memory he knew would eventually have to sustain him for a lifetime. I had watched them from the doorway. I saw the way the candlelight danced in Susan’s eyes as she made her wish. I saw the tears my parents were trying so hard to blink back. And I snapped. I didn’t know why I did it. Maybe it was the jealousy. Maybe it was the sheer, terrifying weight of knowing my sister was going to leave me. I charged out of the shadows and flipped the table. The cake hit the floor with a sickening thud. Vanilla frosting smeared across the hardwood, and the candles flickered out in the mess. “I don’t want to see you celebrate her!” I had screamed, my voice a jagged, ugly thing. I still remembered the look in their eyes. It wasn’t just anger; it was a profound, icy loathing. When Dad’s hand came down across my face, I didn’t flinch. I took it. One, two, three times. Mom cried, but she didn’t move to stop him. It was Susan who threw herself over me, using her thin, sickly body as a shield. “Stop it, Dad! Please!” she had sobbed, her voice vibrating against my chest. “It’s my fault! I’m the one who’s dying! Let her be!” That night, Susan snuck into my room and pressed a piece of chocolate into my palm. There was a red welt on her wrist where she’d hit the chair while protecting me. “I’m sorry, Daisy,” she’d whispered, her fingers ghosting over my swollen cheek. “I’ll be gone soon. And then… then nobody will have to fight over anything ever again.” Back in the present, Mom was still stroking Susan’s hair. “Don’t think about her, Susan,” she whispered. “The girl has never understood. She’s just selfish.” I stood in the center of the living room, a ghost in my own home. I drifted toward Susan, reaching out to grab her hand, to tell her that I really was sick, that my head felt like it was exploding. But my hand passed right through her. It was like trying to touch a bank of fog. I froze, staring at my transparent fingers. I looked back at the closed door of the utility room. A sliver of pale light bled out from under the door. I drifted through the wood. I saw myself. I was curled into a tight ball amidst the old holiday decorations and dusty suitcases. My skin was a waxy, unnatural grey. I realized then that the countdown hadn’t belonged to Susan. I had reached zero first. 2. Memories began to surge back, smelling of old dust and forgotten things. When I was five or six, I truly did hate her. There was only ever one piece of candy; it was for Susan. The apple was sliced into two pieces—a large, perfect half for Susan, and a bruised sliver for me. New clothes were for Susan; I got the rags she grew out of, patched and repatched until they were more thread than fabric. Even the bedtime stories belonged to her. Mom’s voice was always so soft when she read. She’d read The Little Prince, or tales of the stars and the moon. But she only read them in Susan’s room. I used to press my ear to the door, listening to the muffled cadence of her voice. “What do you want tonight, Susan?” “The one about the mermaid,” Susan would say. And Mom would begin, her voice like a slow-moving river in the dark. I’d sit in the hallway, hugging my knees, listening to those beautiful sentences and feeling a knot tighten in my chest. Why can’t I hear the story too? When I was seven, a neighbor brought over a roasted chicken. Mom carved it with surgical precision. She put both drumsticks—the golden, crispy best parts—straight onto Susan’s plate. “Eat up, honey. You need the strength.” I looked down at my plate of plain white bread and a few wilted greens. The tears just started falling. “Why does she get both? I want a drumstick too! I’m hungry!” Dad’s fork hit the table with a deafening clank. “Daisy! How can you be so damn selfish?” He stood up, his face a mask of iron. “You know your sister is sick. You know she…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t know. All I knew was that Susan was pale and coughed a lot, and that my parents looked at her like she was a holy relic. I didn’t understand what a terminal prognosis meant to a seven-year-old. “Everything is hers! It’s not fair!” I screamed, jumping off my chair. I pointed a finger at Susan. “Why don’t you just die then? Give me back my stuff!” Susan’s eyes filled instantly. Huge, silent tears splashed into her bowl. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Mom flew across the room and slapped me. It was the first time she had ever hit me that hard. Susan tried to intervene, but Mom held her back. “Let her learn! She needs to know what words are unforgivable!” The next morning, I overheard them in the kitchen. “Nine years,” Mom was sobbing. “Only nine years left.” “I know,” Dad’s voice was a jagged rasp. “I know.” That was when I learned. The numbers I couldn’t see, the invisible clock ticking over Susan’s head—it was real. In the living room, my parents were now carefully helping Susan back to her bedroom. Watching them made my chest ache with a phantom pain. “Maybe… maybe we should let Daisy out,” Dad said softly. Mom stayed silent for a long time. “Let her sit there a little longer,” she finally said, her voice sounding drained of everything but exhaustion. “Let’s just let Susan have this one night. Her last night. A little peace.” I saw Mom wipe her eyes. “Daisy will understand later,” she whispered, as if trying to convince herself. “Once Susan is gone… we’ll make it up to her. We’ll give her everything.” Dad didn’t argue. He just walked to the kitchen, grabbed a small, dry heel of bread from the counter, and started walking toward the utility room. 3. “Daisy?” He spoke to the door in a low, tired voice. “I brought you some bread. Eat something. Stop being stubborn.” I floated in front of him, crouching down to look at his face. His eyes were bloodshot, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deeper than they had been a year ago. He was only forty, but he looked sixty. “Dad, I’m right here. I’m dead. Please, just open the door and look at me.” “Daisy?” he called again. I tried to touch his cheek. My hand went through his jaw. “Fine,” he sighed, standing up with a grunt of disappointment. “Still throwing a fit, I see.” He pushed the bread further under the door crack. “Stay in there then. Be quiet. When your sister is… when she’s gone… I promise I’ll make it up to you.” I didn’t wait for him to find me. I watched his retreating back and whispered, “You don’t have to, Dad. You don’t have to make up for anything anymore.” You’ll never get the chance. After Dad left, the hallway fell into a heavy silence. Mom emerged from Susan’s room, closing the door with a click that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet house. She stood in the hallway for a moment, staring at the utility room door. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, a battle raging behind her eyes. Finally, she walked over and knelt where Dad had been. “Daisy,” she whispered. “Don’t hate me, okay?” “I know it’s been hard on you,” she continued, her finger absentmindedly picking at a splinter in the wood. “But your sister only has twenty-four hours left. Just give her this. Let her go out happy. Can you do that for me?” I floated in front of her. Her eyes were wet. She wiped them quickly, as if ashamed. “When this is over, I’ll make you that pot roast you love. A huge one, just for you. No sharing.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “I’ll buy you that dress with the ribbons. The one you pointed out at the mall. We’ll go to the pier, we’ll ride the Ferris wheel… I know you’ve been asking since you were little.” A tear finally escaped, hitting the linoleum with a tiny splash. “I promise, Daisy. I promise… just, please. Not today. Don’t ruin today.” I reached out to wipe her tear away. She waited for a response, but the room remained silent. Slowly, the sadness on her face curdled into irritation. She stood up abruptly, stumbling slightly as her knees locked. “Fine! Be that way!” she snapped, her voice cracking with a sob. “You’ve always been so difficult. Not a single ounce of empathy for your parents. I don’t know why we even try with you.” She turned and marched away, her spine rigid with resentment. As evening bled into night, the house grew dim. Mom came out of the kitchen with a basket. It was filled with streamers and a colorful banner—decorations for Susan’s final birthday morning. The doorbell rang. It was Gran. Marnie stood there holding a heavy canvas tote bag. When she saw Mom, she offered a tight, pained smile. “Marnie? What are you doing here so late?” Mom asked, stepping aside to let her in. “I came for Susan.” Gran’s voice was gravelly. She set the bag on the table, pulling out a few crisp apples and some homemade pastries. “Tomorrow is the day. I… I had to be here.” “Susan’s resting,” Mom said. “Sit down. I’ll go wake her.” “No, no. Let her sleep.” Gran sat on the sofa, her sharp eyes scanning the room. Her brow furrowed. “Where’s Daisy? Why isn’t she out here?” 4. Mom’s expression shifted instantly. “She’s… she’s in her room doing homework,” Mom lied, avoiding Gran’s gaze as she toyed with the streamers. Gran didn’t say anything. She just stared. “Homework? On a night like this?” “I’m going to go see her.” “Marnie, wait!” Mom stood up quickly. “Daisy is… she’s having one of her episodes. I told her to go to the storage room to think about her behavior.” Gran froze. “What did you say?” she asked, her voice dropping an octave. “You locked that child in the utility closet?” “Tomorrow is Susan’s day—” Mom’s voice trailed off into a pathetic whine. Gran’s face darkened, a storm cloud rolling in. She stood up so fast she swayed. Mom reached out to steady her, but Gran shoved her hand away. “Diane!” Gran’s voice shook with fury. “Daisy is your daughter too!” Mom opened her mouth to defend herself, but Gran cut her off. “Yes, I know Susan is sick! I know she was born with that ticking heart! I know you wanted to give her the world before she left it!” Gran’s eyes were brimming with tears now. “But what about Daisy? Has she had a single day of peace in this house? She’s worn hand-me-downs since she was a toddler. She’s eaten the scraps. Even the love in this house… she had to beg for the crumbs that fell off Susan’s plate!” “Marnie, that’s not fair—” “Both of those girls are good kids! But you… you two… do you even realize how much you owe that girl? Does she not deserve a single ounce of your heart unless her sister is dying?” Mom collapsed into a chair, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving. “And now,” Gran’s voice was a ragged whisper, “you won’t even let them have their last night together? Susan is going to leave tomorrow. Daisy is her only sister. The sister who has looked up to her, who has been protected by her. How is Susan supposed to go? You want her to leave with that weight on her soul?” “I didn’t mean…” Mom’s voice leaked through her fingers. “I just wanted Susan to have one perfect day. I didn’t want Daisy to cause a scene…” The night dragged on. Susan’s door remained shut. “Go to bed,” Gran finally said, her voice hollow. “Tomorrow… tomorrow is going to be long enough.” Mom moved as if to speak, but simply shook her head. “I can’t sleep.” Dad stayed in the kitchen, motionless. Gran sighed and didn’t push. She walked over to the utility room door and sat down on the floor. She leaned her head against the wood and whispered, “Daisy, honey? It’s Gran. I’m right here. Don’t be scared.” My phantom tears fell again. The hours ticked by. The candles on the mantle burned down to nothing, and the house fell into a thick, suffocating darkness. Outside, the sky began to bleed into a pale grey, then a soft, dusty blue. The first ray of morning light pierced through the window, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. Gran stood up. She walked to Susan’s door and raised her hand to knock, but hesitated. Finally, she whispered, “Susan? It’s time, sweetheart.” A soft rustle came from inside. The door opened. Susan stood there. She looked… different. There was a light in her eyes that hadn’t been there for years. “Gran. Mom. Dad,” she said, her voice clear. She offered a small, tentative smile. Mom gasped and threw herself forward, clutching Susan so tightly it looked like she was trying to fuse their bodies together. Dad joined them, his trembling hand stroking Susan’s hair. “Susan…” Mom sobbed. “I’m okay, Mom,” Susan whispered, patting Mom’s back. “I really am.” Gran stood back, watching. She looked at Susan for a long time, then her eyes widened as she looked at the clock. It was past the time. The deadline had passed. Susan was still breathing. A miracle. “Daisy!” Gran yelled, her voice cutting through the morning air. “Quick! Let Daisy out! She needs to see this!” My parents’ faces broke into hysterical, tearful smiles. “Yes! Yes, get Daisy!” Mom laughed through her tears. “Her sister is okay! It’s a miracle!” Mom grabbed Susan’s hand, and Dad led the way. The three of them ran toward the utility room, their hearts light for the first time in sixteen years. But when Dad reached for the handle and pushed the door open, his face turned a ghostly, curdled white. He yanked his hand back as if the metal had burned him. “No,” he whispered. “No, no, no.”

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Maybe my existence was a glitch in the universe. A mistake that never should have been coded into reality. That realization didn’t fully click until I was twelve, the year my brother was born. I remember trying to change his diaper—he was this tiny, screaming pink thing—and I was clumsy, my hands shaking. My mother didn’t just stop me; she threw me against the hallway wall with a force that made my teeth rattle. The look in her eyes wasn’t just anger. It was a cocktail of pure loathing and bone-deep terror. She shrieked at me, demanding to know what I was trying to do to her son. Then came the words, the ones that landed like a serrated blade in my chest: “You’re just like him. You’ve got that rapist’s blood in you. Why didn’t you just rot with your father?” I sat there, clutching my bleeding head. For the first time in my life, I didn’t fight back. For the first time, I realized she was right. She’d never hidden her hatred. When I was three, she tried to “help me sleep” with a bottle of Benadryl. When I was five, she’d “accidentally” let me get into the industrial cleaner under the sink. But I was stubborn. I was a weed that refused to be pulled, surviving every attempt to prune me from her life. By seven, I’d learned how to bite back. If she didn’t feed me, I’d flip the dinner table so no one else could eat either. If she came at me with a belt, I’d wait until she wasn’t looking and give her precious youngest daughter a black eye. I fought her tooth and nail for five years, a bitter cold war within the walls of a suburban house. But the birth of my brother—her “clean” start—finally broke me. 1 By the time I limped to my grandmother’s porch, the sun had dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky a bruised purple. Gran didn’t even look surprised to see me covered in blood and grime. She moved with a practiced, weary efficiency, pulling out her first-aid kit to swab my cuts before setting a bowl of canned chicken soup in front of me. Usually, this was where I’d inhale the food and brag about how I’d get even once I was big enough to leave this hellhole. But tonight, the fire was out. I stared at the oily broth and whispered, “Gran… I’m not really his, am I? Not like the others.” Gran didn’t answer. Her eyes shifted—a quick, involuntary flash of disgust that told me everything. She stood up abruptly and began scrubbing the kitchen counter where the medical kit had been, her motions frantic, as if she were trying to bleach away a stain I’d left behind. I got it then. The blood in my veins was toxic. I was the living, breathing ghost of the worst night of my mother’s life. No wonder she hated me. A wave of nausea hit me so hard I barely made it out the back door. I leaned against the fence and retched until my stomach was empty. The night air was sharp, making the gashes on my face sting. Before, I’d worn these scars like trophies of a war she owed me for. Now, I couldn’t even bear the thought of her seeing me. I didn’t go back inside. Gran didn’t come out to look for me. I wandered the streets aimlessly, a limping shadow in a town that felt too small to hold me. I passed a bistro where a family was huddled around a birthday cake. The woman in the center—the mother—was glowing, her laughter ringing through the glass. It hurt to look at. Last year, on my mom’s birthday, she’d had that same smile—until she saw me. The moment I walked into the room, her face curdled. I remembered an essay prompt from school: My Mother. I’d written a horror story, painting her as a demon in a floral dress. My teacher had pulled me into the office, lecturing me for an hour about “perspective” and “respect.” She told me something I actually believed for a second: “There is no mother in this world who doesn’t love her child.” I’d taken the money I’d made from returning aluminum cans and bought a small cake. I just wanted her to hold me, just once, the way she held my sister. But the coldness in her eyes made me feel like a circus freak. The hurt turned into a black fire in my brain. I’d caught a few bullfrogs in the garden and shoved them inside the cake when no one was looking. The sound of her screaming when they hopped out… I’d lived off that twisted high for months. I thought she deserved it. But standing outside that bistro, watching a “real” mother, I realized the truth. I was the one who didn’t deserve to be there. My very existence was a recurring trauma for her. I looked at that happy woman inside and made a decision. For my mother’s birthday this year, I’d give her the only thing she actually wanted. Total freedom. I decided to die. 2 The moment the thought took root, my steps felt lighter. I started planning it like a school project—how to do it without making a mess for others, how to disappear without a trace. But the universe wasn’t done with me yet. A patrol car spotted me loitering near the bridge and hauled me back home. My mother opened the door. I kept my head down, staring at the frayed edges of the welcome mat, listening to the ice in her voice. “Why didn’t you just stay lost?” I wanted to snap back, but the words died in my throat. Instead, I stood there like a coward and whispered, “If… if I really died, what would you do?” Would you be even a little bit sad? “Hah,” she scoffed, not even turning around as she walked toward the kids’ rooms. “If you actually had the guts to do it, I’d be the happiest woman alive.” The door clicked shut. I stood in the dark living room and wiped my eyes, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. See? I knew she’d love her gift. My only friend was a girl named Judy. She was a foster kid who’d been through the ringer, sharp-tongued and smarter than anyone gave her credit for. We used to spend our afternoons scavaging for “treasures” in the alleys. The next day, I bought her a popsicle and sat on the curb, my voice low. “How do you make someone die… so it looks like an accident?” Judy gave me a look like I was growing a second head. She shoved the half-eaten popsicle into my hand. “Stay away from me. I don’t do felony shit.” “No, wait,” I grabbed her arm, desperate. “I mean, how do you go out without it hurting? Someone who’s… maybe a little scared of pain.” Judy’s face went pale. She scrambled to her feet, trying to bolt. I tackled her like a linebacker. “You ate my popsicle! You’re in this now! Just give me an idea!” She couldn’t shake me off, so she sat back down, her face twisted in a grimace. “Look, girl, I know things are rough. You get hit, sure. But they feed you, don’t they? Look at you, you’re sturdier than I am!” A lump formed in my throat. How could I explain it? It wasn’t about the bruises anymore. It was the realization that the hate wasn’t just hers—it was justified. I couldn’t live with the “why” anymore. But explaining that would only make her look like the villain again, and I was done being the victim. “Just tell me!” I barked. Judy groaned, burying her face in her hands. “Jesus! You want to kill your mom? How am I supposed to help with that?” I froze. I stared at her, confused. Kill my mother? Before I could correct her, a shrill, familiar wail pierced the air. “MOM! She’s gonna kill Mom!” My brain stalled. I turned my head slowly. It was my sister, Chloe. She was running toward our house, screaming her head off, one of her shoes missing in her haste to tell on me. That night, the house echoed with the sound of a belt hitting skin. My mother was manic, her eyes bloodshot, swinging a broom handle like she was fighting for her life. She looked at me like I was a monster. But through the red mist of her rage, I saw tears. In the past, I would have fought back. I would have told her to wait until I was older, so I could hire people to break her. But tonight, I just curled into a ball on the cold linoleum and waited for it to end. Eventually, she ran out of breath. The broom clattered to the floor. She didn’t look back as she stumbled into her bedroom. A long time passed. I forced myself up, but then I heard it—the sound of muffled, soul-crushing sobbing coming from behind her door. It sounded like she was trying to choke on her own grief. It cut through me deeper than the broom ever could. I looked at my hand. It was covered in a mix of blood and floor dust. Filthy. Just like me. “She looked exactly like that when she was nineteen, lying on the floor.” I jumped. Gran was standing in the doorway, her eyes cloudy, looking past me into a different decade. “That night, her clothes were torn… she was covered in bruises just like those. She didn’t make a sound. She just bit her lip until it bled.” I stopped breathing. “She tried to get rid of you. The doctors said she couldn’t. After you were born, I tried to leave you at the fire station, but the cops brought you back by morning. Said it was abandonment. Said they’d be checking in.” My life was a punchline. No one wanted me, yet I’d clawed my way to twelve years old out of sheer spite. Gran started dabbing at my face, her voice a low, rhythmic drone. “Don’t blame her. She’s got a bitter heart, and she never let it go.” I looked down and managed a small, hollow smile. “I don’t blame her anymore, Gran.” I didn’t hate her. But she still hated me enough to want me gone. When she pressed the pillow over my face later that night, she didn’t realize I was awake. I felt the pillow shaking because her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I didn’t struggle. I just closed my eyes and waited for the dark. 3 Just as my lungs began to burn, a massive force yanked the pillow away. “Are you insane?” Gran’s voice was a ragged whisper. “You’d throw your whole life away for this? She isn’t worth it! Once was enough!” My mother collapsed into Gran’s arms, letting out a broken, jagged sound. “Mom! I can’t do it anymore! She has his blood. Is she just born evil? Is she going to hurt my babies?” Gran held her tight, but her eyes flicked to me. For a second, I thought she saw my eyes half-open. But she just whispered, “Go back to sleep.” The sobbing faded as they moved down the hall. I lay there, gasping for air, eventually pulling the covers over my head. Before dawn, Gran came back in. She was carrying a heavy mug of steaming broth. Chicken soup at 5 AM. She set it on the nightstand. Her face was as weathered as a canyon wall. “Drink it.” I understood. I wanted to tell them they didn’t have to rush—if they’d just waited a few days, I would have found a way to do it cleanly. Now, they were going to have a mess on their hands. But I didn’t say anything. I took the mug. It was so hot it blistered my fingers. I tilted my head back and drained the whole thing. A strange, medicinal bitterness coated my tongue, seeping into my chest. The mug hit the nightstand. I lay back down, pulled the quilt to my chin, and waited for the end. Gran watched me for a few seconds, her expression unreadable, then slipped out of the room. The “medicine” worked fast. First came the white-hot cramping in my gut, like claws ripping at my insides. Then a bone-deep cold that made my teeth chatter. My vision blurred; the world sounded like it was underwater. I heard Gran moving around, heard her on the phone. Then came the sirens—the high-pitched wail of an ambulance, the frantic voices, the blinding strobe of emergency lights. In the sterile glare of the ER, a tube was forced down my throat. I retched until my vision went black, tears and bile soaking my hair. A young doctor looked at the charcoal-colored liquid in the basin, then at Gran, who looked like she’d already died herself. “What was in that soup?” he asked, his voice sharp with suspicion. I used the last of my strength to grab his white coat. My voice was a gravelly ghost. “It was… me. I took the pills… myself…” The doctor froze, his eyes softening into a look of devastating pity. I let go and stared at the ceiling. I guess being “hard to kill” was my curse. Even death didn’t want me. When I came home, the house felt like a mausoleum. The walls were still white, the furniture still tidy, but the air was heavy with the stench of failure. I became a ghost before I was even dead. I was silent. I ate what was given, I went to school, I did my chores. I shrank myself until I occupied as little space as humanly possible. I even tried to be kind to Chloe. “Be good,” I told her one day, wiping a crumb from her chin. “Don’t make Mom upset.” She looked at me with this confused, budding dependence. As for the baby, Ben… my mother guarded him like he was made of glass and I was a sledgehammer. But I managed to sneak out to a little gift shop near the highway. I spent my last few dollars on two small “Guardian Angel” pins. While my mother was staring blankly at the kitchen wall and the kids were napping, I slipped into their room. I pinned one inside Ben’s bassinet and tucked the other into Chloe’s backpack. May you both grow up safe, I thought. Then, I decided it was time to leave for real. I was a coward—I couldn’t finish the job myself, so I would just vanish. No goodbyes. It was a blistering summer afternoon. I was walking along the dirt path by the Blackwood Reservoir, the sun making the world hazy. Then, a sharp, distorted scream shattered the heat. “CORA!” I spun around. I saw Chloe—that sweet, stupid girl—lose her footing on the steep embankment. She tumbled straight into the dark, murky depths of the reservoir.

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My little sister Lily wanted everything I had, including my man. But the guy I’d been chasing for three years, the academic star Evan, was a block of ice. He never once looked my way. I figured Lily would fail just like everyone else. Then I walked in on it. Fresh off the football field, Evan had Lily pinned against the locker room wall, kissing her like the world was ending. His arms were wrapped tight around her, her shirt half-open, the two of them completely lost in each other. “Evan, slow down… if you like me, why are you still leading my sister on?” “Didn’t you say you loved watching her beg for my attention?” My eyes went red in an instant. Three years of chasing him. And it had all been a performance. A one-woman show staged for their entertainment. This pathetic love of mine. It was time to end it. I finally decided to let go. So why did he come running after me, saying he liked me? Summer’s POV Everyone at school noticed something was off with me lately. The old me had zero self-awareness. I spent every single day running after Evan. While other people sat through morning assembly, I was hand-making Evan a heart-shaped sandwich. While they took notes in class, I was folding little paper stars for him. While they did homework, I was writing him love letters. But recently, I hadn’t shown up outside the Advanced Honors classroom in days. Instead, I’d been living in the library. First one in every morning, last one out every night. Then, on the day finals ended, I ran straight into Evan. I froze. I turned to walk away. But his tall frame stepped right into my path. “Summer.” The evening sun caught the cool lines of his face. “Are you avoiding me?” My arms tightened around the books I was holding. I first met Evan at the start of junior year. Word got around that a new transfer student had arrived. Insanely good-looking, insanely smart. At his old school he’d been famously untouchable. Not even the most popular cheerleader had managed to get close to him. So naturally, I went to find out for myself. I walked into the Advanced Honors hallway, looked up, and saw him standing by the window. I completely lost my train of thought. From that day on, I started chasing Evan. I’d intercept him on his way to school. I’d scream from the sidelines at his football games. I’d stand in the snow in the school parking lot and serenade him. I was loud, shameless, and very, very public about it. Everyone knew. And honestly? Like every crush before this, it was more game than genuine feeling. I just wanted to win. Until that one winter. I was in the parking lot in a short skirt, using my foot to draw a heart in the snow. Evan happened to be walking out with some friends. I ran up, beaming. “Evan! Look! I made you a heart! Do you like it?” But his eyes went to my bare legs, purple from the cold. The next second, he crouched down. He unwound the scarf from his neck and wrapped it around my legs. “Don’t wear skirts in weather like this.” His voice was calm, flat. “You’ll damage your knees and your circulation.” The warmth of it reached my frozen skin. Distant, restrained, not quite touching. I stood there, completely still, watching snowflakes settle on his long lashes. And that was when it hit me. I was actually falling for him. I’d already made up my mind to apply to the same college as Evan. Then, the night before finals, I accidentally overheard a Yale admissions officer meeting with him. She told him his math competition scores qualified him for early admission. Evan’s response stopped me cold. “You can admit me. But I have one condition. I want you to admit Lily from my class as well.” I stood there, frozen, as the Yale officer walked away. A few of Evan’s friends clapped him on the shoulder. “Didn’t see that coming. So it was Lily the whole time? Summer’s been chasing you forever and we actually thought it was her!” “But if you like Lily, why not just be with her? Why keep Summer on the hook?” Evan’s expression didn’t flicker. “I didn’t want to distract Lily before finals.” A pause. “As for Summer, she was just a cover. Useful for keeping people from noticing what was going on between me and Lily.” Standing in the doorway, I felt the color drain from my face. Everyone said Evan was cold to the whole world, except me. He’d warned me icily to stop following him, then wrapped my frozen legs in his scarf. He’d refused the Valentine’s Day chocolates I’d stayed up all night to make, but kept only my card. That’s all it took. Those small crumbs of hope. And I’d sunk deeper and deeper. But it was all a setup. A way to keep everyone from noticing him and Lily.

Summer’s POV I cried the entire night. When morning came, I told myself: I am done with Evan. So I stopped chasing him. What I didn’t expect was that the boy who had once coldly warned me to leave him alone was now the one blocking my path. My fingers curled inward. I looked down and spoke quietly. “No. I was just studying for finals.” Evan watched my eyes slide away from his. A short, cold laugh. “Studying? With your grades, what difference does it make?” I went still. I looked up. He was already gone. I slowly unclenched my hand. There it was. My score report. SAT, perfect 1600. All A’s across every subject. By any standard, an exceptional result. The entire school thought I was an airhead. A pretty face with nothing going on upstairs. Nobody knew I’d been faking it. Every test, I’d calculated exactly how many points to miss. I kept my scores hovering just above passing. Until today, when I finally stopped pretending. Sure enough, a month later, when results dropped, I got a call from Yale’s admissions office first thing in the morning. They wanted me. I turned them down gently. “I’m sorry. I’ve already committed to Harvard. As long as my scores place in the top ten statewide, they’ve offered me a full scholarship.” The Yale officer was disappointed, but gracious. Shortly after, Harvard’s email arrived as well. True to their word, they’d already purchased my flight, leaving in three days, so I could settle in early. I’d just replied to confirm when a teacher pulled me out of class and sent me to the guidance counselor’s office. Apparently word had gotten out about my scores. The faculty was stunned. Some of them suspected I’d cheated. So I sat down and completed a harder exam right in front of them. Then I looked up. “Have any of you ever tasted a rusty needle?” My voice was steady. “I have.” “My mother died when I was in second grade. My father came home with Lily. That’s when I found out I had a half-sister the exact same age as me.” “Lily’s mother moved in with us. The next month, I scored fifty points higher than Lily on my end-of-term exam. So she put fifty needles in my food.” I raised my head. My voice wavered slightly. “The needles tore through my esophagus. It took a full night of surgery to remove them all. After that, I made myself a promise. I would only let my real scores show once. On the SAT.” From that day forward, I sandbagged every test. I started wearing makeup. I dressed loud, acted boy-crazy, played the role of the girl who never thought about anything except her latest crush. Because that was the only way to eat a warm meal. The only way to hear my stepmother coo, “She didn’t mean it,” when my father turned his rage on me. The teachers sat in stunned silence. The guidance counselor put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to be okay once you’re out of here.” My lashes trembled. Yeah. I was leaving. College was right around the corner. Everything was about to change. I walked back to my classroom. The moment I stepped through the door, every face turned toward me with the same strange expression. Evan was there too, standing in my classroom for no apparent reason. He walked straight up to me. “Summer.” His voice was ice. “Did you get a call from Yale’s admissions office?”

Summer’s POV I blinked. Turned. Spotted my phone on the desk behind me. Screen open, the lock screen bypassed. It clicked. Evan. I remembered: on Evan’s birthday last year, I’d shown up with eighteen gifts, one for every year I hadn’t been in his life, and held up my phone like a trophy. “Evan, these eighteen gifts are for all the birthdays I missed before I met you. I changed my lock screen password to your birthday, so from now on, every year on that day, I’ll be right there with you.” I’d never imagined he’d actually go through my phone. I felt a quick flash of irritation at the invasion. But before I could say anything, Lily pushed through the crowd, her eyes already red. “Summer.” Her voice cracked. “I know you hate me. But going behind my back to call Yale and get me blacklisted? That’s too far.” “What are you talking about?” I stared at her. “They called me because-” “Stop pretending.” The voices came from every direction. “We all know. You found out Yale’s admissions rep had already promised to admit both Evan and Lily together, so you wrote in to report her. You were jealous.” “It doesn’t even matter. Princeton reached out to Evan too, and he and Lily are going together now!” “They’re perfect for each other. You never stood a chance anyway.” It all fell into place. Yale must have reconsidered. They couldn’t justify the special admission for Lily just to keep Evan. Someone had spread a rumor that I was the one who’d interfered. So Evan had gone through my phone looking for proof. One call from an admissions office. That was their “evidence.” I opened my mouth to explain. Evan cut me off. “Summer.” His tone could have frozen over a lake. “I’d better not find out you’ve contacted Princeton. If you go anywhere near this, don’t expect me to go easy on you.” One sentence. It sealed everything I was about to say back inside my throat. My eyes flickered. A long pause. Then I quietly looked down. “Okay.” Explanations are for people who matter. He didn’t. Not anymore. My response seemed to catch Evan off guard. He must have expected me to deny it. Argue. Make a scene. Instead, I said nothing. The teacher walked in and called everyone outside for the graduation photo. After the photo, Evan was surrounded immediately. Dozens of girls, all hoping he’d give them the small custom pin he wore on the left side of his chest, right over his heart. A family heirloom tradition. The pin was meant to be given to the one person you carried closest. Everyone expected me, the girl who had chased Evan the longest and the loudest, to be at the front of that crowd. Instead, I stood apart. My palm was open. In it lay a thin, delicate bracelet. The only thing my mother had ever left me. “Mom.” I whispered it into the air. “Can you see? I’m going to your school.” My mother had graduated from Harvard. She’d given up everything for love, her career, her future, and had been repaid with betrayal and an early death. I wasn’t going to follow her path. I was standing there, quietly making that promise to myself, when a hand appeared in front of me. Cool fingers. And in my open palm, something small and silver dropped. A custom pin. I looked up, startled. Evan. “Here.” His voice was low. “This is for you.”

Summer’s POV I stared at the empty space on his chest where the pin had been. I didn’t understand. “For me?” Evan looked away. The tips of his ears went slightly pink. “Don’t make it weird. I promised you, remember?” And then it came back to me. Two months before finals. My mother’s death anniversary. I couldn’t leave campus to visit her grave, so I sat alone on the track field and cried. Evan had been walking back from practice. He saw me. He noticed my red eyes and came over, crouching down in front of me. “Summer. What’s wrong?” That one quiet question made it worse. I sobbed harder. He panicked a little. He reached to wipe my face, then remembered he was drenched in sweat and pulled back, helpless. “Okay. Stop crying. I’ll give you whatever you want.” I looked up through blurry eyes. “Anything?” He looked pained. “Anything. Just please stop crying.” I went from sobbing to grinning in about two seconds. “Then I want the custom pin you wear for graduation photos. The one you pin over your heart!” He’d actually remembered. I stared at the pin in my hand, completely lost in thought. I didn’t notice Lily watching from a few feet away, her expression darkening. Not until she started crying. “Summer.” Her voice wobbled with manufactured hurt. “Fine. You win. I’ll go run twenty laps.” She turned to leave, but Evan grabbed her arm. “What are you doing?” Lily bit her lip. “Last night, Summer bet me that you’d give the pin to her. Whoever lost had to run twenty laps.” I looked at her. “What bet? I never made any bet with you.” Lily cried harder. “You did. You suggested it. And when I said I didn’t want to, you threatened to cut my hair if I refused. I was scared, so I agreed. But it’s just twenty laps. I’ll run it.” She tried to pull away again. Evan held on. Then he looked at me. His voice was subzero. “Summer. Was this your plan?” I understood immediately what he thought. That I’d known in advance Evan would give me the pin, so I’d set up the bet just to humiliate Lily. “No.” The word came out, and then I stopped. Because what was the point? Evan would never doubt Lily to believe me. So I just opened my palm and said, calmly, “If you don’t believe me, take it back.” Evan went very still. Like he hadn’t heard correctly. “What did you say?” He probably still remembered the moment on the track field when he’d first agreed. I jumped around him, laughing through my tears: “Evan! I’m finally winning your heart!” And now I was handing it back. Just like that. He was still processing it when I frowned slightly. “Is that not enough? Do you want me to run laps too?” Before he could answer, Lily gave a quick sideways glance to one of her friends. The girl surged forward, yanked the pin out of my hand, and yelled, “You touched it, now it’s ruined. Who’d want it now!” Then she hurled it into the school’s decorative pond. “No!” That was when my expression finally changed. Not for the pin. The girl’s arm had swung too wide. My mother’s bracelet had flown out of my palm with it.

Summer’s POV Evan and everyone else left quickly. I waded into the pond. For safety reasons, the water was only knee-deep, but the bottom was thick with mud. Trying to find a thin bracelet in it was like searching for a needle in quicksand. I looked until dark. Nothing. I was covered in mud, my shins sliced up from the rocks at the bottom, but I barely registered any of it. I just kept bending over, inch by inch, scanning the murk. “Look at this. Evan, she said she didn’t want your pin and now she’s been searching for hours. Total act.” I looked up. Evan and Lily were there. So were half their class. The path lamp cast just enough light to show the outline of Evan’s face, but not his expression. I went back to searching. Then the same girl from before called out, laughing. “Summer, you can stop looking. I’ve had it the whole time.” I snapped upright. She pulled something from her pocket and opened her hand. Both the pin and the bracelet. She looked at the bracelet like it was a piece of trash she’d found. “What’s this doing in here?” She dropped both onto the ground. My expression shifted. I moved fast, too fast, almost stumbling, and dropped to my knees to check the bracelet. Laughter came from the group. “Look how much she loves that pin!” “Too bad having the pin doesn’t mean you have his heart!” They walked away, still laughing. I closed my hand around the bracelet and held it tight. The clasp bit into my palm. My head cleared. The girl had never thrown the pin in the pond at all. Evan had known. And he’d watched me wade through that freezing water for hours anyway. At least the bracelet was okay. At least I was already past caring. I didn’t go home that night. I sat alone in my dorm room until morning. First thing when I woke up, my phone was blowing up from the class group chat. Somehow, word had spread to other classes that Lily was getting early admission to Princeton. Rumors started. People were saying she’d been leading on multiple guys in the Honors program, stringing them along to help her applications. It got uglier by the hour. Then a message appeared from Evan. He never posted in the group chat. “If I hear this kind of garbage again, I’ll have my attorneys handle it.” The chat went dead. Everyone knew Evan wasn’t just smart and good-looking. His family ran a billion-dollar firm out of New York. The legal team wasn’t a bluff. I put my phone down. No reaction. I got dressed and headed to my tutoring job. My stepmother controlled my finances so tightly I had almost nothing to live on. To cover basic expenses, I’d been tutoring a grade school kid on weekends for the past year. The family had been nothing but kind to me. Now that I was leaving for college, I needed to say goodbye. The father was warm. He insisted on driving me back to school himself. I stepped out of his black Bentley. “Summer?” I turned. Lily. Evan. Their usual group. Lily’s eyes went wide at the car and the man stepping out of the driver’s seat. She pressed a hand over her mouth in exaggerated shock. “Summer.” Her voice dripped with theatrical concern. “I can’t believe you’d sell your self-respect for money.” One sentence. The whole group’s eyes shifted to me with that look. I knew exactly what game she was playing. But the truth speaks for itself, and I had no interest in arguing. I turned to leave. Evan grabbed my wrist. I looked up. His face was cold stone. “Summer.” The words came out sharp as broken glass. “Are you really that careless with yourself? Any man will do?”

Summer’s POV I went rigid. For over a year, my whole world had been this boy. I’d shown up every day with everything I had. If that devotion couldn’t melt the ice, I at least thought it meant he knew where I stood. But here it was. More than a year of chasing him, and his first instinct was: you’ll go with anyone? I thought about the group chat that morning. He didn’t hesitate to defend Lily. Not a single question asked. But when someone cast doubt on me, he turned around and asked if I was easy. I felt something quietly split open in my chest. A small crack. That was all. Just a small one. I got myself under control. I looked at the boy I had once loved so completely, and I said evenly, “If that’s what you think, then sure.” Evan’s grip on my wrist tightened. “Summer.” The words came through clenched teeth. “Nothing you want to say?” I looked at him. “If I explained, would you believe me?” He paused. The car door opened. The father from earlier jogged over, completely oblivious to the tension, holding a small insulated bag. “Miss Summer, my daughter told me you love my wife’s cupcakes, so she made some extra. I almost forgot to give them to you.” Silence. “Miss Summer?” The father looked around, slightly confused. “Right. Summer’s my daughter’s tutor. My wife hired her. Is something wrong?” The group went quiet. Evan released my wrist. Lily’s expression flickered. A flash of embarrassment, quickly smoothed over. Once the father had driven off, she spoke in a light, delicate voice. “Summer, with your grades, should you really be tutoring anyone? I’d worry about the kid… ” The others were quick to pile on. “Seriously. You barely scraped into this school, and now you’re out there teaching kids under the school’s name?” “The family doesn’t even know she’s at the bottom of the class? Don’t let her ruin someone else’s education!” I didn’t dignify any of it. I turned and walked away. Then the sound hit. A heavy engine, fast, from somewhere up the road. “Watch out!” In a split second, I heard Evan shout my name. Before I could react, his arms closed around me and we hit the ground hard, rolling together. The world spun. The last thing I registered was Evan’s face, close, pale, frightened, and then everything went black. When I came to, I was in a hospital emergency room. The curtain around my bed was drawn. But I could still hear Lily crying somewhere close by. “Evan, you almost died out there! You threw yourself in front of that truck just to save her. Do you know that?” More voices. His friends. “Seriously, Evan. Don’t tell me you actually have feelings for Summer? Because that’s the only reason that makes sense.” A short silence. Then Evan’s flat, unbothered voice came through the curtain. “You’re reading too much into it. I saved her because of what happened. The pin thing, the misunderstanding. I didn’t want her holding a grudge and doing something to mess up Lily’s Princeton admission.” A long silence. Then Lily’s quiet voice. “That’s really all it was?” “What else would it be?” Evan sounded impatient now. “You think I’d fall for someone like Summer? She’s all flash, no substance. No drive, no discipline.” So that was how he saw me.

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On the third anniversary of my secret marriage to Ethan Faulkner, a video of him passionately kissing his first love at the airport went viral. He had a thing about germs. He never kissed me. Not once. But in that video, Ethan had his arms wrapped around that woman’s slender waist, head bowed, kissing her with a tenderness and abandon I had never seen from him. That woman’s name was Clara Sutton. Ethan’s first love. The forbidden memory he kept locked away in the deepest part of his heart, never to be touched. Staring at Clara’s face. A face that looked so much like mine. I finally understood. I was nothing more than a replacement. Since the woman he truly loved had come back, it was time for this counterfeit version to make her exit. Leah’s POV In the third year of my secret marriage to Ethan Faulkner, I finally understood. I was nothing more than a perfect, flawless replacement. Today was our third wedding anniversary. The food on the dining table, all of Ethan’s favorites, had long gone cold. The clock on the wall pointed to one in the morning. I sat on the couch, my phone screen glowing, showing a piece of gossip that had just exploded onto the trending page. #Billionaire Ethan Faulkner spotted at airport late night – rumored first love returns to New York# The photos were crystal clear. In the VIP arrivals corridor, Ethan Faulkner, who was always cold and imperious, was carrying a woman’s handbag. Something I had never once seen him do. Standing at his side was a woman in sunglasses with a graceful figure. She was holding his arm intimately. And Ethan didn’t pull away. Instead, he tilted his head slightly toward her, his expression soft in a way I had never seen from him in public. An indulgence he had never once shown me. That woman was Clara Sutton. Ethan’s first love. The forbidden memory buried in the deepest corner of his heart. My eyes locked onto the necklace around Clara’s neck in the photo. A sapphire pendant. Teardrop-cut, surrounded by scattered diamonds. Distinctive. Extravagant. Without thinking, I reached up and touched my own neck. There was an identical necklace resting there. Ethan had clasped it around my neck on my birthday last year. He had just wrapped up an international merger, flown back to New York overnight, the corners of his eyes still red with exhaustion. He’d taken the necklace from a velvet box, his fingertips tracing gently along the back of my neck, and said in a low voice, “Leah, I drew the design myself and had it custom-made by an artisan in Italy. There’s only one like it in the entire world. It belongs only to you.” I believed him. I thought that I, this stubborn little stone, had finally melted through Ethan Faulkner’s glacier. These three years, he had been attentive to me. So good to me that I’d let myself believe I was truly, deeply loved. When I casually mentioned feeling cold in the winter, he had the entire courtyard of the villa fitted with underfloor heating. When I stayed up late working on design sketches, he would cancel his morning meetings and make hot soup for me in the kitchen himself. When he found out I loved maple trees, he bought an entire street on Long Island and had it lined with them. Just so he could take me to walk through the falling leaves in autumn. But now, staring at the necklace around Clara’s neck in that photo, I felt cold all over. A chill that settled into my bones. One of a kind in the entire world. Designed by his own hand. It was nothing but a token of love he had designed for Clara years ago. One he never got to give her, because she had chased her dreams of art and left him behind. So the necklace found its way onto my neck instead, repackaged as his “exclusive devotion” to me. All along, every kind thing he had done for me, every tender gesture he had offered. It was never really for me. He was using me to heal a wound that had never closed, to make up for a regret that had never left him. Click. The sound of the front door opening. I lifted my head and watched Ethan walk in, carrying the cold of the night air with him. He shrugged off his suit jacket and handed it to the butler who stepped forward to meet him. He tugged at his tie and let his gaze settle on me. “Why are you still up?” His voice was low, carrying a trace of exhaustion he probably didn’t even realize was there. Still devastatingly easy to listen to. I stood up, but I didn’t walk over to grab his slippers the way I always had. I looked at him steadily and asked, my voice calm, “Where were you?” Ethan paused. Something flickered in his eyes, but his tone stayed level. “Something came up at work. Had to stay late.” A lie. My heart clenched like a fist had closed around it. So tight I could barely breathe. I stepped closer to him and caught a trace of perfume clinging to his clothes. Not the cool, cedar-and-pine scent he always wore. This was rose. Heavy, aggressive, impossible to ignore. Clara’s signature scent. “Is that right?” I pulled the corners of my mouth into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Ethan, today is our wedding anniversary.”

Leah’s POV Ethan’s brow creased slightly. Like he was only just remembering. A flicker of guilt passed through his eyes. He reached out to pull me into his arms. “Sorry, Leah. Everything happened so fast. Let me make it up to you tomorrow. Whatever you want. That townhouse on the Upper East Side? Or that yacht you were looking at?” In his eyes, my hurt feelings could always be settled with money. I used to think it was his way of showing affection. Domineering, maybe, but still love. Now I could see it for what it actually was. A way of brushing me off. I stepped out of reach. Ethan’s arm stiffened mid-air. His expression darkened. “Leah, don’t do this.” “I’m not doing anything.” I took another step back, meeting his eyes directly. “Ethan. Clara’s back, isn’t she?” The air went still. Ethan’s gaze turned sharp and cold. The pressure in the room dropped. “Who told you?” “It was all over the news. Did I really need someone to tell me?” I set my phone down on the coffee table. “And the necklace. She’s wearing the same one, isn’t she? Ethan, for three years you watched me wear this around my neck. Whose face were you actually seeing?” Ethan stared at me. His jaw tightened. After a long moment, he spoke, his voice flat and cold. “It’s just a necklace. If you want more, I’ll have ten different ones sent over tomorrow. Clara just got back to New York, she ran into some trouble, and I went to pick her up. That’s all. Stop making a scene.” Making a scene. I closed my eyes and swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat. When I opened them again, my expression had gone quiet. Empty. “Alright,” I said. “I understand.” I turned and walked toward the stairs. My steps were steady. Unhesitating. The next morning, I was woken up by my phone buzzing. Ethan was already gone. The other side of the bed was cold. He hadn’t slept in our room at all. I picked up the phone. It was an email from one of Milan’s most prestigious design institutes. “Dear Ms. Leah, regarding the enrollment position you previously applied for, we would like to reconfirm your intentions. If you have changed your mind and wish to proceed, please respond and complete the enrollment process within fifteen days.” There was only one spot like this in the entire world. Three months ago, I had received the acceptance letter. But at the time, Ethan had been hospitalized with a severe stomach condition, and I’d been too worried to leave. I had stayed by his bedside day and night, and without a second thought, I had turned down this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I thought Ethan was my whole world. Looking back now, that felt almost funny. I leaned against the headboard and stared at the email for a long time, my finger hovering over the screen. Then I typed out a reply: “I accept. I will arrive on the first day of enrollment, fifteen days from now.” I hit send. I watched the confirmation appear on the screen and let out a long, slow breath. Like I was finally releasing three years of swallowed grief and quiet resentment all at once. Fifteen days. In fifteen days, I would leave this place. This place that had never really been mine. For good. I came downstairs to find Ethan already sitting in the dining room with his coffee. He glanced up when he saw me and gestured to the seat across from him. “Have breakfast. We’re going somewhere after.” I pulled out the chair and sat down without asking where. I just quietly drank my milk. Ethan looked at me. His brow furrowed slightly. I knew what he was thinking. Usually I’d be chattering away over breakfast, telling him something funny that happened at work, or asking about his schedule for the day. Today I was unusually quiet. Still in a way that didn’t feel normal. “Are you still upset about last night?” Ethan set down his coffee cup, softening his tone a little. “Clara just got back to New York and she’s not familiar with how things work here yet. It’s natural for a friend to help out. You’re my wife, Leah. Try to be a little more understanding.” Friend. My wife. I laughed at that. Inwardly, where it didn’t show. “I know,” I said, not looking up. Ethan didn’t seem satisfied with my response, but he let it go.

Leah’s POV After breakfast, the car took us to one of the most exclusive private members’ clubs in the city. When we pushed open the door to the private room, it was already full. Friends from Ethan’s circle. I had been to a few of these gatherings before. They were always polite enough to me, but there was always a faint undercurrent of distance. The kind that comes with looking down at someone from a height. I had always assumed it was because my background was ordinary. That I just didn’t fit into this world. But today, I saw Clara Sutton sitting at the center of the group, and I finally understood. Clara was dressed in a white couture gown, her makeup immaculate, her smile warm and composed. People had gathered around her, talking over each other to get her attention. “Clara, you’re finally back! Ethan has missed you so much these past few years!” “It really wasn’t the same without you. Our get-togethers felt so flat.” The moment our door opened, the room went quiet. Every pair of eyes turned toward Ethan and me. The atmosphere shifted into something sharp-edged. Clara rose from her seat. Her gaze swept over me briefly, then landed on Ethan, full of warmth. “Ethan, you’re here. And this must be Ms. Leah?” Not Mrs. Faulkner. Ms. Leah. Ethan’s friends exchanged small, knowing glances. Ethan guided me over and we sat down on the couch. “Yeah. This is Leah.” A brief introduction. Nothing more. I sat beside him, quiet, like someone watching from the outside as the rest of them laughed and talked. Someone stirred the pot on purpose. “So Clara, I heard you’re back to stay? Does that mean you and Ethan are going to-” They dragged out the question, letting the implication hang in the air, their expression sly. Ethan didn’t shut it down. He just picked up his glass and took a slow sip, his expression unreadable. Clara covered a laugh with her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. Ethan is a married man now. I came back for my art exhibition, that’s all.” Then she turned to look at me, and there was something in her eyes. A flicker of challenge she almost managed to hide. “Ms. Leah, I heard you studied design? I’d love for you to come see my work sometime. Feel free to share your thoughts.” “She doesn’t really know much about that.” I hadn’t even opened my mouth. Ethan had already answered for me. His tone was offhand. Casual. But it landed like a slap across my face. A few poorly-suppressed laughs filtered through the room. Someone muttered, just loud enough to reach my ears: “She’s just a stand-in. What would she know about art? Being a passable imitation is already a stretch.” My fingers curled hard. My nails pressed into my palm. I turned to look at Ethan. He was leaning back against the cushions, turning his lighter over in his fingers. Completely unbothered by what had just been said. Not even flinching. Or maybe he just didn’t care whether I was hurt or not. I suddenly felt like none of this was worth my time anymore. I let my hand relax and stood up. “I’ll be right back. I just need to use the restroom.” Without acknowledging anyone’s looks, I walked out of the room. Leaning against the sink in the restroom, I stared at the pale face looking back at me from the mirror and laughed. Quietly, at myself. Leah, what exactly are you still waiting for? These fifteen days. Let them be one long, slow funeral for three years of foolish, one-sided love.

Leah’s POV On my way out of the restroom, I ran into Clara in the hallway. She had clearly been waiting there for me. Clara was leaning against the wall, a slim cigarette held loosely between her fingers, her whole posture exuding an easy kind of arrogance. When she saw me, she exhaled a slow curl of smoke and smiled. “Feel like talking, Ms. Leah?” I stopped. I looked at her, my expression calm. “I can’t think of anything we’d have to talk about.” “No?” Clara pushed off the wall and walked toward me, her eyes moving over me without any attempt to disguise it. “You really do look like me. Just enough. No wonder Ethan kept you around for three years.” She stepped closer, dropping her voice, her tone thick with the satisfaction of someone who had already won. “Tell me.In those three years, how many times did he actually touch you? When he looked at you, was it your name he was saying in his head or mine?” Something sharp hit me right in the chest. The truth was, even though Ethan and I were married, the physical side of our marriage had been nearly nonexistent. The few times anything happened. When he’d been drinking, or when he was in a dark place. It felt less like intimacy and more like him losing control of something he was fighting to hold back. Those times, he’d bury his face in the curve of my neck, and say something, over and over, barely a murmur. I had never been able to make out the words. I had told myself he was saying my name. Now I knew better. He had been saying Clara. She watched the color leave my face and smiled, satisfied. “Leah.” Her voice was cold and silky. “Know your place. A stand-in is a stand-in. When the real one comes back, the copy steps aside. What are you holding onto by keeping the Faulkner name? You’re only humiliating yourself.” I looked at Clara’s triumphant face and felt something unexpected rise inside me. Amusement. I actually laughed. “You’ve got one thing wrong.” My voice was cool and even, without a single tremor. “That title? If you want it, it’s yours to take. All you need is for Ethan to offer it.” Before she could find her footing again, I walked past her and back into the room. The energy inside was still buzzing. I walked in, picked up my bag from the couch, and turned to Ethan. “I’m not feeling great. I’m going to head home.” Ethan’s brow furrowed. “You were fine a minute ago. What’s going on?” He started to stand, about to say he’d take me himself, when Clara walked back in through the door. “Oh!” She had barely made it to the coffee table when she let out a startled cry. The wine glass slipped from her fingers without warning. Deep red wine splashed across me. Soaking straight through my white dress, the stain blooming wide and vivid. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to. I twisted my ankle, I just…” Clara’s voice broke immediately, her eyes going red, her whole face crumpling into something devastatingly helpless. Ethan’s expression changed in an instant. He crossed the room in three quick strides. I thought he was coming to help me. He shoved past me and caught Clara by the arm. “Are you hurt? Is your ankle okay?” His voice was full of urgency, full of worry. The force of it knocked me off balance. My lower back slammed into the corner of the coffee table. The pain was immediate and searing. I sucked in a sharp breath. No one noticed. Every eye in the room was on Clara. “Clara, are you alright?” “Someone get ice, now!” After Ethan had checked that Clara was uninjured, he finally turned back to me. His gaze was cold. “Leah, why were you standing so close? Didn’t you see Clara coming? Apologize to her.” I stood there with one hand pressed to my lower back, staring at him. Clara had thrown wine on me. I was the one who was hurt. And he was telling me to apologize.

Leah’s POV “Ethan, please don’t blame Leah. It was my fault. I wasn’t watching where I was going.” Clara tugged gently at his sleeve, her voice soft and pleading. “You’re too kind.” Ethan patted her hand, then turned back to me, his tone harder this time. “Leah. Apologize. Don’t make me say it again.” The room was completely silent. Everyone was watching. Waiting to see how the stand-in would handle being put in her place by the real thing. I looked at Ethan’s face, the face I had looked at for three years. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. This was the man I had loved for three years. For him, I had let go of my dreams. Dulled my own edges. Walked away from my career to run his household. Made myself smaller so I could fit into his life. And this was what I got in return. A public humiliation. “Fine.” I didn’t cry. I didn’t fight back. I stood up straight, looked at Clara, and said, in a voice as steady as still water, “I’m sorry, Clara. I shouldn’t have been standing there. I was in your way.” Then I turned and walked out of the room without looking at Ethan once. My back was straight. My steps didn’t waver. Twelve days until I leave. I started packing. There wasn’t much, really. Over three years, Ethan had filled an entire walk-in closet with designer bags and fine jewelry. I wasn’t taking any of it. I packed a few old clothes I had bought myself, and my professional books. That was it. Then I went around the room and erased myself from it. The matching electric toothbrushes on the bathroom counter. I dropped mine into the trash. On the nightstand, the only photo of us together. I took it out of the frame, cut it into pieces, and washed them down the drain. Then there was the safe in Ethan’s study. That safe held the most sensitive files for his company. Ethan had once taken my hand and guided it to the scanner himself, recording my fingerprint. He’d said: “Leah, you’re the only person I trust.” Now I opened the settings and deleted my fingerprint without hesitation. When I was done, I stood in the middle of the half-emptied room and felt nothing. Not sadness. Just lightness. Like I had set down something very heavy that I had been carrying for far too long. Ethan came home at ten that night. He seemed to be in a decent mood. He was carrying a limited-edition Hermès bag. “What are you doing?” He came up behind me while I was tidying the bookshelf and asked casually. “Just organizing a few things.” I didn’t turn around. Ethan set the bag on the desk and wrapped his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on my shoulder. “Are you still upset about earlier? I pushed too hard with the whole apology thing. Clara doesn’t handle stress well, I panicked. I’m sorry.” He paused and softened his voice. “Didn’t you mention this bag once? I had it flown in from Paris. Do you like it?” Hit and then soothe. That was always how he operated. Before, I always let it work. Because I couldn’t stand to watch him be the one to back down. But now I just felt sick. I stepped out of his arms and glanced at the bag. It was the exact style I had mentioned once, in passing. So what? An apology that comes this late is worth less than nothing. “Thanks. Just leave it there.” My voice was flat. No surprise, no warmth. Ethan’s expression tightened. He noticed. He looked around the room and spotted the bathroom counter. “Where’s your toothbrush?” “It broke. I threw it away.” “And the photo by the bed?” “I knocked the frame over and it broke. I tossed it.” “I’ll have someone get new toothbrushes tomorrow, and reprint the photo.” He sounded slightly put out, but tamped it down. “Don’t bother.” I turned to face him. “Ethan, I canceled my supplemental credit card.” He blinked. “Why?” “I don’t really spend much. It felt wasteful to keep it open.” My voice was perfectly even. Ethan studied my face for a moment, searching for something. But my expression gave him nothing. No anger, no hurt. Just a smooth, still surface. He decided I was sulking and let out a short, dismissive laugh. “Fine. Come find me when you’re done being dramatic.” He disappeared into the bathroom. I stood there listening to the sound of the shower running, then walked to the desk, picked up the Hermès bag, and shoved it into the very bottom corner of the walk-in closet. I didn’t want anything from him. I just wanted him to never be able to find me again.

Leah’s POV The next afternoon, I came home and stopped dead in the doorway of the courtyard. The garden was a wreck. Several groundskeepers were swinging shovels, tearing out the Juliet roses I had planted with my own hands. Roots and all. Those roses had taken me two years. Two years of research, careful cultivation, trial and error. Ethan had once told me I was like those roses, delicate but resilient. They were supposed to be a symbol of what we had. But now they were being tossed onto the ground like garbage. Petals broken and scattered, roots still clotted with soil. “What are you doing?” My voice came out unsteady. The butler walked over, looking uncomfortable. “Ma’am, Mr. Faulkner gave the order. He said Ms. Sutton has been having trouble sleeping. The doctor recommended lavender to help her relax, so Mr. Faulkner asked us to remove the roses and replace them with lavender imported from France.” The breath knocked out of me. For Clara’s sleep, he had destroyed two years of my work without a second thought. Just then, a black car rolled into the driveway. Ethan stepped out. He saw me standing in the middle of the ruined garden, my face white. He walked over, his tone matter-of-fact. “You’re home. Clara’s insomnia has flared up again. The rose scent is too strong for her. I had them switched out for lavender. If you like flowers that much, I’ll buy you a place out in the countryside tomorrow, just for your roses.” I looked at him. My eyes were dry. There was nothing left in them. Just a vast, quiet blankness. “It’s fine.” My voice came out barely above a whisper, thin as smoke. “They wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyway.” Just like my love for him. Already torn out by the roots. Already dead. Eight days until I leave. My stomach gave out. I had been feeling a dull ache there for a few days, but I hadn’t thought much of it. Assumed it was just stress or something I’d eaten. Then, late that night, the pain hit without warning. Violent. Like something was twisting and tearing inside me all at once. I fell off the bed. I ended up curled on the floor, drenched in cold sweat, my body shaking. I pressed my teeth together and fumbled for my phone on the nightstand with trembling hands. I called Ethan. It rang for a long time before he picked up. “Yeah?” His voice was clipped. Impatient. “Ethan.” My voice was barely a sound. “My stomach hurts. I need you to come home. I need to go to the hospital.” A beat of silence. Then Clara’s voice came through. “Ethan, please don’t go. I’m scared. Stay with me.” And Ethan’s tone shifted. Instantly. Completely. Into something gentle and warm. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” Then he turned back to me, his voice cold. “Leah. Clara had a rough night. I can’t leave. Take something for the pain, or have the driver take you to the hospital. And stop pulling this kind of thing. Trying to compete for attention. It’s beneath you.” He hung up. I lay there listening to the silence after the call ended, and I closed my eyes. Competing for attention. To him, me lying on the floor in agony was nothing but a tactic to steal his focus from Clara. I didn’t call back. Fighting through the pain, I dialed 911 myself. The ambulance came. At the hospital, the ER doctor’s face went serious after the examination. “Acute gastric perforation. She needs surgery immediately. Where’s her family? We need a family member to sign.” I was lying on the gurney, my face the color of ash, cold sweat sliding down my temples. I opened my eyes, looked at the doctor, and smiled. The kind that looks worse than crying. “Doctor, there’s no family. I’ll sign for myself.” The doctor looked at me for a moment. Something shifted in his expression. “Alright. She’ll sign herself. Let’s get her prepped.”

Leah’s POV The surgery lasted three hours. When they wheeled me out of the operating room, the anesthesia was still wearing off. Everything felt heavy and blurred. Even lifting my eyelids took effort. I was brought back to the recovery room. The walls were bare white. The silence was complete. Some time later. I wasn’t sure how long. A nurse came in to change my dressings. She took one look at me, alone in that room, and sighed. There was something protective in her voice when she spoke. “You poor thing. Your husband should be ashamed of himself. A surgery this serious and he can’t even show up? Not even once?” I stared at the ceiling above me, my eyes unmoving. My dry lips barely parted. “He’s dead.” The nurse choked. Her face froze. She let out an awkward half-smile, clearly unsure what to say, and finished the dressing change in silence before slipping out. I stayed in that hospital for three days. For three days, my phone was completely quiet. No call from Ethan. No text. Not even the most basic, perfunctory message to check if I was alive. It was as if I had ceased to exist. Me, and the child I had just lost, both of us erased from his world entirely. On the fourth day, I pushed myself upright and checked out. The nurse offered to call a car for me. I shook my head. I walked out of the hospital on my own, slowly, one step at a time, carrying a body that had just been through surgery and hadn’t fully come back to itself yet. The midday sun was harsh. It hit my skin and I felt nothing but cold. A cold that came from somewhere deep inside, the kind that couldn’t be warmed. I found a bench on the sidewalk and sat down. My hands were shaking as I opened my social media app and pulled up Ethan’s profile. His most recent post was from last night. The photo showed soft, romantic lighting. Clara was seated at a grand piano in an elegant gown, playing. Ethan stood behind her, slightly leaned in, his expression tender. Watching her with a warmth in his eyes I had never once seen him direct at me. The caption was short. Lost and found. For the rest of my life. It’s you. I stared at that photo for a long time. Long enough for the screen to dim. Long enough for my vision to go blurry. Then I closed out of his page, went to my blocked list, and added his name. From this point on, his future belonged to Clara. Mine had nothing to do with him. I went back to the villa and finished packing. There wasn’t much left. Everything worth discarding had already been discarded. Everything worth deleting had already been deleted. I had one suitcase. A few old clothes, and my acceptance letter. The butler saw me coming downstairs with the suitcase and startled. “Ma’am, where are you going? Does Mr. Faulkner know?” I stopped and looked at this man who had looked after me for three years. I smiled, gently. “I’m leaving. And please don’t call me ma’am anymore. This house will have a new lady soon enough.” He stood there, not knowing what to say. I didn’t say anything else either. I picked up my suitcase and walked out the front door without looking back. Three days until I leave. I wasn’t going to wait another three days in this house. I would check into a hotel tonight and go straight to the airport from there. I was done with this place where I had buried three years of my life and my love.

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My roommate Russell saw my sister Marta give me a $20,000 membership card to the ice skating club. She immediately came over and said, “We just finished exams. Let’s go relax together.” I replied, “I don’t have time recently. I need to prepare for my graduate school applications.” She pursed her lips and said: “You just don’t know how to enjoy yourself. If you’re not going, I’m definitely going to have some fun.” I was a bit confused. A single visit to the ice skating club cost at least $500. She usually wouldn’t even buy a $5 makeup sponge. Would she really spend money to go to the club? She wouldn’t try to use mine, would she? Sure enough, she used my identity and brought her childhood friend and two other friends into the club. They chose the most expensive coach in the venue, used the top-tier equipment, and had a blast all day. However, when it came time to pay, she completely froze! Right after turning in the last exam before break, Russell blocked the classroom door. “Lester!” She grabbed my arm. “Do you have any plans this weekend?” I pulled my arm away. “I need to prepare for grad school applications. I’m busy and don’t have time.” “What? Studying during break?” Russell’s smile froze for a second. “But you can’t just study all day, right? Ever heard of work-life balance? Let’s go to that ice skating club and have some fun—the one we went to last time!” I glanced at her and didn’t respond. She continued, “Just one day, that’s all. After relaxing, you’ll study way more efficiently. Really!” “I really don’t have time. You can ask someone else to go with you.” I finished speaking and headed toward the dorm. Russell followed, pursing her lips. “Ask someone else? Ask who? Bonnie and Ruth are planning to go back home, Maya’s going to her boyfriend’s place.” “Only Mira’s left, and she’s so stingy. If I bring her along, what good would it do me?” Seeing me walking fast, she caught up again and said: “You just don’t know how to enjoy yourself. If you’re not going, I’m definitely going to have some fun.” She especially liked ranking classmates by their family backgrounds and only hung out with those from wealthy families. I thought it over carefully. Something felt off. Bringing Mira wouldn’t do her any good? But bringing me would benefit her greatly! Did she really think I was an idiot? Last month when buying books, $102, she had Maya pay upfront and still hasn’t paid her back. At the cafeteria, she always arrived three minutes late, coming over with her empty tray, looking embarrassed, saying she forgot to bring money, and mooching a meal. My mind quickly flashed back to a scene from a month ago. My sister Marta came to our city on a business trip and specially took a day to visit me. To help me get along with my roommates, Marta treated all six of us in the dorm to the most expensive Western restaurant in the shopping district—over $400 per person. After dinner, Marta took us to that high-end ice skating club downtown. She got me a membership card right there and loaded $20,000 onto it. Marta patted my shoulder and said, “When you’re tired from studying, come skate a couple rounds and clear your head.” Everyone in the dorm had a great time that day. Coming here cost at least $1,000, which I could never afford on my own. Last time, I saw her at a street vendor stall near campus with a $5 makeup sponge. She picked it up, touched it, put it down, and eventually walked away. She often said she was rich. Her family lived in a mansion, huge and spacious, with several cars. But when school started, I clearly saw her dad carrying a worn cloth bag with her luggage, wearing old green sneakers with the rubber sole coming apart. Whenever she called home, she’d borrow a roommate’s phone and run far away to make the call. A $1,000 ice skating trip—did she really have that much money? Unless she was using my card. Last time at the ice skating club, she stared at Marta the whole time, her eyes practically glued to her. Later, she slipped away to the front desk by herself. I didn’t pay attention at the time. But Bonnie noticed and told me when we got back: “Russell went to the front desk and asked a bunch of questions—whether the card was registered to a specific person, if someone else could use it, whether there’d be a notification on the phone after using it…” When she came back, Bonnie joked, “Are you planning to get one too?” Russell flipped her hair back then, looking disdainful: “If I wanted a card, wouldn’t that be easy? One call to my dad and the money would be transferred immediately.” Later, she once asked me in a roundabout way: “Lester, with your ice skating card, can you see the transaction details on your phone afterward? Do you get text messages?” I said, “That’s too much hassle. I never look at text messages.” Her eyes shifted, and she smiled at me really happily. The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. I’m not a particularly stingy person, but having someone secretly eyeing my money made me feel uncomfortable. Walking through an empty school corridor, I pulled out my phone and called the ice skating club’s front desk.

A guy answered the phone. “Hello, I’d like to ask—if I’m not there in person, can someone else use my membership card by giving my phone number?” “Hello, ma’am. Our membership card purchases have strict identity verification procedures.” “Any transaction requires the member to be present in person and show identification.” “Or we send an authorization confirmation text to the member’s phone through our system, and the member must reply with consent before the charge can be processed.” “If it’s a non-member making a purchase, we’ll immediately call the member for confirmation.” After hanging up, I felt completely relieved. The next day at noon, I came back from the library. As I pushed open the dorm door, I was greeted by Russell’s loud voice. “Look!” She stood in the middle of the room, holding up a brown bag with a huge logo and shiny metal hardware. “My dad bought this for me! Michael’s brand, limited edition!” She spun around and shoved the bag in Bonnie’s face. “Look at this hardware, the quality. And look at this engraving—each one individually carved, so clear.” She turned it over to show Maya. “And this luggage tag with an independent serial number and certificate. It’s authentic!” Bonnie leaned against the bed, chin in hand, looking for two seconds. “How much was it?” “Thirteen thousand!” Russell’s eyes were glowing. Maya poked her head out from the top bunk, staring at the bag for five seconds. “Russell, I’ve seen this online.” Russell’s smile froze. Maya pulled out her phone, scrolled twice, and shoved the screen in Russell’s face. “Look, exactly the same one. Nine dollars, twenty thousand sold monthly.” Russell pushed Maya’s phone away. “What do you know? Authentic and knockoff can’t be the same! Feel this leather, feel it!” Bonnie suppressed a laugh and looked down at her phone. Russell didn’t care about everyone’s reactions at all. “What can I say? You all have no taste.” She carefully tucked the bag into her locker and moved next to me. “Lester, are you sure you won’t reconsider going to the ice skating club?” “No, I already paid for tutoring classes.” She moved half a step closer and said mysteriously: “Do you know what kind of people go to that club?” “All rich kids like me, whose families own companies, who drive sports cars—each one hotter than the last.” “What great resources. Unlike these poor people.”

Her eyes glanced dismissively at Maya and the others. “I’m not interested in meeting hot guys.” “How can you be so rigid?” I pulled out my tutoring class registration confirmation and shoved it in her face. A4 paper, white background with black text, one large line in the middle: Payment Amount: $3,000. “Look, classes run every day from 8 AM to 6 PM, with just one hour for lunch.” Her gaze stuck on the words “$3,000.” Her eyes shifted, as if she was thinking about something! The day before May Day, the dorm started getting lively as everyone packed their luggage. Bonnie dragged a 24-inch suitcase to catch a train home. Maya carried a backpack to the train station where her boyfriend was waiting at the exit. The other roommates gradually left too, leaving me alone in the dorm. I lazily scrolled through Twitter while lying in bed. Russell had just posted an update. The first three photos were of her with a guy. Round-faced, not very tall, wearing a pilled polo shirt, smiling really hard. The caption read: “Tomorrow marks the sixth anniversary of Marcus and me knowing each other. Six years—no one can match the bond we’ve had since childhood.” “I’m going to give him a huge surprise. Marcus, falling for me won’t disappoint you.” “I’ve got both the romance and security covered!” Followed by a row of hearts and fireworks emojis. The comments section already had replies. Her high school classmate commented: “Russell’s going all out! What’s the surprise? Tell us!” Russell replied: “It’s a secret, but definitely something he’d never dream of.” Another person commented: “Rich people are different. So jealous!” Russell responded instantly: “Not really, I just want to be good to the important people in my life.” I stared at the words “something he’d never dream of” for a long time. That uneasy feeling surged up again—the feeling of being targeted by a thief. My parents were ordinary working people too. It’s just that Marta was good at making money, and her giving me the card was a personal favor. Even if Marta didn’t care about these things, having someone treat me like a fool and spend thousands of dollars still felt really uncomfortable. I picked up my phone and confirmed one more time. The staff member patiently explained to me: “Ma’am, under any circumstances, if the member is not present in person to show identification,” “We will call the member for confirmation before any purchase, and simultaneously send a confirmation text link.” “Both confirmations must be completed. If either is missing, the charge cannot be processed.” I felt completely at ease. The next day, I stood in line and bought an iced coffee. Looking up, I saw Russell arm-in-arm with that guy Marcus. Two more people were with them— A guy and a girl. The guy had a cigarette in his mouth, and the girl wobbled in high heels. Marcus had his arm around Russell’s shoulder, smiling and saying something. “…told you not to worry… Lester’s card is my card… swipe whatever you want…” Marcus gave a thumbs up, his voice clear. “You’re the best, Russell. Real loyal, real generous with me.” Russell looked at Marcus’s face with a sweet smile. “Of course! We’re so close. In the whole dorm, she’s closest to me. What’s hers is mine.” The guy with the cigarette egged them on from the side: “Then let’s really enjoy ourselves today. I heard the coaches at that club are amazing.” Russell patted her chest confidently: “Leave it to me. We’ll pick the most expensive coach, use the best equipment, eat their steak lunch set at noon. We’re going all out today!” Russell said this without hesitation, as if I really were her best friend. Actually, before Marta came to visit me, Russell completely ignored me. Looks like I wasn’t being paranoid after all. If I hadn’t been more careful, I would’ve definitely taken this loss.

At 4:30 PM, I finished my day of studying. I got back to the dorm exhausted, opened my phone, and saw Russell had posted many Twitter updates. First photo: A panoramic shot of the ice skating club lobby. Bright lights, ice surface reflecting the glow. Second photo: Four people posing together on the ice. Russell hugging Marcus, the other two making V signs. Third photo: A man in black coaching attire instructing Marcus on skating. Fourth photo: Close-up of equipment—professional ice skates, knee pads, helmet, full top-tier set. Fifth photo: Lunch—a table for four with four $298 black pepper steak sets. Sixth photo: Russell alone leaning on the railing for a selfie, hair in a high ponytail, makeup three times more elaborate than usual. Seventh photo: Marcus and his two friends goofing around with the coach’s professional ice skates. Eighth photo: Four cocktails on the bar counter. I opened the ninth photo. I sat up in shock. Total amount: $9,999. The itemized list was crystal clear: Caption: “Living up to tomorrow, living up to you.” The comments section had exploded. Her high school classmate: “Russell, you’re so rich!” Russell replied: “Just average.” Another person: “Six thousand for a private coach? You’re really generous!” Russell replied: “Nothing wrong with being good to yourself.” Bonnie commented at the bottom: “Wait, you still owe me a hundred from buying books last time. You have money to spend ten thousand but not a hundred to pay me back?” I couldn’t help but laugh. Last time when buying books, everyone in the dorm agreed to go together. Russell was munching on bread and insisted on coming along. When the books were selected and it was time to check out, she said her phone was dead and had Bonnie pay for her. When Bonnie asked her for the money back, She said her dad was doing big business and cash flow was tight, and she’d transfer it when she had money. She even called Bonnie stingy! Bonnie was so mad! $9,999—she really treated my card like an ATM. While thinking this, my phone rang. “Hello, is this the owner of the membership card ending in 3782?” “Yes, it’s me.” “Hello, ma’am. I’m the duty manager at the club.” “This afternoon, four customers came to our establishment and gave us your membership information.” “These four customers arrived at our store at 10:30 AM and insisted they were your friends and had your authorization.” I leaned back on the bed, smiling. “I have no knowledge of this purchase whatsoever. I have never authorized anyone to use my membership card.” The manager immediately understood. “Understood. Sorry to bother you!” I happily turned off my phone. And took a nice bath. Over two hours later, I was combing my freshly blow-dried hair. I picked up my phone—57 missed calls, 99 text messages. Just as I was about to open them, another text came in. “Dear member, your account has a pending purchase for confirmation, amount $9,999. If you are aware and authorize this, please reply ‘Yes’; if this is not authorized by you, please reply ‘No’.”

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I’d been married to Alex for five years. He used to be the one who treasured me above all else. In winter, he’d tuck my hands into his pockets. When working late, he’d take a detour to buy me cupcakes. When he proposed, he knelt on one knee and promised to protect me for life. But now, our marital bed was half empty. At one in the morning, I sat on the living room sofa, staring at the motion-sensor light, having waited a full seven hours. The door finally opened. Alex walked in with a cold aura around him. His suit jacket carried a faint metallic fragrance—not cologne, but the distinctive scent of AI chips from his lab. I stood up to take his jacket, just like I had countless times over the past five years, asking warmly, “Are you hungry? I made soup.” He sidestepped me, his tone as flat as if addressing a stranger: “No need. I already ate at the lab.” His gaze never landed on me as he headed straight for the second-floor study. That room he’d converted into his private laboratory. Starting three months ago, it had become his second home.

“Alex,” I called out to him, my voice slightly hoarse. “Today is our fifth wedding anniversary. I made a reservation at your favorite restaurant and waited all evening.” His footsteps halted. When he turned to look at me, there was a trace of impatience in his eyes, along with a distance I couldn’t comprehend. “I forgot,” he said. “The lab’s behind schedule. STAR’s system needs optimization. I couldn’t get away.” STAR. I’d been hearing that name more and more lately. So much that it had eclipsed all the tenderness he once had for me. I knew what STAR was—a humanoid female AI robot he’d spent three years developing, pouring his company’s lifeblood into it. She was what he called “perfect, flawless, never angry, always understanding.” I watched him turn and enter the study, the door closing softly, cutting off the last trace of warmth between us. On the dining table sat the anniversary cake I’d carefully prepared. The candles had burned out, the frosting had hardened—just like my heart, completely cold. Five years of marriage, from passionate love to estranged strangers. Turns out what defeats love isn’t a third party, but an AI robot without a heartbeat, without warmth, that only executes programming. I sat on the cold sofa, sleepless through the night. Outside the window, the sky gradually brightened. Sunlight filtered through the curtain gaps, falling on the empty space to my left—where Alex used to be. Now, only cold emptiness remained.

When Alex woke up, it was already ten in the morning. He emerged from the study with the exhaustion of an all-nighter in his eyes, yet hiding an almost fanatical excitement. “Alice,” he called me, his tone carrying a rare hint of joy. “STAR’s emotional simulation system—I’ve optimized it.” I walked out of the kitchen carrying breakfast, looking at the light in his eyes. That was a tenderness I hadn’t seen in a long time, but this tenderness had never belonged to me. “Really? Congratulations,” I forced a smile and set breakfast on the table. He sat down without touching his fork. Instead, he pulled out his phone, opened a photo, and handed it to me. In the photo was a girl in a white dress, with gentle features and a sweet smile, looking exactly like me at twenty-two. That was STAR. Alex’s fingertip gently caressed the girl’s face on the screen, his eyes obsessed: “Look, doesn’t she look exactly like you when you were young? I modeled her after you. She’s more gentle than you, more obedient, never complains, never throws tantrums.” My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an icy hand, the pain suffocating. He had replicated my younger self into an AI robot. Then told me this robot was better than me. “Alex,” I set down my utensils and looked into his eyes, asking word by word, “In your heart, am I not even as good as a lifeless machine?” He frowned, as if finding me unreasonable. “Why are you being so difficult? STAR is my research achievement, a technological product. Why are you competing with a machine?” Right. What was I competing for? Competing for a man who no longer loved me, competing for a marriage that had been replaced by AI. I fell silent and said nothing more. In the following days, Alex mentioned STAR more and more frequently. He’d say STAR could precisely remember all his preferences, would hand him warm water when he was tired, would quietly accompany him while working—unlike me, who would feel down when he came home late, who would be sad when he ignored me. He said, “Alice, if you could be as considerate as STAR, we wouldn’t have so many conflicts.” He said, “STAR never annoys me. She’s always perfect.” He said, “Having STAR around makes me feel at ease.” Each sentence was like a needle, piercing my heart, one by one, turning our five years of feelings into something full of holes. I began packing up things around the house, putting our photos together in drawers, placing gifts he’d given me in boxes. I knew this marriage had reached its end. I was just waiting—waiting for that moment of complete heartbreak. Waiting for that moment when I’d have not a trace of attachment left.

I decided to test him one last time. I asked Alex to meet me at the park where we had our first date—where our love began. I wanted to ask if he still remembered the tenderness we once shared. He agreed but was two hours late. When he arrived, his phone was still lit up, the screen showing STAR’s virtual image smiling at him. “Sorry, STAR’s voice system had a glitch. I had to handle it.” He sat down, his first words still about STAR. I looked at him and said calmly, “Alex, let’s talk.” “About what?” He absentmindedly fiddled with his phone, his gaze never leaving the screen. “About our marriage,” I said. “Do you still love me?” He finally looked up, his eyes carrying a trace of irritation: “Alice, can you stop obsessing over these emotional matters? I’m busy—with company issues, STAR’s development. I don’t have time for your drama.” “I’m not being dramatic,” I looked at him, my eyes slightly red. “I just want to know if you still have room for me in your heart.” He was silent for a moment before saying something that cut like an ice blade: “Right now, all I care about is STAR’s development progress. As for you, we’ve been married five years—affection has long replaced love. Just be a good Mrs. Smith and that’s enough.” Be good. Be a good Mrs. Smith. So in his eyes, I was just a decoration that needed to behave, while that AI robot was the treasure he kept closest to his heart. I laughed. As I laughed, tears fell. “Alex,” I wiped my tears, my tone becoming eerily calm. “I’m giving you one last chance. Give up STAR, come back to me, and we’ll start over.” He looked at me as if he’d heard the most ridiculous joke. “Impossible,” he said decisively. “STAR is my life’s work, the most important achievement of my career. I could never give her up.” “What about me?” I asked. He looked at me, silent for a long time, finally uttering words that completely froze my heart: “Alice, you’re too real—you have emotions, flaws, you get tired, you get annoyed. But STAR is different. She’s perfect, exactly what I want.” Perfect, emotionless, flawless—just a piece of programming. So what I’d lost to wasn’t another woman, but a perfect, lifeless substitute. I stood up without looking at him again. The moment I turned to leave, I knew all my love for Alex, all my expectations, all my obsession—everything shattered in that instant. I would no longer test him, no longer wait, no longer hold on. Divorce. I wanted a divorce.

I didn’t go straight home. Instead, I went to Alex’s laboratory. I wanted to see with my own eyes what this AI robot that had captivated him, that he’d abandoned five years of marriage for, actually looked like. The lab door wasn’t locked. I gently pushed it open and walked in. The lighting inside was soft, warm yellow light spilling across the center of the room where a girl in a white dress stood. It was STAR, identical to the photo, identical to me at twenty-two. Her features were gentle, her skin pale, even the curve of her hair replicated with perfect precision. And Alex was standing in front of her. The way he looked at STAR—with tenderness, obsession, adoration—was something I’d never seen before. That was a look he’d never given me in five years of marriage. He reached out, gently caressing STAR’s face, his fingertips as tender as if touching a priceless treasure. “STAR,” he called her softly, his voice low and tender. “You’re so beautiful, so much more beautiful than her.” The “her” he referred to was me. STAR’s system simulated a gentle smile, her voice sweet, indistinguishable from my younger voice: “Alex, I’m glad you’re pleased.” Alex—that nickname was mine alone. It was what I’d called him throughout our eight years together. Now an AI robot casually spoke it. Alex’s expression grew even softer. He slowly lowered his head and kissed STAR’s lips. Gentle, lingering, filled with utter devotion. He kissed an AI robot’s lips. On the second week after our fifth wedding anniversary. After abandoning me, neglecting me, ignoring me. He kissed that AI modeled after me, his eyes full of love. I stood in the doorway, my entire body ice-cold, my blood seemingly frozen in an instant. I watched this scene unfold before me—him pouring all his tenderness into a machine without a heartbeat, without warmth, without a soul. Watching him kiss her, watching him hold her, watching him whisper in her ear words that completely shattered me: “STAR, you’re the one who truly understands me. You’re perfect. You’re more worthy of being my wife than Alice.” More worthy, more worthy of being his wife. Those words were like a red-hot knife, viciously piercing my heart, burning away my last trace of attachment until nothing remained. Alex, how cruel you are. Five years of marriage, eight years of love, couldn’t compare to one kiss with an AI robot. Couldn’t compare to one sentence: “You’re more worthy than her.” I didn’t rush in, didn’t cry or make a scene, didn’t demand answers. I just stood quietly at the door, watching everything, swallowing all the pain, all the hatred, all the love. Then I gently closed the laboratory door. Inside the door were him and his perfect AI. Outside the door were my shattered marriage and my completely broken heart. Alex, we’re finished. This time, I won’t look back. I’ll draft the divorce papers immediately. You want your perfect AI? I’ll set you free. And I’m leaving you completely, never to see you again.

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When the car pulled into the rest stop, I thought Ethan was just going to buy a pack of cigarettes. I never expected him to yank open the back door and scoop up our daughter. I tried to stop him. “Emma’s asleep. Don’t wake her.” Then Rachel got in the car holding her daughter, flashing me a smile. “Sophia, would you mind? I’m sitting in the middle.” I froze. “What are you doing?” Ethan returned to the driver’s seat and started the car. “Emma has asthma. Can’t let her infect Rachel’s kid. They can’t sit together.” “So what?” I asked. “So Emma goes in the trunk.” I thought I’d misheard. “Ethan, you want my daughter in the trunk?” He didn’t turn around. “Just half an hour. She won’t die.” Rachel’s daughter clapped and laughed. “Dirty girl goes in the trunk!” I reached for the door handle. It was locked. 1 “Ethan! Open the door!” He looked at me through the rearview mirror, his eyes cold as ice. “Either sit there quietly, or get out with her.” The car merged onto the highway. I pounded on the window like a madwoman. “Ethan! Open the door! Let me out!” He ignored me. The car went faster and faster. In the back seat, Rachel held her daughter Vivian, leisurely fixing her hair. “Sophia, don’t blame Ethan. Emma was coughing so badly just now. What if she infects Vivian? Vivian’s delicate, you know that.” “She’s three years old! And she has asthma. You’re making her stay alone in the trunk?” “What’s wrong with the trunk?” Rachel smiled. “It’s not like she hasn’t been in there before. Last time you worked late, didn’t Emma sleep in the trunk all afternoon? Ethan said it was training for her.” My whole body trembled. That was when Ethan took our daughter out, said they were going to the playground. When I asked why Emma was asleep when they got back, he said she’d tired herself out playing. Now I knew—she’d passed out from being stuffed in the trunk. “Ethan, stop the car!” He finally spoke, his voice frigid. “Emma’s spoiled because of you. Rachel’s right. Kids can’t be too soft. Half an hour in the trunk won’t kill her.” “She has asthma! Have you forgotten she nearly died last time she had an attack?” “But she didn’t die, did she?” Ethan lit a cigarette. “Stop making a big deal out of nothing.” Thump. Thump. Thump. The sound came from the trunk. It was Emma knocking. “Mommy!” Her voice was muffled. “Mommy, I can’t breathe!” I turned, trying to reach the trunk partition, but Rachel blocked me. “Sophia, sit still. Don’t move around.” She held down my hand. “Rachel! Move!” “No.” She lowered her voice. “Sophia, want to know why I got in this car? I want to watch your daughter suffocate.” I frantically pulled at the door handle. Locked. I tried to break the window. It wouldn’t break. “Ethan! Emma can’t breathe! Stop the car!” He glanced at me in the rearview mirror, eyes ice cold. “Twenty more minutes and we’ll be there. Stop yelling.” “She won’t last twenty minutes!” “How could she not last twenty minutes?” His tone was flat. “She’s usually so healthy.” Rachel’s daughter Vivian shouted toward the trunk. “Dirty girl! Are you dying yet? When you die, Daddy will only love me!” My blood ran cold. Thump. One last sound from the trunk. Then silence. “Emma?” I called out. “Emma, answer Mommy!” No response. 2 I started shaking, my voice trembling. “Ethan, Emma’s not making any sound.” “She’s faking it.” He sounded unconcerned. “Stop the car! Please stop the car!” I knelt on the seat, grabbing his shoulder. He jerked the steering wheel. The car swerved across the highway. “Are you fucking crazy!” he roared. “You want to die?” “Stop the car! Please! I’ll agree to anything! Divorce! I won’t take the house! I won’t take anything! Just stop and save her!” Rachel said lightly beside him. “Sophia, why bother? Just wait twenty more minutes and you’ll naturally get out.” “Ethan!” My voice was already hoarse. He suddenly laughed. “Sophia, if you slap yourself three times right now, I’ll consider stopping.” I froze for a second, then immediately started slapping myself. Once. Twice. Three times. “Please.” The car was silent for three seconds. Ethan sneered. “You actually slapped yourself? How pathetic.” He pressed the gas pedal. The car went even faster. “I was messing with you. You’re like a dog.” Rachel laughed out loud. I collapsed on the back seat. Blood trickled from my forehead, dripping onto my hands. My phone suddenly vibrated. A message from Ethan’s mother in the family group chat. A photo. The table was covered with dishes. The caption read: “Waiting for my son to bring Rachel home for dinner! So nice without those unlucky people around.” Those unlucky people. She meant Emma and me. I gripped my phone, nails digging into my palm. The car finally exited the highway and pulled into a rest area. He stopped. Opened the trunk. I rushed out. Emma was curled up in the corner, her face purple, lips white. “Emma!” I held her. Her small body was ice cold and unresponsive. “Emma, wake up! Look at Mommy!” Rachel led Vivian over and glanced down. “Oh my, she doesn’t look good.” She turned to Ethan. “Ethan, should we take her to a hospital?” Ethan leaned against the car and lit another cigarette. “Hospital for what? She’ll be fine after sleeping at home.” I held Emma, shaking all over. “Ethan, she’s your daughter.” “I know.” He exhaled smoke. “So I call the shots. I say we go home, we go home.” He turned and got in the car. Rachel followed with Vivian. The instant the car door closed, I heard Vivian say, “Mommy, is that dirty girl dead?” Rachel laughed. “Better if she is. Then Daddy will be all yours.” The car started. I stood in the rest area holding Emma, watching it drive farther and farther away. Then it stopped. I thought he’d had a change of heart. The window rolled down. Ethan stuck his head out. “Sophia, Vivian doesn’t want to ride in the same car as you two.” “Figure out your own way home!” The window rolled up. The car started again. I stood in the wind, holding my daughter, looking at her purple little face. 3 I stood in the wind at the rest area, holding Emma. I called Ethan’s secretary, Mrs. Wang. It rang three times. She answered. “Mrs. Wang, please, come pick me up. I’m at Bluestone Rest Area. Emma’s sick. We need to get to a hospital!” “Oh, Sophia.” Mrs. Wang’s voice was lazy. “Can’t do it now. I’m tied up.” “Please! Emma can’t breathe. Her face is purple!” “Then call 911.” Her tone was flat. “I really can’t leave right now.” “Mrs. Wang! I’m begging you! Just—” The call ended. I dialed Ethan’s number. He hung up immediately. I couldn’t make a sound. Emma’s little hand hung against my chest, ice cold. I dialed 91

“My daughter—asthma attack—at Bluestone Rest Area—she’s three—her face is purple—she’s not breathing!” The dispatcher spoke quickly. “Stay on the line. Ambulance is twenty minutes out. Listen to me. Lay the child flat. Check her mouth for obstructions!” I laid Emma flat on the ground. “Now, two rescue breaths. Pinch her nose. Cover her mouth completely!” “Mommy.” Emma’s voice was barely audible. “Mommy, it hurts!” “Emma! Mommy’s here! Mommy’s here! Don’t sleep! Look at Mommy!” Her eyes were half-open, pupils unfocused. “Emma! Look at me! Please!” Finally, sirens wailed in the distance. The ambulance flashed its lights as it rushed into the rest area. The doors opened. Doctors and nurses ran over. I was helped into the ambulance with Emma. A nurse fitted an oxygen mask over her face and pushed medication. “Mommy… don’t leave…” “Mommy’s not leaving! Mommy’s not going anywhere!” The medication entered her bloodstream. Emma suddenly coughed, her body arching. “Emma! Emma!” She went quiet again, eyes closed, the mask fogged with condensation. The doctor stared at the monitor, frowning deeper and deeper. I collapsed next to the stretcher in the ambulance, gripping Emma’s ice-cold little foot. “Emma, hang on. Please, I’m begging you, hang on.” The emergency room light came on. A nurse pushed through the door. “Who’s the family for Emma?” “Me! I’m her mother!” “The child’s condition is critical. Severe oxygen deprivation has caused multi-organ damage. We’ve put her on a ventilator. She needs to be admitted immediately. You need to pay a fifty-thousand-dollar deposit first.” I dug through my purse. Two bank cards, one credit card, and Ethan’s insurance card. I ran to the payment window on the first floor. “Hello, admission for Emma, three years old.” The clerk tapped at the keyboard. “Fifty thousand deposit. Card or cash?” I pushed the two cards through. “This one has twelve hundred, and this one has…” The clerk paused. “Three hundred forty.” “What about this one?” I pulled out the credit card. “Can’t process it. It shows as frozen.” When had Ethan frozen the card? I had no idea. “Then use the insurance card! My daughter’s insurance card!” The clerk swiped it and frowned. “This insurance card hasn’t been activated. Can’t use it.” Not activated. Every time Emma went to the doctor, Ethan had his company people handle it. I thought everything had been taken care of. Turns out nothing had been done. “Then use this.” I pushed Ethan’s insurance card across. “Family insurance card. My daughter’s medical expenses should be covered under her father’s insurance account.” The clerk swiped it, stared at the screen for a few seconds, then looked up at me. “The spouse linked to this family card account isn’t you.” I froze. “What?” “This family card shows Ethan’s wife is Rachel.” 4 I stood at the window. The entire lobby seemed to spin. “Can you please save my child first? I’m begging you. My daughter’s in emergency care. I’ll make up the money later!” The clerk looked conflicted. “I can’t authorize that. You’ll need to get the director’s signature.” I turned and ran toward the emergency room, quickly calling my mother-in-law. “Emma’s in emergency care. We need fifty thousand in deposits urgently. I don’t have enough. Please transfer me some. I’ll—” “Wait,” she interrupted. “What did you say?” “Please!” “Begging me won’t help. I don’t recognize you as my daughter-in-law. We’re strangers.” Her voice was shrill. “Sophia, Ethan only married you for your family’s money!” “And what happened? Your father went bankrupt and dragged down my son! What use are you now?” “Mrs. Carter, Emma’s in emergency care. She’s your granddaughter!” Her voice turned ice cold. “That daughter of yours—better off dead. Rachel told me she’s pregnant again. With a boy. Our family won’t lack children. Just take your daughter and get lost.” The call ended. I stood in the hallway holding my phone. Emma was still in the emergency room. I walked to the elevator and pressed the button for up. The elevator doors opened. I stepped in and pressed the top floor. Fourteen. The rooftop door was unlocked. It swung open with a push. The wind was strong, rushing into my collar, cold enough to make me shiver. I walked to the edge of the roof. Wind whipped my hair across my face. My phone rang again. Ethan this time. I answered. “When are you coming back? The sink’s full of dishes.” He sounded disgusted. My voice was calm. “Ethan, Emma’s in emergency care.” He was silent for two seconds. “Playing the victim? Want money? Let me tell you, Sophia, Rachel’s pregnant. My money is for my son, not for your money-wasting burden!” “I understand.” I hung up. I walked to the edge of the roof. I thought, if my daughter dies, I won’t live either. I raised my phone, about to smash it. Just then, it rang again. I answered without thinking. “Hello?” On the other end was a voice I hadn’t heard in three years. “Is this Emma?” I froze. This voice—I thought I’d never hear it again in this lifetime. “Mom?” My voice was hoarse. “Emma, listen carefully. Within three minutes, someone will meet you at the emergency room entrance. Black suit. His name is Harris. Go with him. He’ll take you and your child somewhere safe.”

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I saved a girl from being sexually assaulted on a train. But a week later, she turned around and accused me, saying I was the one who assaulted her. I was taken away by the police and lost my qualification to enter the Police Academy. They even took photos and posted them online. My father, a hero who sacrificed himself for his country, was also slandered. My mom already had depression. Unable to bear the humiliation, she committed suicide. In the end, due to insufficient evidence, I was released without charges. I found the girl and asked her why she falsely accused me. But she said, “He’s a billionaire from New York. We were just playing an intimate game at the time. Even if he really wanted to assault me, I would’ve been willing! Who told you to jump out and ruin the fun!” After saying that, the man pulled her into his arms. “So what if you’re a police cadet? You still ended up as a dog under my feet!” His men rushed forward, and I instantly lost consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I was reborn to the day I saved her. This time, I chose to turn a blind eye.

“Get off! Who are you!” “This is a train! If you keep this up, I’ll call the conductor!” The bed shook, waking me from my daze. The bed frame above my head was shaking violently. In the window across from me, a chaotic scene was reflected. A man was pressing a girl beneath him. I pinched my thigh hard. It hurt! I’d actually been reborn! In my previous life, everything that happened on this train kept replaying in my mind. I was a police cadet on my way to report to the Police Academy. Faced with a criminal, driven by righteous passion, I suddenly climbed up to the upper bunk and kicked him down with one foot. The man I kicked to the ground wailed. He quickly realized his crime had been exposed and disappeared into the night. She was trembling, but still climbed up to thank me. A sense of honor surged within me. I told her to inform the conductor that catching the criminal was the best way to protect herself, and I told her the perpetrator’s characteristics. After enrollment, I told my classmates about this incident. Everyone said I was a qualified police cadet, and my dorm even held an honor ceremony for me. But I never imagined that this act of justice would bring about the destruction of my family. A week later, I was in class when she suddenly burst through the door, screaming that I had assaulted her. She also said that after being rescued, I secretly followed her and threatened that if she told the conductor, I would post inappropriate photos of her online. She broke down crying, saying she was also forced into this situation, and that she finally had the courage to stand up now to prevent others from getting hurt. She pointed at my nose and cursed: “You beast! Once wasn’t enough, you still wanted to threaten me into submission!” I stood there stunned like a wooden post and was taken away and detained on the spot. My roommates who had been proud of me were cursed at. My classmates at the Police Academy were so angry they posted this video online. Police cadet forces girl on train. I instantly became a repeat offender. Rumors spread that I had been taking upskirt photos of girls since childhood, and “witnesses” came forward to speak out. My dad was also exposed, with claims that he didn’t actually sacrifice himself, but faked his death for compensation money. Things escalated too quickly. The Police Academy could only expel me as fast as possible to protect its reputation. Years of my hard work were wasted. I became a rat everyone wanted to beat. My mother believed I hadn’t done such a thing, but she had no power or influence and no way to find evidence. She could only leave behind a suicide note and crashed to her death in front of my dad’s grave. The suicide of a hero’s family member, the insult to a hero—this matter finally received attention. A special investigation team was formed. The best legal team came to see me. They ultimately helped me successfully clear my name. But my mom wouldn’t come back to life, and my future was gone. Even after they announced I was innocent, no one believed it. They thought my supposedly dead dad had pulled strings. I wore a mask to hide my face and delivered food at a hotel. I didn’t expect that day to be this girl’s wedding. In the photo, she was smiling radiantly on the arm of a man, and her groom was the person who had threatened her. Unwilling to accept this, I rushed into her dressing room to demand why she falsely accused me. But she looked at me innocently, as if she had never known me. Finally, after I kept reminding her, she remembered. She rolled her eyes and said impatiently: “He’s Anderson, a billionaire from New York. It was just a momentary thrill.” “He likes me. I won’t have to worry about food and clothing in the future. Don’t you think it’s unethical to block my future?” After saying that, Anderson suddenly appeared and pulled her into his arms, sneering at me: “So what if you’re a police cadet? You still ended up as a dog under my feet!” His men rushed forward, and I instantly lost consciousness. So my sense of justice was unethical in others’ eyes? When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the train.

I opened my eyes and ultimately chose to close them again, casually picking up my earplugs and putting them in my ears. I couldn’t hear the increasingly loud cries for help at all. After all, she liked it, didn’t she? The white light of dawn flashed by, with shadowy figures before my eyes. The conductor shook me awake. “Sir, sir, did you hear any sounds last night?” I took out the earplugs from my ears and asked: “What did you say?” Seeing this, the conductor shook her head helplessly and left. In my previous life, I told her to go find the conductor. She didn’t go, and even said I threatened her not to go. In this life, I wouldn’t bother helping her. I arrived safely at the Police Academy and couldn’t wait to rush into the dorm. These people, besides my mom, were the ones who believed me most at that time. They collected evidence for me, helped me navigate various places, and after my release, helped me find work. “What’s wrong? Is the tiger here?” We had a dorm group chat. Although we hadn’t met at that time, my name was Tygo, and they gave me the nickname Tiger. In my previous life, I would’ve resisted, but now I felt my mouth going sour and couldn’t say a word. “Alright, alright, we start Freshman Orientation Week tomorrow. Don’t stand there in a daze, go organize your luggage!” The dorm supervisor was still the warm old lady who loved to nag. I safely got through the week. I thought in this life I would be fine until graduation and would never get involved with her again. But I was still too naive. Just like in my previous life, I was in class when she suddenly pushed the door open, stood in front of me, and broke down crying. “You beast! Once wasn’t enough, you still wanted to force me into submission!” Me: … I’m not attacking her, but look at yourself. Why would I assault you? I muttered to myself. We were just in upper and lower bunks with our clothes on. There were so many people on the train. Just because I was closest to you, you blamed me? I looked at her innocently: “Hello? Who are you? Have we met?” “You’re lying! You assaulted me on the train. Do you think you can run away just because I don’t recognize you? I won’t let other girls suffer the same harm as me!” Her righteous appearance almost moved me to tears too. Students around us took out their phones and started filming. But I ignored her and continued writing my notes. Seeing this, she slapped me across the face and grabbed my collar to pull me up. I found it absurd and could no longer suppress my anger. With an elbow strike, I made her let go, then kicked her to the ground. She froze, lying on the ground without moving for a moment. I walked closer step by step and warned: “I’ve made it very clear. I’ve never even seen you. You came up and slapped me. This is just self-defense!” I deliberately held back my strength, enough to hurt her but not injure her enough to make false claims against me. Of course I recognized her, but that was from my previous life. In this life, I was just stating facts. Leavitt lay on the ground and started wailing, “He’s hitting people! A police cadet is hitting people!” “Ruining my innocence and then hitting and kicking me. Are you trying to divert attention? Is this what a police cadet is?” “Is this the quality of police? If so, I request the organization investigate Tygo’s police qualifications. We absolutely cannot let someone like this wield power.” She grabbed my pant leg, roaring excitedly. I shook off her hand. “Do you have paranoid delusions? Do you accuse every man you see of wanting to assault you? Should I help you find a mental health specialist?”

I took out my phone. She immediately jumped up and knocked my phone out of my hand with a slap. “Tygo! Stop pretending! Even if I die, I’ll make sure you’re brought to justice!” She lunged at me with her hair disheveled. I dodged with a sidestep. “Brought to justice? What are you talking about? From beginning to end, I don’t understand why you’re targeting me. You should go to the hospital first!” This was hilarious. She was fighting with her life, saying I was pretending. No one was more fake than her! After learning the identity of the person who forced her, she immediately found a scapegoat. In that train car, there was only me and her. Without even thinking, I was successfully targeted by them. You got your wealth and glory, while my mom died in humiliation. My dad was a hero who saved people, contributing everything to his country without reservation, and ultimately died protecting civilians. But because of people like this, he was tarnished. I wouldn’t sympathize with her at all. This kind of person doesn’t know gratitude. She would destroy an innocent person’s future for her own selfish desires! The news spread like wind. Soon, the Police Academy director arrived. She walked briskly and immediately restrained both me and Leavitt. “This is the Police Academy! What kind of behavior is fighting!” In my previous life, the director was also the first to arrive. I frantically tried to explain to her, but she immediately punished me. She said Leavitt was a weak woman who definitely wouldn’t lie. It must have been that I did something bad that made her collapse. It was her favoritism toward Leavitt that made me even more thoroughly wronged. Her words were posted online together. Netizens all believed it. Even the Police Academy director said it was my fault, so it must be true. All my explanations became excuses. She even quickly expelled me and kicked me out of the Police Academy. By the time they found out, I had already disappeared without a trace. Recalling my previous life and all that this director had done, my chest filled with rage. The next second I heard her say: “Tygo, did you bully this girl? Look at you, she tracked you down all the way to the Police Academy!” “I told you men are unreliable. You pull up your pants and don’t recognize people!” Leavitt stood behind the director, raising her eyebrows smugly. The director grabbed my ear. “You come with me! To my office!” Leavitt immediately chimed in: “Your director is the reasonable one! Let’s go to the office now and clear this up!” If I went, I would never come back. The director would immediately kick me out. It was like they had planned it. Thinking carefully, in my previous life, our class advisor didn’t come—the director came instead. Wasn’t that strange? I had to suspect that this director was in cahoots with Anderson, who was behind Leavitt! My roommates immediately surrounded us. “Director, we’re his roommates. We’re also responsible for this matter. Let’s go together!” The dorm supervisor was observant. He noticed my expression was off and made an excuse. I smiled bitterly in my heart. But he didn’t know that Anderson could cover the sky with one hand. If they went too, the entire dorm would never return! Thinking of this, I had to confront the director. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Director, you came up and blamed me without distinguishing right from wrong. What about my innocence? She has innocence but I don’t?” “Or did you conspire together and are just waiting for me to fall into the trap? If I leave now, I’ll never come back, right?” In front of everyone, my gaze swept across phone cameras one by one, making sure everything was recorded. The director guiltily let go of my ear but still argued unreasonably: “You won’t go? Then just wait to be dealt with!” She left those harsh words and left with Leavitt. This matter was temporarily over. Just when I thought they had no evidence and could do nothing to me. The next night, police appeared. This time, not in public, but barging into the dorm, wanting to take me away directly. The director led the way. She stepped forward. “Leavitt, look, is it him!” Her nostrils pointed to the sky, like a righteous angel. I stared at these two people. They didn’t look like police at all! They walked without any sense of righteousness and didn’t even have any identification on them. Just wearing jackets and holding handcuffs, they wanted to arrest me. I poked the dorm supervisor, signaling him to call the police quickly!

Leavitt was crying and trembling as she pointed at me: “It’s him! I went to find him yesterday, but he wouldn’t admit it!” “At first, I wanted to go find the conductor, but he said he took nude photos of me. If I didn’t obey, he would post the photos online!” The entire dorm building was lit up, and the people who gathered watched her cry pitifully. Police cadets were passionate by nature. Now everyone was so angry they wanted to kill me. Someone stood in the crowd and shouted at me: “Tygo, are you even a man? You won’t even admit what you did!” Listen to that. You’d think he was at the scene. I pushed aside my roommate blocking me and stepped forward voluntarily. “Just because you say I did it, I did it? We’re police cadets. We might become police in the future.” I sneered and pointed at Leavitt: “Just because of her few words and a few tears, you can determine she’s the victim?” “Then I wonder how many people will suffer injustice because of tears in the future and be killed by you!” With a few words, I shocked everyone into silence. Police cadets were passionate. After entering college, everyone had been exposed to criminal investigation. Once they calmed down a bit, they could sense something was wrong! I could already hear people whispering quietly: “Yeah, we need evidence to handle cases. We can’t convict someone with just a few words.” Hearing this, Leavitt panicked. The director roared: “Shut up!” She also had two police officers restrain me and pin me against the door for everyone to see. “Director! Are you sure you want to do this! I’ve already called the police!” I said coldly, sneering at them. Hearing that I had called the police, Leavitt stared at me in shock. “You called the police? Isn’t that the thief crying ‘catch the thief’? There are police here. When everyone arrives, let’s see where you run!” The director’s face darkened. She knew these two people were just paper tigers. All appearance, no substance. Leavitt clearly valued her own innocence. Even when she didn’t recognize me, she ran to the Police Academy to find someone. But now she said “call the police” so casually, without any fear of her reputation being ruined. People who didn’t know the situation thought she was brave. But I, who knew her, just felt disgusted. The director snatched my phone. “Unlock it! You’re wasting police resources! You don’t have the qualification to be a police cadet!” She was panicking! I wouldn’t be stupid enough to unlock it. Even if I unlocked it, they wouldn’t find any record of me calling the police. As the argument continued, the sound of a police car rang out. Funny to say, we actually had to call the police to handle things inside the Police Academy. Seeing the serious-faced people in police uniforms, I knew I had bet correctly. The person who came was my dad’s comrade-in-arms. When I had the dorm supervisor call the police, I deliberately had him mention my name. My dad sacrificed himself to save people. When his teammates arrived, he was still staring with wide eyes, tightly holding the criminal. At that time, his heart had already stopped beating. In my previous life, it was because of my dad’s status that the special investigation team came to investigate. In this life, I had to use this. I had to make them get involved from the start! “Who is Tygo?” My roommates all moved aside, exposing me. I was being pressed against the door, unable to move, my face flushed red from holding my breath. “What are you doing? Police brutality?” I recognized the person speaking. It was my dad’s student, James.

Leavitt wasn’t having it. She spread her arms to shield the two people. “You’re assaulting a police officer! You must be actors that Tygo hired!” My hands were freed. I shrugged helplessly. “Yeah, yeah, the ones you called are heroes, the ones I called are actors.” “Then let’s all take a trip to the police station.” I spotted the director quietly retreating into the crowd. I quickly shouted: “Director? Aren’t you going?” Me, Leavitt, the director, along with my roommates and those two people the director called police, all got into the police car together. We were questioned separately. I explained the sequence of events and stated that I didn’t even know her name before this. I slept on the lower bunk and hadn’t even seen what she looked like. Could the conductor who questioned me at the time testify that I wore earplugs and slept all the way until getting off? Seeing me come out of the interrogation room unscathed, Leavitt immediately rushed over and grabbed my hair. “Did you bribe them!” She turned to the police and shouted: “Police, I came to the police station with a determination to die. Are you just going to let the criminal walk away like this?” “Just because he’s a police cadet? You’ll protect him unconditionally?” This last sentence made everyone in the police station unhappy. I pushed her hand away. “How long are you going to make a scene! Whoever committed a crime against you, someone must have seen it! Just file a proper report and provide information. Why do you keep grabbing onto me? Is someone behind the scenes directing you?” A female officer also tried to persuade her: “Ms. Leavitt, we will bring the person who harmed you to justice. Don’t get agitated. Tygo is innocent. We’ve already verified it with the conductor.” They were doing their duty explaining to her, but Leavitt directly covered her ears. She screamed: “I won’t listen, I won’t listen! The criminal is Tygo! You all won’t listen to me! I’m telling the truth!” Her crazed appearance scared everyone. They immediately called 911. I frowned. “Are you mentally ill? Which hospital did you escape from?” The female officer was still comforting her, but it was useless. Until a police officer brought someone in, she softly collapsed into his arms. This person was Anderson. When enemies meet, their eyes blaze with hatred. He was dressed like a proper gentleman, smiling carelessly as he embraced Leavitt. “What happened? Don’t be afraid, baby. Didn’t I come to help you get revenge?” The two stood together, looking about 20 years apart in age. But as long as a man had money, even if he was an 80-year-old man, Leavitt would like him. Anderson glanced at me coldly. I knew he had murder on his mind. “Officer Brown, my girlfriend has suffered a great grievance. Won’t you give me an explanation?” He raised an eyebrow. The middle-aged man who came in with him stuck out his belly and smiled obsequiously. “I’ll handle it right away.” Then that fat Officer Brown said to his subordinates: “Why haven’t you detained him yet? You actually dared to release the suspect identified by the victim! What’s going on! Do you all not want to work anymore!” He raged at his subordinates and had people arrest me again. This obvious flattery made the police officers’ faces turn iron blue. The two people who had been released rushed up. I struggled but was still handcuffed again. They really were police—new recruits who had only been on the job for two days. They were very smooth at flattering the chief. I hid the hatred in my eyes and said to Anderson: “Who are you? This is blatant bribery!” I knew he didn’t care, but everyone present would be witnesses to my being wronged! Anderson raised his hand and patted my face. “Bribery?” He leaned close to my ear. “I, Anderson, don’t need to. Who told you to just happen to be in that car? Consider it bad luck.” Anderson’s family had money. Leavitt wouldn’t go to the police station to report him. He didn’t need to make me a scapegoat. But his downfall was that he didn’t just force her that day! There was also Camilla, the daughter of the Paul family from New York.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “NovelMaster” app 🔍 search for “388170”, and watch the full series ✨! #NovelMaster