1
It happened when my online girlfriend asked for a photo again.
Before I could even react, Hunter Preston, the “Golden Boy” of our dorm, snatched the phone right out of my hand.
“Youâre a two-hundred-and-sixty-pound human tank, Oliver,” he sneered, his voice loud enough for the entire common room to hear. “The second she sees what you actually look like, sheâs going to block you faster than you can finish a bag of chips.”
He turned the screen toward himself, flashing that polished, predatory smile of his. “Iâll send her a photo of me instead. That way, you don’t give the poor girl a heart attack.”
The guys around us erupted into mocking laughter.
“Seriously, Oliver,” one of them chimed in, leaning back in his chair. “Dating online when youâre literally oozing grease? Thatâs not a relationship; itâs a federal crime of fraud.”
I sat there, my fingers digging into the soft rolls of my stomach. I felt the heat rising in my neck, the familiar sting of shame that had become my constant companion. I hesitated, my mind a fog of self-loathing. Maybe Hunter was right. Maybe I should let him be the face of ‘me’ just to keep the dream alive a little longer.
But then, the air in front of my eyes flickered.
A translucent stream of textâshimmering like a live-stream chatârippled across my vision.
[This ‘human tank’ has no idea. His ‘online girlfriend’ is actually Seraphina Montgomery, the billionaire heiress of the Montgomery shipping empire. Sheâs famous for being a ‘gold-giver’ who loves spoiling her boyfriends.]
[Hunter, our ‘Golden Boy’ protagonist-wannabe, already knows this. Heâs been lurking on the same forums. This is his move. He wants to hijack Oliverâs life.]
[Once he sends his photo, heâll replace Oliver at the first meeting. Seraphina is a hopeless romantic; sheâll fall for his face, shower him with millions, and Oliver will be left with nothing but his crumbs.]
I froze for exactly one second. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. I didnât know where these visions came from, but the detailâthe name Montgomeryâfelt too heavy to be a hallucination.
I lunged forward, snatching my phone back with a speed that surprised even Hunter. I scrolled past my recent selfies and found a file buried deep in my cloud storageâa photo from three years ago.
“No thanks,” I said, my voice steadier than I felt. “Because when I get back to my fighting weight, Iâll be ten times the man you are.”
The room went quiet for a beat before exploding into a fresh wave of derision.
“Oliver Bennett, look in a mirror, man! That face is more ham than human!”
“You could walk into a slaughterhouse and theyâd try to brand you,” Hunter laughed, his eyes glinting with malice. He caught a glimpse of the photo Iâd pulled up and his laugh turned into a sharp bark. “Are you high on your own grease? You think some Photoshop from three years ago is going to save you? When she meets the ‘real’ you, sheâs going to be more than disappointedâsheâs going to be disgusted.”
My classmates crowded around, squinting at the screen. In the photo, a sharp-jawed, athletic version of me stood on a track field, eyes bright with a future that hadn’t yet been stolen.
“Total fake,” someone muttered. “The features don’t even match. Oliver, get some self-awareness. If you send that, sheâll have you arrested for catfishing when you show up.”
They didn’t understand. They didn’t know that three years ago, I was that guy.
But then my parents died. A car accident, a rainy Tuesday, a world that suddenly made no sense. Food became my only comfort, my only way to numb the howling silence in our house. Between the grief and the crushing pressure of my Ivy League applications, I had simply let myself go. I ate until I was numb. I became a “happy fat guy” because it was easier than being a “broken orphan.”
But I was done being broken. I had made it to university. I had survived. It was time to find the man I used to be.
I ignored their jeers, my head down, trying to pick the perfect shot to send to Seraphina.
Suddenly, Hunterâs hand blurred. Before I could lock the screen, he wrenched the phone away again. With a few practiced taps, he took a high-res selfie of his own “perfect” face and hit send.
“Look, I’m doing you a favor,” Hunter said, tossing the phone back onto my lap. “You’re too ugly to handle this. If you keep hiding, she’ll get bored. Now she thinks sheâs dating a stud. You’re welcome.”
The shimmering text in the air went wild:
[Hunterâs plan is working! Seraphina is going to fall for him the moment she sees that jawline.]
[Sheâs not just richâsheâs a five-foot-nine bombshell with a heart of gold. Giving her to this pig Oliver would be a waste of a goddess.]
[Go Hunter! A top-tier heiress deserves a top-tier guy, not a basement dweller.]
My stomach sank. I scrambled to unblock the screen, my fingers trembling as I tried to unsend the message.
Too late. Seraphina had already replied.
Seraphina: “Baby… youâre so handsome. Iâm literally staring at my screen. I must have been a saint in a past life to end up with a guy like you!”
Hunter didnât even try to hide his smirk. “Since she likes the photo, just roll with it. If youâre worried about the ending, I can always take your place when itâs time to meet her in person.”
“Hunter is such a saint,” someone whispered. “Oliver, don’t be a dick. He’s literally saving your relationship.”
I was shaking, not with fear, but with a cold, sharpening rage. I looked at the screen, then at Hunter, then back at the chat. I started typing, my thumbs flying.
Me: “Actually, that was a prank. Thatâs my roommate, Hunter. I sent it by mistake. I just wanted you to see what Iâm up againstâbecause honestly? I think Iâm way better looking than the campus heartthrob.”
I didn’t hesitate. I uploaded the entire gallery of my best “Before” photosâthe ones from my athlete days.
This time, Seraphina didn’t reply instantly.
The silence stretched. My heart was a drum in my ears. Beside me, Hunter was reading over my shoulder, his face twisted in a sneer. “You just killed it, Oliver. You just admitted you’re a liar and sent a bunch of AI-generated fakes. Nice job.”
Then, my phone vibrated. An incoming call. Seraphina.
I stepped away from the crowd, my heart in my throat, and answered.
“Baby…” her voice was a breathy, melodic whisper. “Youâre so lean… so elegant. You have this look in your eyes… I canât even breathe. You are way more handsome than that other guy. I want to see you. Now.”
My face flushed a deep crimson. “Wait,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “Give me until the first day of the fall semester. Three months. Let me get my life in order so I can be the version of myself you deserve.”
“Three months?” she squealed on the other end. “Fine! But Iâm going to spend that time getting everything ready for you. Iâm going to spoil you so hard, Oliver Bennett.”
The call ended, and almost instantly, a notification popped up on my banking app.
Wire Transfer Received: $50,000.00.
Message: For my handsome boy. Buy yourself some new suits and bags. If you run out, just tell me.
I stared at the numbers, a dizzying mix of sweetness and terror washing over me. The “Chat Feed” wasn’t lying. She really was a billionaire with a savior complex.
Hunter saw the screen. His eyes turned a dark, ugly shade of green. He let out a harsh, jagged laugh. “You think fifty grand and a few old photos make you a prince? When she sees you in personâthis sweaty, blubbery realityâyouâre going to wish youâd never met her.”
The floating text agreed:
[Whatever. Once she realizes Oliver is a fraud, Hunter can still swoop in.]
[The ‘Human Tank’ is just a foil to make the ‘Golden Boy’ look like an angel. Let him enjoy the money for now; the fall will be even funnier.]
Their contempt was the fuel I needed.
I took that fifty thousand dollars and didn’t spend a dime on clothes. I went to the most elite, high-intensity performance center in the city. I hired a former Olympic trainer and a nutritionist who looked like she chewed nails for breakfast.
“I have one goal,” I told the trainer, looking at my reflection in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors. “In ninety days, I want the man in the photos back. NoâI want him better.”
The trainer, a man named Marcus, didn’t smile. “From today, I own your plate. I own your sleep. I own your pain. Three hours a day, every day. Can you handle that, or should I go find a real athlete?”
I nodded so hard it hurt.
I wasn’t just doing this for Seraphina. I was doing it for the boy who lost his parents and hid under a layer of fat for three years. I was doing it for the version of me that deserved to stand in the sun.
The first day, I threw up twice. I cried in the shower of the locker room, my muscles screaming in a way I didn’t know was possible.
When I dragged my broken body back to the dorm, the schoolâs Discord group was blowing up.
Hunter had posted a photo of meâred-faced, sweaty, and weepingâleaving the gym.
Hunter: “Breaking news! The Tank is trying to become a Ferrari. Place your bets: will the treadmill break first, or his heart?”
The comments were brutal.
“I felt a tremor in the library today. Now I know whyâOliver was jumping rope.”
Someone turned my crying face into a “When the buffet closes” meme.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and looked in the mirror. My hormones were a mess, my skin was breaking out from the sudden shift in diet, and my stretch marks looked like angry lightning bolts.
But Marcus had promised: Trust the process.
My life became a montage of discipline. 4:00 AM runs in the crisp morning air before the rest of the campus woke up. Replacing my triple-bacon burgers with grilled salmon and kale. Instead of collapsing on the couch, I spent my weekends helping my grandparents with their garden, walking with them in the park, reclaiming my mobility.
Seraphina sensed I was distant. She sent more money, more gifts.
Seraphina: “Are you ignoring me, baby? Did I do something wrong?”
Me: “Never. Iâm just working on a surprise for you. When we meet, I want to be perfect.”
A week later, a courier delivered a Cartier Love bracelet. White gold. My initials and hers engraved on the inside. It cost more than my first car.
I tried to put it on, but it wouldn’t close around my wrist. I tucked it into its velvet box. Soon, I promised myself. Soon itâll fit.
By mid-summer, the water weight had vanished. I had dropped forty pounds. I felt lighter, my mind sharper. I checked in with a doctor, ensuring my rapid progress wasn’t damaging my heart.
Because I wore oversized hoodies to hide my progress, the campus still saw “The Tank.”
On the last day of the spring term, Hunter cornered me. “Still hitting the gym, Oliver? Funny, you still look like a sack of potatoes to me. You really going to show up to the meeting like that?”
“I bet a thousand bucks he chickens out,” someone yelled.
I looked Hunter dead in the eye. The fear was gone. There was only a cold, quiet focus. “Make sure you have the cash ready, Hunter. Iâd hate for you to be broke and humiliated at the same time.”
The summer was a blur of the “Plateau.” My weight stopped dropping. My body was fighting back, trying to keep the fat.
But I had Marcus. I had my grandparents’ encouragement. I had the memory of my parents’ smiles.
When I hit the sixty-pound mark, the bracelet finally clicked shut. My jawline emerged from the shadows. My skin cleared. I started taking photos againâblurry, atmospheric shots of my silhouette to tease Seraphina.
Marcus looked at me on the final week. I was 185 pounds of lean, functional muscle. I was 6’0″, tanned, and vibrant.
“Oliver,” Marcus said, his voice actually sounding human for once. “Most people quit at week three. Youâre a goddamn machine.”
I bought a charcoal-grey suit that fit like a second skin. I got a haircutâshort on the sides, textured on top.
The day of the meeting arrived.
I was late because of traffic, my heart hammering against my ribs. As I stepped out of the Uber, I saw a cherry-red Porsche parked by the campus gates.
And then, I saw him.
Hunter Preston was standing there, dressed in a designer suit, holding a bouquet of peonies. He was leaning against the Porsche, talking to a woman whose back was turned to me.
“Seraphina? Hi. I’m Hunter. But… you’ve seen my photos. You know who I am.”
He was using my name. He was trying to steal my life in broad daylight.
I froze. The “Chat Feed” flickered back to life:
[Look at Hunter! He’s so bold. The heiress is speechless. She’s falling for him already!]
[But wait… where is the fat guy? Is he even coming?]
[Doesn’t matter. The loser lost. Hunter is the new lead now.]
Hunter pulled out a printed copy of my “Tank” photoâthe one where I was 260 pounds and covered in sweat.
“This is the guy you were talking to,” Hunter said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “Oliver is a liar. Heâs a pathetic, lonely guy who used my photos because heâs a coward. I couldn’t let him do this to you.”
I saw the womanâSeraphinaâtake the photo. Her shoulders slumped.
I felt a surge of old panic. I wanted to turn and run.
But then I caught my reflection in a store window. I saw the man I had become. I saw the Cartier bracelet gleaming on my wrist.
I took a deep breath, adjusted my jacket, and walked toward them. I didn’t approach from the front. I circled around, coming up directly behind Seraphina.
I wanted to see Hunter’s face when the ghost came back to life.
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Seven months pregnant, I threw myself down the second-floor staircase.
I didn’t want to die.
I just needed to trigger a premature birth and deliver a useless, ruined source of medicine.
In my past life, Harrison carved a full-term baby from my womb and extracted her bone marrow right on the operating table, all to extend the life of his precious childhood sweetheart.
My baby died.
I died, too.
In this life, I won’t give him a single drop of my child’s blood.
He wants to save Angela?
She can wait for death.
01
As I stepped off the top stair, a single thought consumed my mind.
Fast.
Faster.
My spine slammed against the sharp edges of the steps, and my head cracked against the hard marble, turning my vision black for a terrifying second.
Pain.
An agonizing, white-hot tear ripped from my tailbone all the way to the crown of my head.
I didn’t stop.
My body tumbled down the flight, and the baby inside my belly kicked violently.
I’m sorry, baby.
I know it hurts, but you cannot be born full-term. If you reach full term, they will drain every last drop of your marrow.
Before I could roll down the final three steps, two harsh hands clamped onto my arms.
“Ma’am!”
The bodyguard’s voice panicked. Two men lunged forward, pinning me down on the middle landing.
My back pressed against the freezing stone steps as a fierce contraction clawed through my abdomen.
It was too late to stop it.
I had swallowed labor-inducing drugs right before throwing myself down.
Warm amniotic fluid was already leaking down my thighs.
“Get her to the operating room, now!” the lead guard roared into his walkie-talkie.
From the far end of the hallway, Dr. Keller came sprinting over, his white coat fluttering wildly. The moment he caught sight of the blood between my legs, his face turned deathly pale.
“Stop! Her water broke! Moving her right now could kill both mother and child!”
He reached out to examine my belly.
A bodyguard kicked him square in the chest.
Dr. Keller flew backward, crashing into the porcelain flowerpots in the corner. Shards shattered everywhere.
“Mr. Harrison gave strict orders. The child must survive.”
The bodyguard bent down, supporting the back of my neck with one hand and hooking his other arm under my knees, scooping me up from the cold floor.
Blood dripped down my legs, dragging a sickening red smear across the pristine white marble.
I bit my lower lip hard, refusing to let out a sound.
The pain drove my fingernails deep into my palms, but I couldn’t scream.
If I screamed, they would inject me with a sedative.
That was what happened in my past life.
I had screamed in agony, so they plunged a needle into my arm. I passed out, and when I woke up, my child was already gone.
In this life, I would stay conscious.
I wanted to watch everything with my own eyes.
The guards carried me into the third-floor operating suite. The overhead lights snapped on, blinding me with a harsh, sterile glare.
Under the shadowless lamp sat a delivery bed.
It wasn’t a delivery bed.
It was a surgical table.
Equipped with heavy leather restraint straps.
When they laid me down, I didn’t struggle.
Because I caught sight of the man standing in the shadows.
Harrison.
Dressed in a tailored suit, his tie perfectly straight without a single crease.
He stood six feet away from the operating table, watching the guards lift me up, watching my blood soak into the white sheets.
His eyes were completely void of emotion.
No heartbreak.
No panic.
Not even disgust.
He was merely verifying one thing: whether the child was still alive.
“Seven months,” Dr. Keller gasped as he was dragged into the room, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. “Mr. Harrison, it’s only seven months! The marrow isn’t fully developed! Extracting it nowâ”
“Is it usable?”
Harrison cut him off.
Three cold words. Not a shred of hesitation.
Dr. Keller swallowed hard. “Theoretically… if the match is compatible, we can extract a tiny amount, butâ”
“Then that’s enough.”
Harrison turned around and looked down at me on the table.
I lay flat on my back, sweat-soaked hair sticking to my forehead, staring blankly up at the surgical lights.
He took a step closer.
His polished leather shoes stepped onto the fresh blood dripping from the table, making a faint, sickening squelch.
“Stella.”
He called my name.
His tone was completely flat, as if calling out an inventory serial number.
“If you cooperate, I’ll give you a sum of money afterward. Enough for you to live comfortably for the rest of your life.”
I didn’t look at him.
I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling as a slow, bitter smile spread across my face.
In my past life, he had spoken those exact same words.
And then what?
He handed me a death certificate.
“Harrison,” my voice was horribly raspy. “Do you really think a seven-month-old preemie’s marrow can match Angela?”
His brow furrowed slightly.
I continued softly, “I took iron-blockers every single day for three months.”
His frown deepened into a harsh glare.
“What does that mean?”
I turned my head and finally met his gaze.
As blood poured from my body and pain wracked me with violent shivers, I laughed.
“It means this child’s blood is completely ruined.”
Harrison’s pupils contracted sharply.
For the first time since my rebirth, I saw a crack in his icy mask.
“What did you say?”
His voice dropped into a dangerous murmur, like the suffocating air right before a storm.
Dr. Keller froze before lunging wildly toward the diagnostic equipment, pulling a lab report. “Quick! Draw her blood and run a test!”
I closed my eyes.
Run all the tests you want.
I had spent three months crushing those pills into powder and mixing them into my meals.
I threw up every single day.
I used the crudest, most agonizing method to turn my own blood into toxic waste.
Angela wanted my child’s bone marrow?
Take it.
Not a single drop of it would ever save her life.
The baby was born forty minutes later.
She was tiny.
Her skin was a faint purplish-blue, her cries as weak and fragile as a newborn kitten.
When the nurse placed her onto the scale, I gathered the very last thread of my strength to turn my head.
Three pounds, four ounces.
So impossibly small.
But she was alive.
As long as she was breathing, that was enough.
Harrison didn’t offer the baby a single glance.
He stared at the lab report in Dr. Keller’s trembling hands, his knuckles turning white as he crumpled the paper in his grip.
“Hemoglobin abnormal… iron levels extremely low… marrow activity evaluation… fails to meet transplant standards.”
Dr. Keller’s voice grew smaller and smaller until he pulled his neck back, terrified to speak another word.
The operating room fell dead silent for three agonizing seconds.
Then Harrison slammed the report onto the floor.
The paper fluttered to the edge of my bed, soaking up my blood.
“Stella.”
He turned toward me, his eyes burning with a rage I had never seen before.
Yet, it was merely rage.
Not a shred of heartbreak.
He was furious simply because his precious white lotus was out of options.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
He strode over, his fingers clamping down on my jaw with enough force to crush my cheekbones.
I was forced to tilt my head up and face his eyes.
In those dark eyes, I couldn’t find a single trace of emotion belonging to a husband.
I let out a weak laugh.
“I’m… saving my child’s life.”
His grip tightened violently.
“Angela only has two months left!”
“Then let her die.”
The moment I uttered those words, Harrison’s hand suddenly loosened.
Not out of mercy.
He was completely stunned by my coldness.
He took a step back, staring at me as if looking at a complete stranger.
Yes.
I was a stranger now.
The weak Stella who had begged on her knees for her baby’s life in my past life was already dead.
She died right on that very same operating table.
02
They carried the baby away.
I knew they would.
I wasn’t afraid, because her blood was useless to them right now.
Once they realized no usable marrow could be harvested, they would bring her back to me.
In my past life, I hadn’t understood any of this.
I had been foolishly naive, eating every strict nutritional meal they provided from day one of my pregnancy. Every single dish had been precisely calculated, not for my health, but to ensure the fetus’s bone marrow reached prime condition for harvesting.
I was fattened up for nine months.
Like livestock raised for slaughter.
On the day of the forced C-section, before the anesthesia had even fully taken effect, I heard my baby cry once.
Just once.
She never made another sound.
Later, when I went into severe hemorrhaging, Harrison stood outside the operating suite and signed the DNR without a second thought.
Dr. Keller later confessed to me in secret, back when I was already a ghost, that Harrison’s hand hadn’t trembled for a fraction of a second when he signed my death warrant.
Angela had sat in her wheelchair nearby, wrapped in a cozy blanket, smiling sweetly.
She had said, “Harrison, maybe it’s better that Stella passed away. She was always so unhappy. Staying alive was just suffering for her.”
Harrison had simply nodded.
“Yes. I’ll arrange a dignified funeral for her.”
Dignified.
He had summed up my entire agonizing life with that single word.
When I heard those words in the depths of hell, I didn’t even have the energy to hate him anymore.
I only thought, If there is a next life, I will never marry this man again.
God must have thought I was pathetic enough to grant me a second chance.
When I opened my eyes, I was back at four months pregnant.
The baby was still safe in my belly.
Angela’s condition hadn’t rapidly deteriorated yet.
Harrison hadn’t made his move against me.
That day, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling for an entire hour.
Then I turned over, opened my phone, and searched: Iron-blockers side effects pregnant women.
Now, it was three days after the birth.
I was locked inside the third-floor bedroom. The windows were nailed shut, and two guards stood outside the door.
In name, I was “recuperating.”
In reality, Harrison was waiting for a new medical plan.
He was waiting for Dr. Keller to tell him whether there was a way to fix my baby’s blood.
Dr. Keller came to check on me once today.
His hands shook as he changed my dressings.
“Mrs. Harrison… how many of those pills did you take?”
“Three months’ worth.”
His hands trembled harder, nearly spilling the iodine across my wound.
“Her hematological system will take at least six months to naturally recover!”
“I know.”
“Six months… Miss Angela can’t survive six months!”
“I know.”
Dr. Keller looked up at me.
I stared back at him with a completely emotionless expression.
He suddenly set the iodine bottle down, lowering his voice into a whisper. “Mrs. Harrison, you did this on purpose.”
“What do you think?”
He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
As a family doctor who had served the family for a decade, he had witnessed far too many dark secrets. He knew exactly why I had done it, but he didn’t dare say it out loud.
Because speaking the truth meant taking a side.
And taking my side against Harrison was equivalent to seeking a death sentence.
“Dr. Keller,” I called out to him as he turned away.
He paused.
“When will they give my child back to me?”
He avoided my gaze. “That… depends on Mr. Harrison.”
A cold smile touched my lips.
As expected.
Even though he knew the child’s bone marrow was currently useless, he wouldn’t let her go.
Because he needed a backup plan.
What if another medical trick worked?
What if they could artificially rush her recovery?
In Harrison’s world, my baby and I had never been human beings.
We were medicine.
We were disposable resources meant to extend Angela’s life.
In my past life, I hadn’t understood this truth, begging him from pregnancy until my death.
In this life, I wouldn’t waste another second pleading with him.
On the fourth night, Harrison finally arrived.
I heard the heavy turn of the door lock and sat up in bed.
When he pushed the door open, he brought a draft of cold air with him, carrying the faint scent of hospital disinfectant.
He had come straight from the hospital.
From Angela’s bedside.
“Stella.”
He stood at the threshold, keeping his hands jammed in his trousers pockets, staring at me.
Only the small lamp beside my bed was turned on, its warm yellow glow splitting his face in two. One side lit up, the other buried in darkness.
I sat on the bed and waited for him to speak.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Four simple words, straight to the point.
No accusations about me ruining the baby’s blood.
No interrogation about why I threw myself down the stairs.
He simply asked what I wanted.
Because in his eyes, everything I had done was merely a desperate tactic to negotiate terms.
In my past life, I would have broken down crying.
I would have thrown myself at his feet, hugging his legs, begging him not to take my baby away.
In this life, I leaned calmly against the headboard, resting my hands neatly over my lap.
“A divorce.”
He remained silent.
“I’ll walk away with nothing. I don’t want a single penny. Just let me take my baby and leave.”
He still didn’t say a word.
Three seconds later, a faint smile touched his lips.
It wasn’t a smile of mockery.
It was the kind of patronizing smile that said, I knew you were going to say that.
“And then what? You take a premature infant, with no money, no job, and nowhere to live. How long do you think you’ll survive?”
“That’s my business.”
“Stella,” he walked over slowly, crouching beside my bed so his eyes were level with mine. “Don’t you think you’re making a foolish decision?”
His tone was remarkably gentle.
Like an adult patiently reasoning with a stubborn child.
Looking into his deep, dark eyes, a chill ran straight down my spine.
Because I saw patience in them.
He was being patient enough to negotiate with me.
Patience meant he had an underlying motive.
An underlying motive meant he still hadn’t given up on using my child.
“Harrison,” I leaned back an inch, my spine pressing against the cold wooden headboard. “If you don’t agree to a divorce, I will expose your plan to harvest a baby’s bone marrow to the public.”
His composure finally cracked.
It was a tiny, subtle shift, a slight twitch between his brows as the gentle facade vanished, revealing the ice beneath.
“Are you threatening me?”
“What do you think?”
He stood up, looking down at me.
It was the third day after my forced delivery. My face was as pale as paper, my lips devoid of color, and tubes were still attached to my body.
I must have looked utterly pathetic.
Yet, I didn’t flinch from his glare.
In my past life, he had always used this exact patronizing stance to force me to bow my head and apologize.
Silence stretched between us for a long time.
Then he spoke.
“Stella, I can agree to a divorce.”
My chest tightened.
Too fast.
He agreed far too quickly.
“But not right now,” he added calmly. “Angela’s treatment still needs time. Once she stabilizes, I will sign the papers.”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m offering you a dignified exit.”
Dignified again.
He truly loved that word.
“And what if I refuse?”
He didn’t answer my question.
He turned around, walked to the door, and pulled it open.
The bodyguard standing outside stepped aside to make way.
“The child is in the newborn room downstairs,” he said without turning back. “You can visit her if you want. But you cannot take her.”
The door shut behind him.
The heavy lock clicked back into place.
I sat on the bed, my fingers gripping the bedsheet tightly.
He had agreed so easily because he was absolute certain that I couldn’t escape.
I had no money, no identification documents, and even my phone had been confiscated. Outside the newborn room downstairs stood nurses, bodyguards, and security cameras.
He was keeping my baby and me trapped inside the exact same building.
Close enough to see, but impossible to touch.
This was far more twisted than his cruelty in my past life.
What he didn’t know was that during those three months I spent taking those pills, I wasn’t just destroying my child’s blood.
I had set another plan in motion.
During one of my prenatal checkups, I had quietly stolen a business card from Dr. Keller’s coat pocket.
It belonged to his former classmate, Dr. Bennett, the head of hematology at the State University Hospital.
That man had no ties to Harrison.
Three months ago, Dr. Bennett had publicly raised ethical concerns regarding the harvesting of bone marrow from infant donors during a medical conference.
I needed an outside ally.
Someone Harrison couldn’t buy off.
Now, all I needed was an opportunity to get the message out.
03
The opportunity came sooner than I expected.
On the afternoon of the fifth day, the bodyguards made a minor slip-up during their shift change.
A guard had been on duty for eight hours straight, leaving his post only once for a quick restroom break. The guard supposed to replace him at 3:00 PM was ten minutes late, rumor had it he had been called downstairs by Harrison to move some heavy equipment.
Ten minutes was all I had.
Peering through the crack in the bedroom door, I saw the hallway was completely empty.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
I didn’t sprint out.
Instead, I pushed the door open, slipped into the storage room at the end of the hall, and picked up the extension landline phone.
The landlines in this mansion operated on an internal network. It could make outside calls, but every single call log was automatically recorded and synced to the master server in Harrison’s study.
I was fully aware of this.
Which meant I only had one single chance.
The moment I dialed out, whether the call connected or not, a record would be created.
I was gambling on Harrison not returning home today.
Because this afternoon, Angela had a crucial medical consultation with a specialist team.
Dr. Keller had let it slip during morning rounds, mentioning that Harrison would be attending Angela’s expert panel meeting all afternoon.
Squatting inside the storage room, my fingers dialed the phone number I had memorized over the past three months.
Ring… ring… ring…
After three rings, a voice answered.
“Hello, who is this?”
A middle-aged male voice with a slight regional accent.
My throat went so dry I could barely squeeze out a sound.
“…Hello, is this Dr. Bennett?”
“Speaking. Who’s calling?”
“I’m… a friend of Dr. Keller’s.”
Dr. Keller’s real name was Arthur Keller. I used his name as my golden ticket.
“Oh? Arthur’s friend? What can I do for you?”
“Dr. Bennett, I need to consult you on a matter,” I kept my voice down to a whisper, my eyes darting frantically toward the hallway outside. “If a newborn under a week old is being forcibly subjected to bone marrow extraction for an adult transplant… what authority should I report this to?”
Silence stretched over the line for two long seconds.
“What did you say?”
“A seven-month premature infant. Under a week old. Someone is trying to harvest her bone marrow.”
“…Is this an active situation?”
“Yes.”
“Where is this happening? Which hospital?”
“It’s not a hospital. It’s a private residence. Please tell meâ”
Heavy footsteps echoed from the hallway.
My blood turned ice-cold.
“Dr. Bennett, I’m out of time. I’ll find a way to contact you again. Can you please check if non-consensual marrow extraction from a newborn constitutes a criminal offense?”
“Listen to me, you need toâ”
I slammed the receiver back onto the base.
My hands were drenched in cold sweat.
The footsteps grew closer.
I darted out of the storage room, hurried back into my bedroom, pulled the door shut, sat back on the bed, and picked up a pregnancy care book I had read a hundred times.
The door was pushed open.
It was the new bodyguard on the shift.
He swept his eyes across the room.
I kept my head down, flipping through the pages with an utterly calm expression.
He stared at me for a few seconds before stepping back and shutting the door.
Only then did I realize that I was holding the book upside down.
Where my fingers gripped the spine, the paper was soaked through with sweat.
Yet, I didn’t regret it for a second.
That call had lasted less than forty seconds.
It was enough.
Dr. Bennett was famous in the medical community for being a uncompromising crusader. I had researched his character thoroughly. In my past life, after Angela’s transplant made academic news, he had publicly questioned the ethics approval process online, only to be silenced by Harrison’s political pull.
In this life, I would light the fire before Harrison had the chance to smother it.
That evening, Harrison didn’t return home.
When Dr. Keller came to change my dressings, he looked visibly distracted, his movements rushed and clumsy. As he removed the gauze, he accidentally tugged on my wound.
I let out a sharp gasp.
He snapped out of his daze. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”
“How did the specialist consultation go today?” I asked quietly.
His hand froze.
“…Not well. Miss Angela’s rejection markers are spiking, and the banked cord blood is running out.”
“So they’re still targeting my baby’s marrow.”
Dr. Keller didn’t answer, but his silence said everything.
I stayed quiet for a moment before speaking again. “Dr. Keller, your former classmate, Dr. Bennett…”
The hand holding the medical tape stopped dead in its tracks.
He looked up at me as if he had just seen a ghost.
“How do you know…”
“A business card fell out of your pocket last week.”
His face drained of color.
“Mrs. Harrison, did youâ”
“I called him this afternoon.”
Dr. Keller went completely numb.
Then he grabbed my wrist, his grip so tight it hurt.
“Are you insane?! Do you have any idea that every call from this mansionâ”
“I know.”
“Then whyâ”
“Which is why I need you to do something for me.”
I locked eyes with him.
His face was ghostly white, his lips trembling.
I knew he was terrified.
He had worked for Harrison for a decade and knew exactly how Harrison destroyed anyone who betrayed him.
I also knew that Dr. Keller had a six-year-old daughter.
In my past life, three months after my death, he had abruptly resigned. Rumor had it he suffered a severe mental breakdown, tormented by insomnia, living on heavy sleep medication for half a year.
He wasn’t a monster.
He was just a coward trapped inside a gilded cage.
“Dr. Keller,” I gently pried his fingers off my wrist and whispered, “I only need you to do one thing. Tomorrow when you change my dressings, ‘forget’ your phone under my pillow. Come back for it thirty minutes later.”
He stared at me, swallowing hard.
“Mrs. Harrison… Mr. Harrison will kill me.”
“He won’t find out.”
“He finds out about everything!”
“Then consider this an act of redemption for your conscience.”
I lowered my head and looked down at my heavily bandaged abdomen.
The incision was still seeping blood.
In my past life, he had stood by and watched as they harvested marrow from my living child.
He had done nothing to stop it.
I didn’t hate him.
I just needed him to act like a human being for once in his life.
Dr. Keller sat in his chair, falling into a long, suffocating silence.
It dragged on so long that I thought he was going to walk away.
Then he finally spoke.
“…Thirty minutes.”
His voice was barely audible, squeezed through his teeth.
“Not a single second more.”
I nodded.
“That’s plenty.”
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1
Valerie had just stepped into the bathroom when her iPad screen lit up on the nightstand.
An iMessage preview popped up.
Devin: What cheesy line did he send you today? Forward it over quickly, I need a good laugh.
I reached out and unlocked the screen.
The pinned conversation at the top was not mine.
It was Devin.
At the top of the chat box sat a screenshot of a text I had sent Valerie earlier that afternoon.
Me: A student in class today told me my smile felt really warm. My first reaction was actually wanting to tell you right away.
Directly below it was Valerieâs caption to Devin.
Valerie: Look at this. Typical desperate puppy behavior. Every single day, reporting every useless little thing to me.
Devin: Lmao, crying over tiny nonsense. A grown man with zero ambition!
Valerie: Seriously. He has no real talent anyway, I only married him for peace of mind.
My heart stopped for a fraction of a second. The love I thought we shared was nothing more than material for her to mock alongside another man.
Valerie, my love will never flow toward you again.
âŚ
I sat on the edge of the bed, my thumb trembling as I kept scrolling through the screen.
There was a selfie I had sent Valerie. I was wearing a grey apron with flour smudged across my cheek, taken while I was baking her a birthday cake from scratch.
I remembered telling her that day: Wife, this cake is as sweet as you.
Valerie had forwarded that exact photo to Devin.
Valerie: God save me, this is a total aesthetic disaster.
Devin: How do you even manage to put your mouth on him?
Valerie: It is all the same once the lights are off anyway. At worst, I just go gag in the bathroom afterward.
My fingers went completely numb.
The sound of running water in the bathroom ceased.
I immediately locked the iPad and placed it back in its exact spot on the nightstand.
The door swung open.
Valerie walked out, drying her hair with a towel, wearing a lace nightgown. She sauntered over, wrapping her arms around me from behind, resting her cheek against my back.
“Babe, I am ovulating today.”
Her hands slid around my waist, unbuttoning my shirt.
Instinctively, I pulled away.
Valerie paused, her brow knotting. “What is wrong?”
I leaned over, picked up her robe from the bed, and handed it to her before stepping around her to sit at the desk.
“I am exhausted. We had a long school event today.”
Valerie stared at me for two long seconds before dropping the subject. She climbed into bed, flicking off the bedside lamp on her side.
Turning her back to me, she began typing on her phone.
I climbed onto my side of the bed, listening to her breathing grow heavy and slow.
When the clock struck one in the morning, I quietly slipped out of bed.
I slid the iPad from under her pillow and crept out to the living room.
Sitting on the sofa, I opened that chat window, scrolling all the way back to the beginning.
The timeline started a year and a half ago.
Back then, we were not married yet. She had just transferred to her current corporate firm, suffocating under heavy pressure and constant overtime. I cooked meals for her every day, waiting downstairs to drive her home and keeping her company through late night projects.
She had taken a screenshot of a text I sent back then, which read: Do not push yourself too hard, I brewed some warm soup for you.
She had forwarded it straight to Devin.
Valerie: A twenty-four-seven house husband type. Pity he is as bland as a wooden board with zero romance. He cannot say anything beyond basic domestic fluff.
Devin: Sounds like great husband material though, zero drama.
Valerie: Yeah, safe. But my heart craves excitement. I am genuinely getting suffocated by him.
So she had married me for stability. Not love.
I kept scrolling.
The first time I tried on my wedding tuxedo, I sent her a photo asking if I looked alright.
She had replied to me: So handsome, my husband is the most handsome man in the world.
Then she immediately forwarded the photo to Devin.
Valerie: The studio photographer went insane with Photoshop.
Devin: Even with heavy edits, your husband looks pretty average. How did you settle on him?
Valerie: I was in a low spot back then, he stuck around, so I just settled.
Staring at the word “settled,” my stomach twisted into a painful knot.
I opened the media attachments in the chat.
Inside were private, intimate photos I had sent her. Photos that were never meant for anyone else’s eyes. I had shared them with my wife out of complete, unconditional trust.
She had forwarded every single one to Devin.
Devin: Damn, he actually has an eight-pack. You must be enjoying yourself.
Valerie: Please, compared to you, he falls way short.
I took screenshots of every single conversation, emailing them to my personal inbox one by one.
My hands shook uncontrollably, but my fingers never stopped tapping the screen.
By four in the morning, I returned to the bedroom and placed the iPad back where it belonged.
Valerie rolled over in her sleep, mumbling softly, “Babe, why are you still awake?”
I offered no answer, standing in the dark, looking down at her with cold indifference.
She did not wake up.
I laid back down, staring at the ceiling until dawn broke.
2
The next morning, Valerie sat at the dining table eating breakfast as usual.
I had fried eggs and toasted bread, setting the plate down in front of her. She lifted her head to look at me.
“What is up with you today? You seem to be in a terrible mood.”
My hand holding the milk carton paused for a fraction of a second.
In the past, every single morning, I would smile and say: Good morning, I hope my wife has a wonderful day.
She would rarely offer much back, usually just a quiet nod, yet that alone used to make my whole day bright.
I pushed the glass of milk toward her. “Nothing.”
Valerie took a bite of her toast. “First thing in the morning, what wire crossed in your brain? What are you throwing an attitude for?”
I sat across from her, taking a slow sip of milk. “I am not throwing an attitude. I am feeling just fine.”
She set her glass down with a sharp thud. “Jonah, you have been acting off since last night. Out with it, how exactly did I offend you?”
I lifted my eyes to meet hers. “You are the one acting strange, actually noticing my mood for once.”
Valerie frowned tightly. “Stop being sarcastic. If something is on your mind, say it.”
I placed my phone flat on the table, displaying the very first screenshot I had taken the night before.
The text I sent her: A student in class today said my smile was really warm. My first reaction was actually wanting to tell you right away.
Directly beneath it was her message to Devin: Every single day, reporting every useless little thing to me.
Valerie’s expression froze instantly, before darkening into sheer anger.
“You dared snoop through my private phone?”
I replied quietly, “Should you not explain this first?”
“I am asking you, what gives you the right to illegally pry into my private chats?”
I let out a soft, cold laugh. “I looked at your iPad. It had no password, so I viewed it in plain sight.”
Valerie threw her toast back onto the plate. “Jonah, do you have any concept of privacy, boundaries, or personal space?”
I did not even bother wasting an expression on her. “I should be asking you that question. My private messages and my intimate photos were forwarded to another man for review. What do you call that behavior?”
Valerie stood up, her chair scraping harshly against the floor. “Do not twist the topic! It is your own fault for being nosy. If you had not snooped, you would never have known, and we would not be having this conversation!”
She reached out, attempting to snatch my phone off the table.
I took a step back, slipping the phone into my bag. “Do not touch it.”
Valerie’s hand hovered in midair. “Jonah, you look genuinely disgusting right now.”
I looked her dead in the eyes. “As disgusting as I look, it does not hold a candle to what you did.”
She pulled at her sleeves, her voice rising. “I was just venting casually to a friend! Do you need to blow this out of proportion? Just because you have no friends does not mean I am forbidden from having them!”
“Venting with my private photos?”
Valerie went silent for a brief second.
Then, she spoke with icy detachment. “If you insist on bringing this up to start a fight, the only person left humiliated will be you.”
I said nothing more.
Because in that moment, I realized she was not unaware of the pain she caused. She simply believed I did not even possess the right to be angry.
A cold war lasted for three full days.
I stopped sharing any part of my daily life with her.
On the third evening, Valerie returned from work holding a designer shopping bag.
I was sitting on the sofa preparing lesson plans. She tossed the bag directly onto the cushion beside me.
“I bought this for you.”
I opened it up. Inside was a scarf from a clearance rack, the price tag still attached. Nineteen dollars.
Once, I had liked a cashmere scarf that cost eighty dollars, but she had dismissed it instantly, saying, “Why does an elementary school teacher need something so expensive? Kids will just ruin it with sticky hands.”
Yet, in her chat logs with Devin, I had seen her purchase a five-hundred-dollar designer cologne for him.
Devin had asked: Won’t your husband get mad if he finds out?
Valerie had replied: He is a clueless idiot, he knows nothing about luxury.
I placed the scarf back into the paper bag. “Return it.”
Valerie paused her movement of unbuckling her watch. “Jonah, do not push this too far. I bought you a gift, so drop the attitude. Adults need to know when to stop.”
I closed my notebook. “And what exactly counts as stopping?”
She sat across from me, her face laced with deep impatience. “You are usually way too clingy. What is wrong with me venting a little to a friend?”
I stared at her. “How about I take photos of you before you put on makeup, videos of you crying over missed promotions, or clips of you kneeling by the toilet throwing up drunk, and send them to my female colleagues to enjoy? How would you feel about that?”
Valerie’s face darkened completely. “You would not dare.”
I said, “So you understand that it is wrong.”
She picked up a glass of water, taking a quick sip. “Jonah, whether you can get over this or not, it already happened. Saying all this now is completely useless. Are we going to live our lives or not?”
My tone remained entirely serene. “No, we are not.”
Valerie let out a cold scoff, turning around and walking into the bedroom.
Before she slammed the door shut, a sharp sentence echoed from inside.
“You are completely unhinged and impossible to talk to.”
3
The next afternoon, just as I finished grading student assignments, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
A friend request notification popped up.
Verification note: Hey man, it’s Devin. I wanted to talk to you.
I hesitated for a few seconds before hitting accept.
He sent his first message almost instantly.
Devin: Hey man, don’t misunderstand Valerie and me. We are just casual chat buddies.
I did not reply.
He kept typing.
Devin: I don’t really know why she forwarded your texts to me, maybe she just views me as one of the guys.
Devin: Women, you know how they are. Most of them just like to talk big.
Devin: Valerie told me she really likes how innocent you are, even if you are a bit boring and lack romance.
Devin: Honestly, I kind of envy you. Your overall background is pretty average, yet you managed to marry such an accomplished woman.
I stood by the back door of the classroom. The children were quietly solving math problems while the air conditioner hummed softly.
I typed my response.
Me: Did you add me just to say this?
Devin replied within seconds.
Devin: Not at all, I just wanted to clear things up. Please don’t fight with her because of me. Her current work project is at a critical stage, her mood cannot be disrupted.
Me: In what capacity are you trying to manage my wife’s emotions?
Me: Also, if an average guy like me could marry an accomplished woman, why couldn’t you? Is it because you fall even shorter than I do?
The chat went completely silent for half a minute. The typing indicator flickered continuously, but no new messages came through.
I slipped the phone back into my pocket, resuming my walk around the classroom to check on my students.
At six in the evening, I arrived home.
As the front door opened, Valerie was sitting on the living room sofa, staring down at her phone.
Her very first words upon seeing me were, “Did you curse out Devin?”
I set my bag down on the entryway console. “He reached out to me first.”
Valerie stood up sharply. “He was just trying to be helpful and explain things so our relationship wouldn’t suffer! You took your anger out on him instead? How can you be so ungrateful?”
I changed my shoes, closing the cabinet door softly. “He came to provoke me.”
Valerie walked up to me. “Jonah, can you stop viewing every single man as an enemy? Devin is not the person you think he is.”
I lifted my head to look at her. “How do you know what kind of person he is? Have you slept with him to know him so well?”
She choked on her words for a moment, her face flushing with immediate rage. “Go look in a mirror and see how bitter you look right now. You are being utterly malicious.”
A faint smile touched the corner of my lips. “Good. After all, I have no friends, I lack worldly experience, I am an aesthetic disaster, and I am simple-minded. Most importantly, I am just the guy you settled for during a low point in your life.”
Valerie’s expression shifted drastically. “How much of those chats did you actually read?”
“Enough to make me sick for the rest of my life.”
She took a step forward. “Did you take screenshots of everything? Delete them right now.”
I stepped back, my spine hitting the front door panel. “What are you afraid of?”
Valerie lowered her voice. “I do not want this turning into a massive spectacle.”
“You were not afraid of a spectacle when you forwarded my life to him?”
“I told you, that was just casual banter between friends!”
Even now, her excuse remained entirely unchanged.
I no longer possessed any desire to argue with her.
Opening my bag, I pulled out the printed divorce agreement I had prepared during lunch and handed it to her.
“Sign it.”
Valerie glanced down at the paper. “Divorce papers?”
“Yes.”
She let out a dry laugh. “Jonah, are you serious?”
“I am in no mood to play games.”
Valerie took the papers, flipped through two pages, and tossed them carelessly onto the shoe console. The pages scattered, one fluttering onto the floor.
“Divorcing over a few screenshots? Are you five years old? Can you grow up for once?”
I bent down, picking up the fallen page. “It is not about a few screenshots. It is about you turning me into a public laughingstock.”
“You ARE overly sensitive! More dramatic than a teenager! Every single day whining about nothing, sending useless nonsense! You can send it, but I am forbidden from feeling annoyed by it?”
Her words echoed through the room, leaving a dead silence in their wake.
I clutched the paper, lifting my eyes to meet hers. “Valerie, say that one more time.”
She glared at me. “Every day sending ‘I miss you’, updating me on student drama, what you ate for lunch, flowers blooming on the sidewalk, reporting every single useless detail of your day to me. Jonah, I am busy. I am not a student in your classroom, I do not need you reporting your mundane existence to me all day long.”
I said quietly, “You could have chosen not to reply.”
“I DID stop replying! Yet you kept sending them anyway!”
“So you took screenshots and sent them to others for entertainment?”
“I am under immense stress! Am I forbidden from venting?”
I neatly reorganized the divorce papers, placing them back into my bag. “You can vent. You did a fantastic job of it.”
I turned toward the bedroom.
Valerie followed close behind. “What are you doing?”
I opened the closet, pulling out my suitcase.
Valerie stood at the doorframe, blocking half the exit. “Jonah, can you stop making a scene? I am genuinely exhausted.”
“Move aside.”
“Where are you going?”
“To a friend’s house.”
She let out a dismissive scoff. “You actually have a friend willing to take you in?”
I rolled my suitcase forward, its wheel bumping against her leg. “At least he will not forward my private words to others for entertainment.”
Valerie remained silent for several seconds.
Then, she spoke with cold finality. “If you walk out of this door today, we are truly over. I have apologized, I have done everything I should, and my conscience is entirely clear.”
She stopped blocking the door.
I dragged my suitcase through the hallway, reaching the front entrance.
Opening the door, her voice drifted from behind me one last time.
“Jonah, the adult world involves plenty of messy realities. You have simply been spoiled by me for too long, completely unaware of how harsh the world really is. Sooner or later, you will regret this!”
I turned my head slightly. “My only regret was marrying you.”
4
I moved into the guest room at my best friend Marcus’s apartment.
On the morning of the third day, a call came through from an unknown local number.
I answered it.
A man’s low voice sounded over the line. “Is this Jonah?”
“Speaking.”
“My name is Brandon. My girlfriend is a close friend of Valerie’s, named Brooke. We have never met, but there is something I need to tell you.”
I paused my hand on the mouse, midway through organizing my screenshots. “What is it?”
He took a deep breath. “I am not calling to mediate or defend anyone.”
“Yesterday, I stumbled upon a group chat on Brooke’s phone titled ‘Valerie’s Post-Marriage Observation Diary’.”
I sat up straight instantly.
My computer monitor was still displaying the screenshot of Devin’s chat.
Brandon continued, “The group consists of Valerie and a few of her close female friends. A huge portion of the texts, photos, and voice notes you sent Valerie were shared inside that chat.”
I remained silent.
The sound of pages turning came from his end. “I took a few screenshots of the group. I do not know if you are mentally prepared for this.”
I gripped my phone tightly. “Please send them to me.”
“There are private photos involved.”
“Send them.”
Brandon paused for a moment. “Jonah, if you ask me, you should file a police report.”
After the call ended, a friend request popped up on my messaging app.
I accepted it.
He immediately sent over a dozen screenshots.
The very first image was the group chat homepage. Seven members in total.
Valerie had posted a bedtime selfie I sent her once. I had taken it right after a shower, facing the foggy bathroom mirror.
My original text to her had read: Wife, I washed up and smell nice, can you come home early today?
Valerie’s commentary in the group read: He acts as if he has never seen a woman in his life, like a starved wolf that can never be satisfied. He is draining me completely dry.
Brooke’s reply: Your husband is pretty clingy, huh? You can’t tell from the outside, he actually has a great physique.
Another member: Valerie sure is lucky.
Valerie: Stop it, he is completely average. You can pick up guys like him by the dozen anywhere.
The second screenshot showed a voice message I had sent.
I remembered that day distinctly. Valerie had not come home for three consecutive nights. I sent her a voice note, my voice raspy with emotion, saying:
“Wife, please come home. I miss you so much. I am not asking you to spend every second with me, I just want to know if you still remember that you have a home.”
Valerie had forwarded the audio file directly into the group.
A group member replied: His crying voice sounds more delicate than a woman’s. Total helpless house husband.
Someone dropped a mocking meme.
Valerie replied: Not a helpless husband, an absolute idiot. It drives me crazy. I work hard all day, and I still have to go home and nurse an adult baby.
The third image was a message of apology I had sent her.
I had gotten upset because she forgot our wedding anniversary, only for her to turn it around until I ended up apologizing to her instead.
My text read: I am sorry, wife, I was being too dramatic. I know how busy your work is, I will be more sensible from now on.
Valerie had posted it into the group.
Valerie: Standard procedure for training a dog. Ignore him for two days and he softens right up.
A group member replied: Brilliant, taking notes.
Staring at the phrase “taking notes,” my fingers froze, unable to tap the next image.
Marcus walked out of the kitchen holding a glass of water. “Jonah, what happened?”
I handed him the phone.
He glanced at just two of the screenshots before slamming his glass down onto the floor. The glass shattered, water spilling everywhere.
He cursed loudly, pulling out his own phone. “I am going with you to the police station right now.”
A cold numbness crept over my entire body, cold sweat breaking across my forehead. My hands shook so violently I could barely hold the phone steady.
I could not bring myself to view the remaining images.
I had Marcus save every single record onto a flash drive.
In my phone gallery, Valerie’s face, Devin’s profile picture, and the mocking comments from that group of women sat lined up together across the screen.
I had assumed my only spectator was Devin.
I was wrong.
My entire marriage had been treated as a live reality show. Every private detail exposed completely, left open for random strangers to critique and ridicule.
Once I regained my composure, I sent a voice note to Brandon. “Thank you, man.”
Brandon replied: “No problem, man. I broke up with Brooke today too. Being with a trashy person like that completely disgusted me.”
I said, “We both need to keep our eyes open from now on.”
Marcus cleaned up the broken glass from the floor, grabbing my coat from the rack. “Let’s go. To the police station.”
As I stood up, my phone rang once more.
It was Valerie.
I stared at her name flashing across the screen for ten seconds before answering.
Valerie’s voice sounded laced with impatience. “Jonah, do you really think the world revolves around you? How much longer are you going to drag out this cold war?”
I spoke quietly. “Valerie.”
“What?”
“Those group chats with your friends, have you deleted them clean?”
The line went completely dead silent.
In the background, I heard someone call out to her, “Valerie, the meeting is starting.”
Valerie lowered her voice to a whisper. “Who told you about that?”
I said, “So it really wasn’t just Devin.”
“Jonah, where are you right now?”
I offered no answer.
Valerie panicked, her tone dropping into an urgent pitch over the receiver. “Do not do anything reckless! Let’s meet up and talk!”
“There is no need. I have already retained an attorney and filed a police report.”
I hung up the phone.
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My father-in-law drove a city bus his entire adult life. Years ago, to save a destitute college girl having a violent seizure in the back of his bus, he blew through three red lights to get her to the emergency room.
He saved her life. In return, she filed a formal complaint against him using her real name.
He had only wanted to save a life, but the transit authority fired him for a severe traffic violation, stripping away his pension in the process.
The girl who reported him was named Harper. Thanks to that very report, she was awarded the “Civic Compliance Scholarship” by her university.
When I took his termination papers to demand an explanation from her, she just stared at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“Rules are rules. A driver running red lights is gambling with the passengers’ lives. Even if it’s to save someone, it’s strictly forbidden.”
Years later, she fought her way through rounds of brutal interviews, and her final onboarding contract for our tech conglomerate landed right on my desk. I was the VP of Human Resources.
Right in front of her face, I fed that contract into the shredder.
“Rules are rules. Your background check revealed a severe lack of moral integrity, and your immediate family has a history of defaulted debt. I cannot sign this.”
1
“Mr. Cross, you didn’t just shred my contract. You shredded your own career.”
Harper didn’t even flinch or try to fish the paper scraps out of the bin.
She calmly reached up to her collar, unclipped a button-shaped hidden camera, and placed it on my desk.
The recording light was still blinking red.
The glass doors to the conference room weren’t fully closed. Outside, the hallway was packed with candidates waiting for their final interviews. Every word I just said had echoed out into the corridor.
Harper turned her phone around to face me.
On the screen, the live stream counter had already crossed eighty thousand viewers.
The stream title was a single, glaring sentence.
“Corporate HR VP Abuses Power to Blacklist Whistleblower Over Family Grudge.”
The comments were scrolling by in a blur, but a few jumped out at me.
“Just because she reported his father-in-law?”
“Since when does an HR VP have executioner powers?”
“This isn’t a job interview. This is a corporate lynching.”
Harper placed her hand flat over her printed background check report.
“Mr. Cross, the defaulted debt under my father’s name was exactly two thousand seven hundred dollars, and the court has already issued a clearance certificate proving it was paid.”
“According to your company’s own hiring guidelines, a resolved civil debt does not constitute grounds for rejection.”
“As for my supposed lack of moral integrity, I’d love to know what criteria you are using.”
I stared at her.
“You filed a formal complaint against the man who saved your life. Does that count?”
“Reporting an illegal act counts as a lack of moral integrity?”
Her eyes slowly grew red, but her voice didn’t waver a single decibel.
“By that logic, shouldn’t this company cancel its annual Compliance Awareness Month?”
“Shouldn’t the whistleblower email hotline be shut down?”
“If an employee discovers financial fraud tomorrow, should they first check to see if the fraudster ever did them a favor before reporting it?”
Outside the door, people started raising their phones to record.
Harper turned her face slightly toward the camera lens, exposing a pale scar behind her ear.
“This is from the craniotomy I had to undergo back then.”
“I lost consciousness on that bus. I had no idea where the driver was taking me, and I had no ability to consent.”
“When I woke up, I found out an entire bus full of passengers had been forced to run three red lights with him.”
“I didn’t report him for saving my life.”
“I reported him for gambling with forty other lives to save mine without their consent.”
She spoke with terrifying stability.
It was the stability of a script rehearsed hundreds of times.
Vern, our Legal Manager, burst into the conference room.
“Declan, shut the stream down.”
Harper took a step back.
“Mr. Vern. Your company policy strictly dictates that a candidate’s personal devices cannot be forcibly confiscated during the interview process.”
Vern went pale.
“How do you know my name?”
“It’s on the executive roster on your website.”
She pulled a stack of papers from her folder.
“Section Seventeen of your Recruitment Management Regulations states that once a candidate passes the final interview and approvals are completed, the offer cannot be rescinded due to an interviewer’s personal reasons unless there is a severe material omission.”
“My final approvals cleared last night.”
“Your job today, Mr. Cross, was merely to sign on the dotted line.”
Vern whipped his head toward me.
“Her approvals cleared?”
I picked up the routing slip from my desk.
The VP of Operations, the Finance Director, and the Compliance Department had all signed off.
My signature block was at the very bottom.
The onboarding window expired exactly at noon today.
We had twenty-seven minutes left.
Harper stared at the clock on the wall.
“Mr. Cross, you have twenty-seven minutes.”
“If you don’t sign by noon, the company will be guilty of rescinding an offer without just cause.”
“Based on the competing offer I declined to be here, the compensation penalty will not be less than sixty thousand dollars.”
“Of course, I’d much prefer it if your company gave the public a formal explanation instead.”
Vern lowered his voice to a harsh whisper.
“Just turn off the stream. We can reprint the contract.”
“Why should I turn it off?”
Harper looked directly into the lens.
“If Mr. Cross has the guts to do this, why shouldn’t I let people watch?”
Whispers erupted in the hallway outside.
Someone had already dug up my father-in-law’s old case.
“I found it. The driver from the Route 9 bus.”
“The transit authority’s public notice back then said he was emotionally unstable and refused to follow dispatch orders.”
“So his son-in-law is using his corporate position to take revenge on the whistleblower?”
The corner of Harper’s mouth twitched upward for a fraction of a second before she suppressed it.
It was the exact same micro-expression she had years ago.
When she won that scholarship, a reporter asked if she felt bad that the driver lost his job. She had pursed her lips the exact same way.
Then she said, “Adults need to take responsibility for breaking the law.”
Vern grabbed my arm.
“Declan, sign it.”
I didn’t move.
“Her background check still has red flags.”
“What red flags?”
“During her four years in college, she filed seventeen formal complaints under her real name. People were disciplined or fired at all three of her previous internships because of her.”
Harper smiled.
“Is it a crime to speak up when I see a violation?”
“You reported the cafeteria worker for giving an extra scoop of meat to a broke student.”
“The cafeteria operates on strict quota accounting. Extra portions are a violation of policy.”
“You reported the dorm RA for opening the doors after hours for a student with a fever.”
“The security protocol mandates the doors lock at midnight.”
“You reported your internship supervisor for using his personal account to cover a refund for a client.”
“The company strictly prohibits private financial transactions with clients.”
With every answer she gave, the army of compliance defenders in her live stream grew stronger.
For the first time, I realized she wasn’t just deaf to human decency.
She actively translated human decency into policy violations she could weaponize.
Harper pushed a pen across the desk toward me.
“Mr. Cross, nineteen minutes left.”
“You have every right to dislike me.”
“But your personal grudges are not written in the company handbook.”
I picked up the pen.
Suddenly, someone in the hall shouted, “The CEO is here.”
The crowd parted.
Richard Bancroft, our CEO, walked briskly into the room with the PR Director and two cameramen trailing behind him.
He didn’t ask for context. He just snatched the background check report from my hands.
“Declan, you are suspended from duty effective immediately.”
“Richard, her background check carries massive risks.”
“Right now, you are the biggest risk to this company.”
Richard placed a fresh copy of the contract in front of Vern.
“Initiate the proxy signature protocol.”
Vern took the pen, his hand hovering over the paper.
Harper finally let her smile show.
“You see, Mr. Cross? Rules don’t suddenly stop working just because you have a fancy title.”
I stared at the blinking red light on her chest.
Over a hundred thousand people were watching me get stripped of my badge.
Before the clock struck twelve, she was going to step right over my father-in-law’s termination papers and walk into the HR department I built.
Richard’s voice was heavy with impatience.
“Sign it, Vern.”
2
“You can’t sign that contract. She concealed the fact that she was live-streaming.”
I slammed my hand down on the signature page.
Vern instantly pulled his hand back.
But Harper just turned the camera to face herself.
“I am under no obligation to inform my abuser of how I choose to collect evidence.”
“The company visitor policy clearly states that unauthorized recording is prohibited in the office areas.”
“I am in the candidate interview zone.”
She pulled out her phone and opened the visitor confirmation text.
“There is no recording ban attached to this notification.”
“The front desk didn’t ask me to check my devices either.”
“Your management loopholes do not constitute concealment on my part.”
Richard glanced at the rapidly climbing viewer count on her stream.
“Declan, let go of the paper.”
I kept my hand pinned to the desk.
“She manufactured this PR crisis on purpose. Her motives for joining are compromised.”
Harper took a step forward.
“My motive is to get a job.”
“From the written exams to the final round, I scored first place across the board.”
“You are the one who dragged a personal vendetta into the office and ruined a standard hiring process.”
She reached out and yanked the contract.
The thick paper pulled taut between us, and the sharp edge sliced clean through my fingertip.
A drop of blood fell onto the offer letter.
The chat instantly exploded with people accusing me of flying into a violent rage.
Richard pried my hand off the desk.
“Security.”
Two guards stepped in and shoved me to the side.
Harper took the contract back and gently smoothed out the wrinkles.
“Mr. Cross, was your father-in-law like this too?”
“Knowing full well the steering wheel wasn’t his to control alone, but refusing to let go anyway?”
That sentence twisted the knife in my gut so hard I couldn’t even feel the cut on my hand anymore.
Years ago, when I rushed to the transit depot, George was standing in the lobby clutching his folded uniform.
Thirty-seven years of service, shoved into a single cardboard box.
The management demanded he sign the disciplinary notice.
He refused.
The investigator told him that if he just admitted to driving recklessly out of impulse, they would downgrade the termination to a forced resignation and let him keep part of his benefits.
George sat in that chair for an entire afternoon.
Before he left, he only asked one question.
“Next time someone is dying on a bus, are we supposed to just watch them die?”
Nobody answered him.
Harper was still in the hospital at the time.
I went to her room to beg her to withdraw the complaint, but she was in the middle of a media interview.
The reporter was handing her the Civic Compliance Scholarship certificate.
She looked at the cameras and said her family was poor, her father was in debt, and the rules were the only thing she could trust to protect her.
I asked her if the rules were what saved her life.
She looked at me, clutching her framed certificate.
“Your father-in-law could have pulled over and called an ambulance.”
“He had no right to risk the lives of everyone else on board.”
“Just because he didn’t crash this time doesn’t make his choice right.”
Later, George had to sell the small house he bought for his retirement.
The transit company sued him for the operational losses caused by the suspended route and formally severed his employment for gross negligence.
My wife, Sarah, spent two years running around trying to appeal his case.
The last time she walked out of the transportation authority building, she sat on the concrete steps and looked at me. “Let it go. He can’t take this anymore.”
George developed severe insomnia.
Whenever he heard an ambulance siren, his hands would instinctively reach for a steering wheel that was no longer there.
Last winter, his kidneys started failing.
The doctors said he needed regular dialysis and absolutely could not handle any more emotional shock.
Harper didn’t know any of this.
Or maybe she did, but figured it fell outside the scope of her beloved policy clauses.
Richard finished signing the proxy approval and handed the contract to her right in front of the live stream.
“Ms. Harper, this company does not tolerate management abusing their authority.”
“Your employment is officially active.”
Applause broke out in the hallway.
I stood shoved into the crowd, my confiscated ID badge sitting abandoned on the corner of the desk.
Harper took the contract with both hands.
“Thank you, Richard.”
“I trust that a company with such respect for the rules will deal with Mr. Cross’s behavior impartially.”
Richard’s smile froze slightly.
She had no intention of stopping.
The PR Director stepped in.
“Ms. Harper, since the misunderstanding has been resolved, would you mind ending the stream?”
“This isn’t a misunderstanding.”
Harper turned the lens directly onto me.
“Mr. Cross explicitly admitted that he rejected me because I reported his father-in-law.”
“If I hadn’t been streaming today, I would have lost my job.”
“The absolute minimum he owes me is a public apology.”
Vern muttered under his breath, “You already got the contract.”
“I got the contract through my own merit. It wasn’t a trade.”
“The apology is the penalty he has to pay for abusing his power.”
The crowd around us swelled.
Employees on their lunch break clogged the corridor, a sea of glowing phone screens raised in the air.
Harper walked up to me and handed me a freshly printed apology statement.
“It’s not long.”
“You just need to admit that you interfered with the hiring process due to a personal grudge, and apologize to me and the company.”
I skimmed the paper.
The very last line made my blood run cold.
I further acknowledge that my father-in-law’s reckless driving lacked any commendable life-saving merit, and bears no moral conflict with Ms. Harper’s lawful decision to report him.
She didn’t just want me to bow my head.
She wanted me to convict George with my own mouth.
Richard crossed his arms. “Read it.”
“I won’t.”
“If you refuse to cooperate during your suspension investigation, the company has the right to terminate your contract.”
Harper raised the paper higher.
“Mr. Cross. Rules are rules.”
I smacked the paper out of her hand.
She instantly threw her weight backward, slamming her shoulder into the glass door.
The camera slipped from her hand and hit the floor.
The crowd gasped.
Harper clutched her shoulder, tears springing to her eyes on command.
“Everyone saw that.”
“He put his hands on me.”
Richard pointed a trembling finger at me.
“Get him out of here.”
The security guards grabbed my arms.
In the chaos, Harper crouched down to pick up the camera.
I saw her thumb deliberately press down hard on the edge of the lens housing.
The plastic casing cracked.
She looked up, her voice pitched perfectly to reach every phone in the room.
“Mr. Cross. Destroying evidence gathering equipment means you’ll be paying damages too.”
3
“Dad, give him the oxygen tube back!”
When Sarah sprinted into the hospital lounge, Harper was standing behind George’s wheelchair, gripping his portable oxygen tank.
Flanking her were two internet influencers holding gimbals.
Their lenses were shoved practically into George’s face.
Harper yanked the oxygen tank closer to her chest.
“I just want Mr. Mitchell to answer a few simple questions.”
George was gasping for air.
“I have nothing… to say to you.”
“Your son-in-law attacked me at work to get revenge for what happened. Don’t you owe the public an explanation?”
“I’m the one who ran the lights. It had nothing to do with him.”
“So you admit you broke the law?”
George forced his head up.
“I admit I ran the red lights.”
“But I will never admit I was wrong to save your life.”
Harper looked straight into the camera.
“You hear that, everyone?”
“To this day, he still refuses to acknowledge the catastrophic consequences his reckless driving could have caused.”
Sarah lunged for the oxygen tank.
“Give that back to my father.”
Harper pivoted smoothly, dodging her grasp.
“Ma’am, your father is in the middle of an interview.”
“Who gave you permission to interview him?”
“We are in a public space. Recording is perfectly legal.”
“That oxygen tank belongs to him!”
“It struck my equipment earlier. I need to hold onto it to verify if the damage was intentional.”
She then held the tank up, making sure the hospital asset tag was clearly visible in the shot.
“This is evidence.”
George’s lips were starting to turn a bruised, terrifying shade of purple.
Sarah’s voice cracked with raw panic.
“Harper, he needs oxygen!”
“The ER is right down the hall. The medical staff can intervene at any moment.”
“Give it to him!”
“Please stop trying to tamper with evidence.”
I arrived just as an influencer shoved Sarah back.
George was slumped over the armrest of his wheelchair, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.
I tore through the crowd and ripped the oxygen tank out of Harper’s hands.
She clung to the strap, refusing to let go.
“Mr. Cross, are you resorting to violence again?”
“Let go.”
“Not unless you promise not to destroy the evidence.”
I violently threw her hands off.
The momentum sent her stumbling forward, her manicured nails dragging across my neck.
A sharp burn flared across my skin.
I didn’t stop. I jammed the tube onto George’s face and twisted the valve open.
George took three ragged, desperate breaths before the terrifying purple hue slowly began to fade from his face.
Harper held up her wrist. The skin was slightly red.
“Make sure you get this on camera.”
“Mr. Cross has assaulted me for the second time.”
Sarah spun around and slapped her across the face.
The sound was sharp as a gunshot.
Every single camera in the room jolted.
Harper’s head whipped to the side. She stood frozen for a long time.
Sarah’s hands were shaking uncontrollably.
“That slap was for pulling an oxygen tank away from a dying man.”
Harper slowly turned her head back around.
Five distinct red welts were already blooming on her cheek.
She didn’t retaliate.
Instead, she held the cracked button camera up to the influencers’ lenses.
“Now everyone knows why I have to record everything.”
“When this family encounters someone who refuses to bow to them, they resort to physical violence.”
Sarah lunged at her again.
I grabbed Sarah and pulled her back against my chest.
“Stop. Don’t hit her.”
“She was going to kill my father!”
“I did no such thing.”
Harper dabbed a drop of blood from the corner of her mouth.
“The tank was out of Mr. Mitchell’s possession for less than two minutes.”
“We are standing fifty feet from the Emergency Room.”
“Basic medical science dictates that a two-minute delay is insufficient to cause death.”
Hearing that, George gripped the armrests and tried to push himself up.
“Is that… how you calculated it back then too?”
“Calculating exactly how many minutes I had left before you died? Calculating how many people on the bus would vote against saving you?”
Harper looked down at him.
“I was unconscious. I couldn’t make any decisions.”
“So the moment you woke up, you reported him?”
Sarah was crying now.
“My dad paid your emergency room deposit out of his own pocket.”
“You walked out of that hospital without so much as a thank you.”
“When you deposited that scholarship money, did you know he had to borrow cash from relatives to cover your hospital bill?”
Harper was silent for two seconds.
“Medical expenses are classified as a civil debt.”
“If he kept the receipts, he has every right to file a legal claim against me for reimbursement.”
George suddenly laughed.
He laughed until he bent over, coughing violently.
“I don’t want it.”
“Dad.”
“Sarah, I don’t want a dime from her.”
George pulled the oxygen mask down and stared at Harper.
“I used to lie awake wondering if maybe you were just young and terrified.”
“I was actually worried that you were living with the guilt of what you did to me.”
“Seeing you today, I feel so much better.”
For the first time, Harper’s brow furrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ll never feel guilty.”
Hospital security finally showed up and ordered everyone to stop filming.
Harper didn’t put up a fight.
She packed up her gear, then pulled a crisp legal document from her bag.
“Mr. Cross, this is the official injury assessment notice from your earlier attack.”
“And as for your wife’s slap, I will be filing a police report for battery.”
Sarah stepped in front of George’s wheelchair.
“Come at me then.”
“I only follow procedural law.”
Harper turned to me.
“Also, the company has officially initiated your termination process.”
“There is an all-hands compliance assembly tomorrow morning at 10 AM. You are required to stand on stage and explain your actions.”
I stared at her.
“Who told you that?”
“I am an official employee now.”
She held up the contract, the ink still fresh.
“Richard just promoted me to the Corporate Compliance Evangelist.”
In three short hours, she went from a candidate I rejected to the investigator holding my execution orders.
Harper walked to the door, then paused.
“Mr. Mitchell, tomorrow’s assembly will be live-streamed company-wide.”
“If you’d like to attend, I can give you five minutes on stage.”
George gripped his oxygen mask.
“What would I do with five minutes?”
Harper flashed that sickeningly familiar smile.
“You can apologize to the passengers whose lives you put at risk.”
4
“If you don’t apologize, I’ll cut off his dialysis funding.”
Right before the all-hands assembly, Richard slid a legal agreement across the table to me.
The corporate charity fund had been covering half of George’s dialysis costs for the past year.
Buried in the fine print was a clause: Family members of the beneficiary are strictly prohibited from engaging in acts that damage the company’s reputation.
Richard tapped his manicured finger against that exact line.
“You publicly shredded a candidate’s contract on a live stream. That is a breach of contract.”
“His medical funding is an employee assistance program. It’s not hush money.”
“The rules say what they say.”
“Did Harper teach you that line?”
Richard’s face darkened.
“Drop the attitude.”
“Sign this apology by 9:50 AM, and the fund keeps dispensing.”
“If you don’t, Finance freezes his account at 10:00.”
I had ten minutes.
George just had his blood work done last night.
The hospital required the next phase of treatment to be paid in full within three days, or his bed would be given to someone else.
Sarah grabbed my hand, her fingers trembling.
“Sign it.”
“You know what that statement says, Sarah.”
“I know.”
Her voice was raw.
“But I can’t gamble with my dad’s life.”
Outside the conference room, Harper was giving another interview.
The red marks from the slap had already faded.
Yet she had deliberately taped a square of white gauze over the spot.
A reporter asked if she was willing to accept my apology.
“I am always willing to give people a chance to correct their mistakes.”
“But he shouldn’t just be apologizing to me.”
“Mr. Cross needs to explain to every hardworking employee why an HR VP feels entitled to hijack corporate fairness to settle a family vendetta.”
Someone brought up George.
Harper looked at the camera with perfectly rehearsed empathy. “I completely understand an old man’s desire to save a life.”
“But good intentions cannot be used as a free pass to break the law.”
Applause bled through the walls.
Sarah picked up the pen and pressed it into my palm.
“Declan, save Dad first.”
Richard checked his watch.
“Seven minutes.”
I signed my name.
The pen felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.
The moment the ink dried, Richard snatched the paper away.
“Get on stage. Read it exactly as written. Do not improvise.”
“And after I read it?”
“Suspended for six months, demoted to Recruiting Manager.”
“I reject the demotion.”
“Then we terminate your employment immediately.”
“My investigation hasn’t even concluded.”
Richard straightened his cuffs.
“The stream peaked at over two million viewers yesterday.”
“The company’s stock dropped four percent this morning.”
“That is the conclusion.”
At exactly 10 AM, I was escorted onto the stage.
Nearly a thousand employees sat in the auditorium.
The back rows were lined with media cameras, and the live stream numbers were climbing rapidly.
Harper sat dead center in the front row, wearing her shiny new badge.
Compliance Evangelist.
After Richard’s opening speech, he handed me the microphone.
“Declan, you will now issue a formal apology to Ms. Harper and the entire staff.”
My signed statement flashed onto the massive LED screen behind me.
I read through the second paragraph, my voice hollow. Suddenly, the side doors to the auditorium swung open.
George wheeled himself into the room.
Sarah’s face drained of color.
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
“Ms. Harper sent a car for me.”
George stared up at the stage.
“She told me Declan was apologizing on my behalf, and I needed to hear it.”
Harper stood up smoothly.
“Mr. Mitchell, you have a right to know the truth.”
I squeezed the microphone until the plastic creaked.
“Who gave you the right to drag a sick man out of the hospital?”
“Mr. Mitchell is of sound mind and attended voluntarily.”
But George shook his head. “She told me if I didn’t show up, Declan’s apology wouldn’t be considered sincere, and they’d cut my funding.”
A heavy silence swept through the auditorium. The collective gaze of a thousand people bore down on Harper.
Harper just smiled.
“I merely explained the consequences of the situation to you.”
“You call that voluntary?”
“Mr. Cross, please continue reading.”
The text on the massive screen flipped to the final page.
I also formally acknowledge that George Mitchell’s reckless driving lacked any commendable life-saving merit.
George read those words. His frail body swayed in the wheelchair.
“Don’t read it.”
I lowered the microphone.
Richard bolted up from his seat.
“Declan!”
George pushed himself up, gripping the armrests.
“I ran those lights. I admit it.”
“The company fired me. I took the punishment.”
“But you don’t get to stand there and say saving her life meant nothing.”
Harper turned around to face him.
“Mr. Mitchell, you are avoiding the core issue again.”
“If you had run over a pedestrian that day, who would have taken responsibility?”
“I would have.”
“With what? You don’t have the money or the power to bring someone back to life.”
George opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Harper pulled a thick document from her pristine folder.
“This is a joint petition signed by twenty-seven passengers who were on your bus that day.”
“They unanimously agreed that your actions put their lives in severe danger against their will.”
“Twelve of them are sitting in this room right now.”
The cameras aggressively swung to the right side of the hall.
A row of people stood up on cue.
One woman said, “He wouldn’t listen to reason at all.”
“He was driving like a maniac.”
“My kid had nightmares for six months after that.”
“If you want to save someone, call an ambulance! Why did you drag us to the hospital with you?”
George’s hands slid off the armrests. He slumped back into the chair.
I jumped off the stage and sprinted toward him.
Before I made it three steps, security guards blocked my path.
Richard cut off my microphone from the control booth.
“Declan, finish the apology, or you will be terminated for insubordination.”
George stared blankly at the passengers.
“That day… that’s not what you said.”
No one answered.
Harper thrust the signed petition right in front of his face.
“It’s right here in black and white. Are you still going to deny it?”
George stared at the final page. Suddenly, he reached out.
“They didn’t sign this.”
Harper yanked the paper back defensively.
“Please do not damage the evidence.”
“The third signature. Gary Thorne.”
George’s voice trembled violently.
“Gary got in the ambulance with the paramedics that day. He died of a heart attack three days later.”
“How could he sign this petition a month after the incident?”
The auditorium went dead silent.
The triumphant smile on Harper’s face vanished for a fraction of a second.
Richard grabbed his microphone.
“Irrelevant details do not change the fact that Declan violated company policy.”
Suddenly, the massive LED screen went pitch black.
A second later, a gritty, static-laced audio recording echoed through the speakers, flooding the entire auditorium.
It was a young girl crying hysterically.
“Driver, please don’t pull over for the ambulance!”
“I have a brain tumor. I’m going to die!”
“Please, just run the lights! I beg you!”
“If anything happens, I’ll take all the responsibility! Please!”
It was Harper’s voice.
Every single camera whipped back to her.
Harper shot up from her chair, her eyes wide with genuine panic.
“Turn that off!”
On the recording, George’s voice echoed back. “You’re awake?”
The girl sobbed uncontrollably. “I’ve been awake the whole time!”
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1
After gaining eighty pounds from severe hormone treatments, I became consumed by a suffocating insecurity.
Yet my husband, Harry, a star cardiac surgeon, claimed he never cared. Every time he finished a major operation, he brought home a bottle of niche designer perfume for me. An entire wall glistening with fragile glass bottles became the single ray of light in my dull, dark existence.
Until the day I dropped off lunch for him at the hospital and overheard him whispering to the new intern in the stairwell.
His tone was impossibly gentle. “Being with you brings me a sense of peace and pleasure that nothing else can match.”
“My mood was so good today that I bought a bottle of perfume downstairs just to toss it to her. Consider it a cover-up scent for the fat girl.”
“Otherwise, going home to a bloated woman who reeks of bitter herbal medicine makes me dread even stepping through the front door.”
It turned out that the entire wall of exquisite fragrances was nothing more than a disguise for his shame.
That afternoon, I dropped the lunch box, dried my tears, and quietly purchased a single one-way ticket to a city thousands of miles away.
âŚ
The heavy fire door to the stairwell stood slightly ajar. I crouched in the cold shadow behind it, clamping both hands firmly over my mouth.
Because of years spent on high-dose hormone therapy, the backs of my hands were swollen, lined with deep purple stretch marks.
On the other side of the door stood the man I had loved for eight years, Harry, chief surgical resident at City First Hospital, alongside the new intern, Serena.
They stood dangerously close.
Harry’s familiar, soothing voice carried through the gap.
“How can I help it when you are so captivating?”
Serena let out a coquettish giggle. “Stop it. If you keep acting like this, how are you going to face Virginia when you go home? She still cooks and delivers lunch for you every single day.”
My knuckles turned stark white as I gripped the thermal soup container.
“Why bring her up and ruin the mood?” Harry let out a soft sigh. “I just buy a bottle of perfume to keep her happy before I head home. That way, she stays devoted enough to take care of my paralyzed mother for free. It saves me hundreds a day in professional nursing costs. It is an incredible deal.”
A sudden wave of nausea hit my stomach, forcing me to double over. I waited until the sound of their retreating footsteps faded down the hallway before I dared to breathe normally again.
Tears splashed against the purple marks on my swollen skin. I could not speak a single word.
Once, I was a skilled surgeon holding a scalpel alongside him. Severe endocrine failure brought on by aggressive fertility treatments caused my weight to skyrocket by eighty pounds.
Back then, Harry had taken my hands softly, promising, “Virginia, this counts as an occupational injury. I will take care of you forever. You just stay home, rest, and look after my mother.”
Every time he completed a complex procedure, he brought me an expensive bottle of perfume.
He used to say, “Virginia, just because you are sick does not mean you should stop being elegant. These scents suit you best.”
Deeply moved, I cherished those bottles like sacred treasures, arranging them meticulously across an entire display wall. They became the sole beacon of hope in my quiet, lonely life as a full-time homemaker.
In reality, every single bottle was merely a marker of his infidelity, a pathetic veil over his betrayal.
Numbly, I knelt down, picking up the shattered pieces of the thermal container from the floor, using my sleeve to wipe away the spilled chicken soup.
Then, dragging my heavy, aching body, I shuffled down the stairs step by step.
At eight that evening, Harry unlocked the front door.
A faint scent of hospital disinfectant clung to him, mixed with a barely noticeable trace of sweet, fruity perfume.
Smiling, he walked up to me and, as he always did, pulled an elegant gift box from behind his back.
“Virginia, you worked hard today. This is the new limited-edition tuberose. Want to try it?”
His eyes beamed with apparent affection. He reached out, gently pinching the soft flesh of my arm. “You seem to have gained a little weight recently. That is fine, extra weight brings good fortune, and it feels nice to touch.”
Looking at his handsome face, a surge of revulsion twisted my gut.
I avoided his gaze, looking past him toward the perfume display wall in the living room, feeling my throat constrict tightly.
“I need to turn my mother-in-law over first,” I murmured, keeping my head low as I bypassed the perfume box and walked straight into his mother’s bedroom.
After changing the soiled sheets for my paralyzed, incontinent mother-in-law and washing her clean, I returned to my small study.
No screaming. No confrontation.
I opened my laptop and clicked on an email that had been sitting untouched in my inbox for a month. It was an acceptance letter from a top international medical research institute for a specialized critical care rehabilitation program.
Taking a deep breath, I clicked the button to confirm my enrollment.
Late at night, Harry was fast asleep.
I sat in front of the computer screen, entering a complex password to open an encrypted file folder.
Inside lay the extensive pathology data and manuscript drafts for a major cardiovascular research paper that I had been secretly organizing and writing for Harry over the past six months.
My body might have been broken, and my hands might no longer hold a scalpel, but my mind was completely intact.
Whenever Harry encountered an academic bottleneck, he would wrap his arms around me, softly begging me, his former top-ranking classmate, to lend him a hand.
Believing we were a team, I endured endless sleepless nights, polishing this groundbreaking manuscript until it was flawless, enough to secure him an associate professorship.
The next morning, when I emerged from the kitchen carrying breakfast, Harry was sitting at the dining table in high spirits, flicking through the latest issue of the National Medical Journal.
“Virginia, the new issue arrived. Take a look.” He smiled, sliding the magazine across the table toward me and thoughtfully pulling out a chair.
Wiping the moisture from my hands, I opened the table of contents with quiet anticipation.
However, the moment my eyes landed on the primary author credit, the blood in my veins ran ice cold.
The name printed there was not Harry, nor was it mine.
It read three agonizing words: Serena Lin.
Harry walked up behind me, gently wrapping his arms around my waist, his voice dripping with smooth affection. “You saw it?”
My voice sounded dry and hollow. “Why is she listed as the primary author? This paper belonged to…”
“Virginia,” he interrupted smoothly. “Serena is a very hardworking intern. She is preparing for her board certification and desperately needs a high-impact publication under her name. I am already an attending surgeon. Giving her this credit is just my way of mentoring a junior colleague.”
He dropped a light kiss onto my cheek. “Besides, you have been out of the field for so long. What use do you have for a meaningless title anyway? Why draw such sharp lines between husband and wife?”
He used my blood, sweat, and tears to pave a golden path for his mistress, dressing it up as professional generosity.
I lowered my eyes, gazing at the printed name, feeling as though a dull blade were slowly carving through my chest.
Then, he pulled a small box from his pocket and opened it.
Inside lay a thick, heavy, incredibly tacky solid gold bangle.
Grabbing my hand, he forcibly crammed the bangle over my hand. The cold metal dug brutally into the soft flesh of my swollen wrist, leaving a deep red mark.
“I saw this at the jeweler and knew it was perfect. The heavy gold weight matches your prosperous figure.”
He studied it with a warm smile. “Do not let a silly academic title make you jealous. You are the real Mrs. Harry. Everything I earn belongs to you anyway.”
What was this supposed to be? A gold chain to keep a loyal dog tethered?
Staring at the ridiculous gold band on my wrist, I calmly used my other hand to slide it off, placing it directly over the open magazine.
“It is too heavy. It gets in the way of housework,” I said softly.
The smile on Harry’s face stiffened. His brows knit together slightly. “You simply do not know how to enjoy the finer things. Whatever. Drink the herbal medicine I bought yesterday, fix your body, and let us focus on having a baby soon.”
He picked up the bowl of dark, foul-smelling liquid and pushed it toward my lips.
The scent was pungent and stomach-churning. I had swallowed this bitter brew for three agonizing years, destroying my metabolism and stripping away every shred of my dignity.
I lifted my head, looking straight into his deceptive eyes.
Then, right in front of him, I took the bowl and poured every drop of the black liquid straight down the kitchen sink.
The dark whirlpool swallowed the herbal dregs, swirling out of sight down the drain.
Harry froze, completely stunned.
Before he could unleash his anger, my phone vibrated in my apron pocket.
It was an email from the overseas institute: “Dr. Virginia, congratulations on passing the secondary review. Please confirm your start date as soon as possible.”
Turning around, I set the empty bowl on the counter, my voice devoid of any emotion. “I am done drinking it. It is too bitter.”
I walked back into my study, locked the door, and booked a one-way flight to the other side of the ocean, set for two weeks later.
Those two weeks passed in a blur of numbness.
The hospital’s annual gala was held at a five-star hotel downtown. As Harry’s wife, my attendance was mandatory.
I searched through my closet, failing to find a single formal dress that could fit my swollen frame. In the end, I settled for a loose, plain black dress, attempting to use the dark fabric to hide the heavy layers of weight.
As I stepped toward the banquet hall entrance, the head nurse greeting guests failed to recognize me. She offered a warm, polite smile. “Dr. Harry, did you bring your mother’s caretaker along for dinner? The staff table is right over there by the side.”
A quiet hush fell over the surrounding crowd. Several passing doctors struggled to hide their snickers.
Without missing a beat, Harry casually rested his hand near my shoulder. “Sister Zhang, you are mistaken. This is my wife, Virginia.”
“Oh, goodness! My apologies! Mrs. Harry keeps such a low profile, my eyesight must be failing me,” the nurse offered a nervous, embarrassed chuckle.
Harry smiled gently, saying it was no trouble at all. Yet, the hand resting on my shoulder pulled back almost instantly.
This move, framed as a polite rescue while subtly solidifying my image as an unpresentable housewife, was far more humiliating than an outright insult.
Shortly after we sat at the head table, the heavy entrance doors swung open again.
Serena glided into the hall wearing a shimmering mermaid gown that hugged her curves, stepping gracefully in sky-high heels.
Every gaze in the room was instantly captured by her slender silhouette.
She sauntered over to our table, her voice dripping with sweetness. “Dr. Harry.”
Harry stood up naturally, pulling out the chair right beside mine for her, displaying a clear favor meant only for her.
I sat squeezed in the middle, looking like a drab, grey wall.
When the dinner began, servers brought out the signature steamed crab.
Just as I picked up my fork, I watched Harry expertly pick out the sweetest crab meat and roe, arranging it neatly on a small plate before sliding it past me, placing it directly in front of Serena.
“Serena spent the last few days pulling back-to-back shifts in the operating room. Her stomach has been sensitive. Eat some high-protein food to recover,” he said with a bright, charming smile.
Serena blushed, pretending to decline. “How could I? Dr. Harry, you should eat it yourself.”
“You are far too thin. Be good and eat,” he urged, his affectionate tone stinging my eyes like acid.
Right at that moment, the hospital director stepped onto the stage, speaking into the microphone. “Tonight, we have a special recognition for Dr. Serena Lin from the cardiology department! Her published paper as primary author has generated incredible praise across the medical community! Let us congratulate this rising star!”
A spotlight immediately illuminated our table.
Serena covered her mouth in dramatic excitement, standing up to bow to the room before turning to offer a deep, graceful bow directly toward Harry. “Thank you for your guidance, Dr. Harry. This paper would never exist without you.”
Cheering applause erupted across the room. The two of them exchanged glances under the bright lights, looking like the ultimate power couple of the medical world.
Meanwhile, I, the actual author of that research, remained buried in the shadows, nothing more than a pathetic, invisible background piece.
When Harry sat back down, he pulled his admiring gaze away from her.
Perhaps realizing the atmosphere was too obvious, he finally remembered my presence beside him.
Using the serving chopsticks, he rummaged through a platter of braised pork, picked out a massive, glistening piece of pure fat, and dropped it into my bowl.
“Virginia, you love this. Eat more,” he said smoothly.
The surrounding female doctors exchanged glances filled with pity and undisguised disgust.
That heavy piece of fat was the ultimate mockery of my body, a pathetic crumb of affection tossed to me after his grand celebration.
Staring down at the greasy lump sitting in my bowl, acid surged violently up my throat.
I set my fork down.
“It is a bit stuffy in here. I am going to the restroom.”
Ignoring Harry’s surprised look, I pushed my chair back and walked briskly out of the banquet hall.
Inside a locked restroom stall, I pulled out my phone and messaged my attorney.
“Attorney Ross, you can send over the asset notarization and the draft of the divorce agreement now.”
Three days after the banquet, while I was cleaning my mother-in-law, her face suddenly turned blue. She gasped frantically for air, her hands clutching the bedsheets in a violent panic.
Acute heart failure!
I dialed an ambulance like a woman possessed. Without even changing out of my soiled apron, I boarded the emergency vehicle and rushed straight to the hospital.
Registration, payments, pushing her heavy wheelchair through various diagnostic labs. The workload meant for two family members fell entirely on my shoulders alone.
When I reached the final blood draw station, days of intense exhaustion combined with low blood sugar triggered by my hormonal imbalance caused my vision to fade to black.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs, and my limbs went completely numb. I reached out to grab a nearby support pillar, but my body gave out, crashing heavily onto the hard tile floor as violent spasms gripped my muscles.
Through a ringing in my ears, I forced my eyes open, looking past the crowded hallway toward the nursing station in the distance.
Harry was standing there in his spotless white lab coat.
He was not looking in my direction. Instead, he was holding Serena’s hand with gentle, agonizing care.
Serena had lightly scraped her finger on a metal chart holder.
Harry’s brows were tightly knit as he carefully applied a small bandage to her paper-thin scratch.
“Someone collapsed! Help! Call a doctor!” a patient’s relative nearby shouted in alarm.
Hearing the commotion, Harry turned around from the nursing station, his expression shifting to utter shock.
He saw me lying helpless on the floor.
In that fraction of a second, the tenderness on his face vanished, replaced by sheer embarrassment and a disgust he could barely hide.
He walked over quickly, yet he did not perform any basic medical checks on my vital signs.
The very first thing he did was rapidly strip off his black suit jacket, tossing it heavily over my sweat-drenched, swollen face.
The scent of cheap perfume clinging to his jacket mixed with his sweat, completely cutting off my remaining air.
In that exact moment, my heart stopped fighting.
My final tolerance snapped completely.
After being revived by the emergency nurses, I did not attempt to contact Harry. I quietly pushed his mother, now out of danger, back home.
The next morning, under the excuse of attending a high-profile medical conference out of state, Harry boarded a flight with Serena, full of energy and pride.
Meanwhile, in the quiet house, I performed one final, thorough cleaning.
I signed the divorce papers sent by Attorney Ross, placing them neatly underneath the most expensive, limited-edition perfume bottle on the display wall.
Then, I wrote down every single detail regarding my mother-in-law’s medication schedule, turning frequency, and dietary restrictions on sticky notes, plastering them neatly across the wall above her headboard.
With everything complete, I gripped the handle of my pre-packed suitcase and closed the front door behind me without a single backward glance.
At the airport terminal, the final boarding call for my international flight echoed over the speakers.
Suddenly, my phone vibrated violently in my palm.
It was Harry.
At a moment when he was riding high on a romantic getaway with his mistress, he actually found the time to call me.
I pressed answer.
Harry’s voice sounded impossibly sweet over the receiver.
“Virginia, I am coming back the day after tomorrow. These meetings have been exhausting. Could you simmer that wild ginseng soup I love so we can have it ready when I land?”
His tone held a practiced tenderness. “I bought you a silk scarf while I was out, a large size. It will look lovely on you.”
Listening to his familiar script, I let out a soft laugh.
No screaming. No explosive accusations.
I watched the planes taking off past the glass windows, listening to the final call at my gate, and spoke with absolute calm.
“Do not bother coming back, and do not bother bringing anything.”
“Harry, I am gone.”
Before he could offer any response, I ended the call.
I popped out the SIM card that had bound me to him for eight long years, snapped it clean in half, and tossed it into the nearest trash bin.
Then, gripping my suitcase, I walked straight into the boarding jetway without looking back once.
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After a car crash, I faked amnesia to tease my notoriously stiff husband, asking him who he was.
Mark froze for a second before offering a tender smile. “I’m your brother.”
I reached out playfully, running my hand over his rock-hard abs. “Like… a naughty lover kind of brother?”
Mark dodged my touch, his tone laced with restrained distance. “Stop messing around. I mean your biological brother.”
That got me even more excited. “Wild taboo romance! Gotta love it!”
Later, when I was diagnosed with a pregnancy, Mark was beside himself with joy.
Yet I stubbornly insisted on getting an abortion. He nearly went out of his mind, gripping my shoulders and begging to know why.
I looked at him calmly and replied:
“Forbidden sibling tropes are fun to joke about online, but in real life, who actually dates their own brother?”
01
I have always been someone who cared way too much about saving face.
When other kids tripped and fell, they would cry and pick themselves up. When I fell, I would lie flat on the pavement and pretend I had simply decided it was time for a nap.
Naturally, getting courted and married by Mark was the proudest achievement of my life.
As the youngest associate professor at the university, Mark was ridiculously attractive in a cool, distant way. Whenever he stood behind the lecture podium, the quiet clicking of student phone cameras sounded like a flock of cicadas.
After we got married, Mark treated me like a precious glass doll, taking care of my every need. Everyone who saw us couldn’t help but gush about how lucky I was to score an older, refined man.
When it came to romance, however, Mark was painfully vanilla.
Even if I took the initiative and begged for a kiss, he would only peck my cheek or forehead before giving my head an affectionate little pat.
So when he called himself my brother after my accident, I felt a surge of relief.
My stiff, uptight husband is finally learning how to roleplay.
To be fair, the car crash was minor. I only ended up with a few bruises and a mild concussion. But when I woke up from my stupor and saw Mark sitting by my bed, the dark circles under his eyes heavy with exhaustion, my heart melted. I wanted to play a little prank to lighten the mood.
Who knew Mark wouldn’t follow the script and would go straight for a forbidden blood-relation drama?
Since he wanted to act, I couldn’t let the ball drop. Where would my dignity go if I broke character first?
And so, I kept up the act for a full week. Every single day, I had to exert all my willpower to keep my hands off Mark’s broad chest, which looked like it was actively threatening his shirt buttons.
Finally, Mark seemed convinced that I had genuinely lost my memory. He reached out and gently ruffled my hair.
“Sweetheart, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“My wife, your brother’s wife, is actually staying in this same hospital.”
“Since you have amnesia, you probably don’t remember her. If you’re feeling up to it, I can take you to see her.”
I giggled silently in my head.
I was already picturing the scene where Mark would lead me to a full-length mirror, point at my reflection, and say, Look, this is my wife.
Instead, Mark walked me down the long hospital corridor and stopped in front of a private room.
He pushed the door open.
Lying on the crisp white hospital bed was a complete stranger.
“Is that you, Sienna?”
The woman looked up, her voice gentle and soft. “Mark told me you were in a car accident and lost your memory. I was so worried about you. Come here and let me look at you. Thank goodness your pretty face didn’t get scratched.”
Mark gave me a soft nudge from behind.
“Sweetheart, this is my wife, Giselle.”
My mind went instantly blank.
Who?
For a split second, I actually questioned if I really had amnesia. But I knew down to the exact drawer where our red marriage certificates were stored at home.
Seeing me frozen in place, Giselle looked at me with tender concern. “Sienna, I know your head is foggy right now. It’s completely normal that you don’t remember me.”
She offered a timid, embarrassed smile. “Mark and I have known each other since we were kids. We were childhood sweethearts. When he came over to my house back then, my dad told me to call him big brother, but I refused. I didn’t understand it then, but when I grew up, I realized it was love. So getting married later just felt like the natural step.”
What was she talking about?
If she was married to my husband, then what was I?
“Where’s your marriage license?”
I heard my own voice come out hard and sharp. “You say you two are married. Where’s the license?”
Giselle blinked, startled, then let out a soft laugh. “We have it, of course. But it’s at home. Once I get discharged…”
“I don’t want to wait until you get discharged,” I cut her off. “I want to see it right now.”
Giselle instinctively glanced past me toward Mark, her eyes filled with a helpless plea.
“Well… maybe Mark can run home and grab it?”
“No, I need to see proof right now!”
My voice hit a high, jagged note. “If you two are really married, you must have photos on your phone, right? Wedding pictures, album posts, social media updates! Show me right now. If you can’t, you’re a liar!”
Giselle’s already pale face drained of all color.
“Stop it, Sienna.”
Mark frowned, his tone heavy and stern, just like an older brother scolding a bratty younger sister.
“Giselle isn’t like you. Her health is fragile. Don’t push her like this.”
As if on cue to prove his point, Giselle suddenly clutched her chest and began coughing violently, gasping for air.
“Giselle!”
Mark rushed to the bedside, wrapping one arm around her shoulder while using his other hand to gently pat her back in a practiced, fluid motion.
I stood all alone by the doorway, a band-aid stuck to my forehead, my eyes stinging as tears welled up uncontrollably.
02
I turned around and walked away.
Roleplay or not, I didn’t want to play this sick game anymore.
All I wanted was to go home, open our bedroom door, and look at the framed wedding photo hanging above our bed. In that photo, I was wearing a white veil, my eyes crinkling with joy, while Mark stood beside me in his tailored suit, his gentle eyes looking only at me.
Then, I would grab my documents from the nightstand and figure out how to get a clean, dignified divorce.
When I got back to my hospital room and grabbed my coat, I looked up to find Mark standing at the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Do you even remember where home is?”
I choked on my words.
“Sweetheart…” Mark stepped closer, staring at me intently. “Did you remember something? Or… did you never lose your memory at all?”
I wanted to tell him the truth.
I wanted to yell that I never lost my memory, that I was his wife, not his sister. I wanted to ask him if he realized what he was doing. If I hadn’t been pretending, was he really planning to let another woman claim to be his wife right in front of my face for the rest of my life?
I wanted to ask him if we had really been married for three years, or if I had been living with a complete stranger.
But the words gathered in my throat and dissolved into a bitter lump.
Why should I tell him the truth?
If I admitted to faking my amnesia now, I would be admitting that I lied to him first. He would turn it back on me, blaming my little trick for his grand deception.
When I first started this joke, all I wanted was to see his flustered reaction. The moment he panicked, I was going to throw my arms around his neck and laugh, Fooled you! How could I ever forget a husband as handsome as you?
Then I would watch him smile that helpless, indulgent smile of his, the kind where the corners of his eyes crinkled softly, making me feel utterly safe.
It was supposed to be a sweet, silly moment between husband and wife. I never imagined it would open the door for another woman to step into my life.
And why was Mark teaming up with her to deceive me?
Fine. If he wanted to act, I would play the part until the very end. When the lie finally unraveled, I would see his real answer.
“…I wish I had never forgotten,” I murmured, lowering my head to hide the wetness in my eyes.
“I don’t remember you, and I definitely don’t remember having a sister-in-law like her. Neither of you can even produce a single wedding photo. How do I know you aren’t human traffickers trying to kidnap me?”
Mark stared at me for a long time.
Finally, he let out a heavy sigh.
He walked over, pulled his phone from his suit pocket, unlocked it, and opened his photo album.
The first picture was of me, grinning foolishly at the camera while making bunny ears behind Mark’s head.
He swiped right. It was a photo of Mark standing in front of his alma mater alongside a handsome young man with bleached blonde hair. Mark swiped past it quickly.
The next photo showed only his hand holding a cozy blanket, covering me while I was fast asleep on the couch, drooling slightly.
“See? This is you, and this is me,” Mark said, his voice softening as he looked at the screen. “We are family.”
He looked down at me, pausing for a moment.
“As for Giselle… she’s sick. Stage four lung cancer.”
My head snapped up, meeting his gaze.
“Giselle’s father was my benefactor,” Mark explained softly.
“My grandmother and I used to live in a crumbling mud hut in the mountains. She washed clothes for extra cash just to raise me. When she was diagnosed with kidney failure, the dialysis bills were astronomical.”
“It was Giselle’s father who paid for everything. After my grandmother passed away, he brought me into his home, put me through school, and taught me how to be a proper man. He told me, Mark, study hard and get out of these mountains. You don’t belong in the dirt.”
“Without him, I would have starved to death in that hut. I wouldn’t be the man I am today.”
Mark’s eyes filled with exhaustion and deep guilt. “But good people don’t always get good endings. He fell ill suddenly. On his deathbed, he held my hand and said the only thing he worried about was his daughter. He asked me to take care of her.”
Mark had promised him.
“I owe her father my life,” Mark whispered. “I can’t just abandon her. She doesn’t have much time left. I just want to stay by her side through this final stretch. It’s the only way I can repay my debt to her father.”
Listening to him, everything finally clicked into place.
We had dated for two years and been married for three. Mark was a popular professor, and bold female students often asked for his contact information. He always handled those situations gracefully and reported them to me right away, completely transparent.
Yet, in all those years, he had never once mentioned the name Giselle.
He had kept her hidden so very well.
Then I thought about the car crash.
After we married, Mark insisted that I didn’t need to work, promising to provide for me so I could live comfortably. But sitting around at home for too long made me feel useless, so I recently started sending out resumes.
On the afternoon of my crash, I had just finished an interview. Mark was supposed to pick me up, but he called at the last minute, claiming a male graduate student of his was having a mental health crisis and he had to rush to the hospital.
Mark had mentioned that student multiple times before. He said the guy couldn’t get over his ex-girlfriend, constantly sending her desperate texts and calls. Later, he fell into severe depression and stood on the roof several times. Mark was always the one called in to pull him back.
I used to think Mark was just an exceptionally responsible professor, listening to his stories like dramatic campus gossip.
That day was no exception.
“What happened to him this time?” I had asked over the phone.
“He swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills. They’re pumping his stomach right now,” Mark had sounded utterly drained. “Sweetheart, can you take a cab home by yourself? I’ll make your favorite pork rib and yam soup when I get back tonight.”
So, I happily booked a taxi.
And then my taxi got rear-ended.
Looking back now, that troubled male student never existed.
The person Mark rushed to see that afternoon was Giselle.
And those dramatic stories were just gender-swapped versions of reality.
Giselle was his ex. After they broke up, she couldn’t let go. Even after Mark married me, she kept clinging to him, using her failing health and mental state to keep him tethered.
How long had Mark been living this double life behind my back?
Perhaps even back when we were dating, he was already playing both sides. Benefactor’s daughter on one side, girlfriend turned wife on the other. Trying to care for both, weighed down by guilt for both, maintaining a fragile, suffocating balance.
So when I woke up and randomly pretended to have amnesia… what did Mark feel in that exact moment?
I knew the answer now.
It was relief.
He had finally found a loophole, a perfect solution handed to him on a silver platter. He could stay by Giselle’s side openly, fulfilling her final wishes without technically committing adultery.
Because his wife didn’t even know she was his wife anymore.
How brilliant of you, Professor Mark.
You pushed me away with your own hands, thinking I would just stay right where you left me.
I raised my head, my eyes dry and burning, but not a single tear fell.
“That’s so moving,” I said, forcing a bright smile. “I believe you guys are real husband and wife now. You’re so good to your wife, big brother! When I look for a boyfriend, I definitely want someone just like you!”
I even let out a small laugh, reaching out to swipe through his phone screen.
I swiped back to the photo of the young man with bleached blonde hair and bedroom eyes.
“By the way, brother, who’s this friend of yours? What’s his name? He looks super handsome. Why don’t you introduce us?”
Mark’s breathing hitched.
03
Mark’s face went rigid, his tone turning cold and clinical.
“His name is Rowan. He was the last student Giselle’s father funded. I heard he recently started a successful tech company.”
Mark kept his eyes fixed on my face as he spoke. The moment I nodded, he abruptly changed his tune.
“But his private life is a complete mess. He’s been wild and unmanageable since he was a kid. The first time Giselle’s father went to visit him with gifts, Rowan thought he was a kidnapper and shoved him straight into a muddy ditch, standing on the bank laughing his head off.”
Mark locked his phone screen and slid it back into his pocket, his voice turning into a low, persuasive coo.
“Trust me, sweetheart. A guy like him isn’t right for you.”
Mark glanced out the window. It was the rainy season, and heavy gray clouds hung thick over the city skyline.
“You’re not in good shape right now, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving you home alone. I talked to Hank and Lily. You can stay at their place while I’m away, okay?”
Hank was an old colleague of Mark’s, and Lily was his wife. The two of them were constantly bickering, so they always envied Mark and me, talking about how in three years of marriage, they had never seen us raise our voices.
Mark was always patient and gentle, and I cared too much about keeping up appearances to throw a tantrum. We simply never had a reason to fight.
I got into Mark’s car. We barely made it past the second intersection before his phone rang, automatically routing through the car’s Bluetooth speakers.
“Hubby?”
Giselle’s sweet, affectionate voice echoed clearly through the car.
Mark pressed his lips into a tight line, but he still let out a quiet, “Yeah?”
My nails dug deep into the flesh of my palms.
Giselle called out to him a second time.
“Hubby, did you catch up to Sienna? Why did she leave so suddenly?”
“Did I say something that upset her? It’s all my fault. Hubby, you should really spend more time with Sienna.”
“I might have to do the lung biopsy later today. I looked it up, they insert a long needle through the chest wall under CT guidance. It’s local anesthesia, so I’ll be awake the whole time.”
“But it’s fine. I can handle it alone.”
Her voice was soft, fragile, and selfless. “Hubby, you don’t need to rush back to be with me. I’m okay. Anyway, I won’t disturb you two anymore.”
The call disconnected.
The car happened to reach a busy crossroads. Turning left led to Hank’s house, at least an hour’s drive away. Turning right meant circling back to the hospital.
I turned my head to look at Mark.
His face was completely devoid of emotion.
I opened my mouth, intending to tell him to just turn back to the hospital since medical care was more important and I wasn’t that petty.
Before I could speak, Mark flipped his right turn signal on and merged into the right lane.
The first heavy raindrop slammed against the windshield.
Within seconds, downpour sheets of rain battered the glass.
I slowly closed my mouth and stared out the passenger window.
Mark finally spoke. “Sweetheart, I’ll drop you off somewhere nearby first. I bought a place near the hospital. I’ll come pick you up as soon as I’m done staying with Giselle.”
I turned back to him. “What kind of place?”
Mark hesitated for a moment, his eyes fixed on the rain-drenched road ahead, looking thoroughly exhausted.
“Giselle used to… spend a lot of time in the hospital. To make it easier to take care of her, I bought a small apartment nearby.”
I didn’t even know how to describe the feeling rising in my chest.
My husband had bought a private sanctuary near the hospital for another woman, spending countless nights caring for her there.
And I only found out because I was pretending to have amnesia.
The rain outside grew heavier, pounding against the window like a frantic heartbeat.
My mind, curiously, went entirely quiet.
When we pulled up to the apartment complex, he unlocked the door and led me inside. The place was dripping with signs of daily life.
In the shoe rack at the entryway, there were only two pairs of slippers, a matching couple’s set in pale pink and sky blue. There were no spare guest slippers.
Mark bent down, pulled out the pink pair, and handed them to me.
“Wear these for now. I’ll buy a new pair on my way back.”
Before leaving, Mark ruffled my hair again, offering careful instructions. “It’s slick out there, so don’t wander around. I’ll be right back after I check on Giselle. Be a good girl, okay?”
The second Mark walked out the door, I began tearing the apartment apart.
After digging up four hundred-dollar bills from a drawer, I grabbed an umbrella from the hallway and headed straight out into the storm.
Mark had taken my phone after the accident, and he had likely left it back at our real home. I needed to get my phone back, along with my official documents.
The storm had turned ferocious. The moment I popped the umbrella open, the wind nearly blew it inside out, soaking my shoes and socks instantly.
I caught a cab back to our house and used the keypad to unlock the front door.
Sure enough, my phone was sitting on the console table in the foyer, its battery drained down to a single percent.
I plugged it into a charger right away and hurried into the bedroom to retrieve my documents.
My gaze brushed past the large wedding portrait hanging above the bed, a wave of sour irony washing over me.
Just as I pulled my suitcase out from the closet, my phone chimed.
I picked it up. It was the HR manager from the company I had interviewed with the previous week.
“Hi, Sienna! Our team lead really loved your presentation from the first round. We tried reaching out earlier and were worried when we couldn’t get through. We have a final interview scheduled for two-thirty this afternoon. Are you available? If it goes well, you can start onboarding today!”
I gripped the phone, stunned, feeling the suffocating pressure in my chest finally ease up just a fraction.
“Yes! Yes, absolutely! I can be there right away!” I agreed eagerly.
I checked the time. It was already 1:15 PM.
I opened a rideshare app, booked a car, grabbed my purse, and dashed back out into the rain.
The driver was a middle-aged guy who started cursing about traffic the moment I got in. I stayed silent, staring blankly out the window.
Up ahead, I noticed a huge puddle on the side of the road, right next to a pedestrian walking with an umbrella.
I narrowed my eyes. Just as the person started looking strangely familiar, the driver suddenly slammed on the gas.
“Excuse me, there’s a huge puddle over there, watch out forâ”
Before I could finish my warning, the car sped right past, splashing a wall of muddy water straight over the pedestrian.
I instinctively turned around to look through the rear window. The man was standing there soaked, slowly lowering his umbrella.
His bleached blonde hair shone shockingly bright against the gray, dreary sky.
He raised a hand, looking like he was trying to hail a cab.
I turned back around.
At the next intersection, there was another puddle with several pedestrians waiting for a ride. The driver pulled the exact same trick, swerving toward the curb and stomping on the accelerator.
Except this time, as soon as the car got close, one of the pedestrians pulled a concrete brick from behind his back.
A loud, violent THUD echoed from the back of the car.
The driver slammed on the brakes, pulled over, and jumped out cursing up a storm to confront the pedestrian.
Anxiety surged through me. I checked my phone inside the car.
It was 2:13 PM, and my battery was down to 5%.
I quickly sent a text to the HR manager: [I am so sorry, I ran into an emergency on the way. I might be a little late.]
The HR manager took a moment to reply:
[We have other candidates lined up today. The latest we can stretch it for you is 3:00 PM. Please hurry.]
I texted back a quick thank-you. Without even bother opening my umbrella, I opened the door and stepped out, desperate to hail another cab.
The moment I raised my hand, the bald driver grabbed my arm with a vice-like grip.
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going? You’re my passenger! You have to testify for me! I didn’t see that puddle! Make him pay for the damage!”
He pulled with so much force on the slick, rain-soaked pavement that my feet slipped right out from under me.
I crashed heavily onto the ground, landing hard in a deep puddle of muddy water.
Both arguing men went dead silent.
At that exact moment, thunder rumbled overhead, and the rain poured down harder.
I sat there, completely dazed. My thighs and palms throbbed with a sharp, burning pain from hitting the asphalt. Wet strands of hair stuck to my face as muddy water dripped down my chin.
In that moment, I wanted Mark to be by my side so badly.
I wanted to break down and sob.
But he wasn’t there.
He was at the hospital, holding Giselle’s hand like a loving husband.
I couldn’t cry.
I couldn’t cry right now.
If I cried, I would lose the last shred of dignity I had left.
Just then, the sound of screeching tires cut through the rain.
A bright yellow taxi pulled up to the curb, and Rowan pushed the back door open and stepped out.
He was covered in mud spots too, his designer shirt soaked through, looking like a drowned cat.
Yet, he had a grin on his face as he walked straight up to the bald driver.
Rowan delivered a brutal, solid punch right to the driver’s gut.
The driver let out a pathetic groan, doubling over as his knees gave out, his face falling straight into the muddy puddle.
Rowan shook out his fist, his grin widening.
“Revenge is a dish best served instantly.”
He turned around and caught sight of me sitting on the ground.
“What’s going on here? Bullying a woman? Guess one punch wasn’t enough.”
He bent down slightly and extended a hand toward me. “Can you stand up?”
I didn’t look at him.
I pushed myself up off the wet ground, grabbed my soaked purse, and sprinted straight for the taxi he had just stepped out of.
Rowan yelled from behind me, “Hey! That’s my cab!”
I pulled the door open, slid inside, and handed two hundred-dollar bills to the driver. “I’m paying for his ride too! Double! Please take me to this address as fast as you can!”
The driver slammed his foot on the gas.
At 2:27 PM, I finally stumbled into the office building for my interview.
The HR manager took one look at my drenched, muddy appearance and froze, an awkward expression washing over her face.
“Um… Sienna, I am so sorry…”
“We actually just selected a candidate a few minutes ago. It was the director’s call, our hands are tied…”
I took a deep, shaky breath and closed my eyes.
It was fine.
If this job didn’t work out, I would find another one. I was never a woman with only one path forward.
I had simply spent too long inside the cozy shelter Mark built for me. I was just out of practice when it came to facing the cold, hard world alone.
Sitting in the freezing, air-conditioned waiting room, my legs felt completely numb. I opened my purse to check my things.
My documents were soaked into a clump of paper pulp, and my phone screen was shattered, completely unresponsive no matter how many times I pressed the power button.
It was okay. Everything was going to be okay.
By the time I made it back to the apartment near the hospital, night had fallen, and the rain was still coming down.
When I unlocked the door, a wave of cozy, warm yellow light greeted me.
The rich aroma of home-cooked food filled the air. A white ceramic pot sat on the counter, filled with steaming pork rib and yam soup.
Mark walked out of the kitchen, wearing an apron printed with little teddy bears, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
It looked almost ridiculously cute on him.
The moment his eyes landed on me standing by the entrance, his pupils contracted sharply.
“Sweetheart?!”
Mark rushed over, wrapping a soft throw blanket from the couch around my shoulders, his hand immediately checking the temperature of my forehead.
“Where did you go? Did you try to find your way home by yourself? Why are you covered in mud? You’re freezing… Wait here, I’ll go run a hot bath for you right now.”
He turned to leave, but I reached out and snagged the strap of his apron.
My heart, which had been frozen solid all afternoon, completely melted under a wave of overwhelming grief and betrayal.
“Mark…”
My vision blurred, and tears began falling uncontrollably.
I buried my face directly into his chest and sobbed out loud.
Mark froze for a split second before pulling me tightly into his arms, his voice laced with suffocating pain and self-reproach.
“It’s okay, it’s okay now. I’m right here. Your brother is right here.”
You’re not my brother. You’re my husband.
You’re the man who stood beside me at the altar and swore to love and cherish me in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, until death do us part.
Why do I have to share you with someone else?
In that moment, regardless of what he had done, I was ready to forgive him.
I lifted my head, looking up at him through a haze of tears. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say that I had never lost my memory, and that I had missed him so much today.
“Mark, I actuallyâ”
“Oh, Sienna? What happened to you? Why are you covered in mud?”
A voice cut through the air.
I turned toward the hallway and saw Giselle stepping out of the master bedroom. She was wearing a pair of plush bear pajamas, her long hair draped casually over her shoulders.
She stood in the warm light, looking relaxed, settled, and completely at home.
She looked far more like the mistress of this house than I did.
“Giselle,” Mark frowned instinctively, loosening his arms around me just a fraction. “Dinner isn’t ready yet. You should rest a bit longer.”
Giselle playfully stuck her tongue out. “You always tell me to sleep. If I sleep any longer, I’ll turn into a mummy.”
She turned to me with an apologetic smile. “I was supposed to get that lung biopsy done this afternoon, but I was just too terrified… So Mark comforted me and said we could push it to tomorrow. He told me to come stay here tonight so I could relax.”
She offered a soft smile.
“So Mark came back to cook for me. Sienna, why don’t you join us? There’s plenty of soup.”
I stood there, frozen solid, feeling the cold seep right back into my bones.
Noticing me shivering, Mark looked down at me, his eyes filled with worry and unease.
“Sweetheart, what were you trying to say just now? What did you mean by ‘actually’?”
“…Nothing.”
I stepped backward, pulling myself entirely out of his warm embrace.
“I already ate outside. I’ll go take a shower. You two go ahead.”
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1
I earned a six figure salary working as an undercover handler for an elite heiress. My sole job was using love to tame her rebellious younger sister.
For three years, my performance record remained flawless.
Until tonight, when she shoved me aside at the canyon raceway for a boy in a crisp white shirt.
My stomach dropped. Not from heartbreak, but from the agonizing thought of losing my double paycheck.
Without hesitation, I turned around and submitted my resignation directly to her older sister.
Three minutes later, the elder heiress personally locked down the entire raceway.
The night wind sweeping through the canyon pass was freezing, making my eyes water.
I took advantage of the momentum, squeezing out two tears while clutching tightly onto the sleeve of Staceyâs racing suit.
“Stacey, don’t go.”
I squeezed my throat, making my voice tremble with delicate perfection.
“This mountain road is too dangerous, and I am genuinely terrified.”
I knew this routine by heart.
For three years, whenever my eyes turned red, that stubborn mule Stacey would instantly soften up. She would curse under her breath, toss her car keys away, shove me into the passenger seat, and take me home for a cup of warm milk.
Except tonight was different.
Stacey did not wrap her arms around me like she used to. Instead, her brow furrowed.
Her gaze drifted right past my shoulder, landing on the far corner of the bleachers.
I glanced over my shoulder, following her eyes, and cursed under my breath.
Standing in the shadow of the bleachers was a young man. He wore a faded white cotton shirt, completely unadorned. Amidst the crowd of slicked-back hair and designer suits, he looked like a innocent sapling swaying in the wind.
The worst part was his expression. It was thirty percent stubborn, thirty percent unyielding, and forty percent ready to die for a cause.
We were doomed.
Alarm bells blared in my head. He had activated the heiress’s true love trope.
“Felix, be good.”
Stacey peeled my fingers off her suit. Her grip was not painful, but it was absolute.
She carelessly placed a cigarette between her lips, leaning close to me with a wicked, predatory smirk.
“Relax, your girl can handle a car. I have to win tonightâs prize.”
I looked toward the direction her finger pointed.
The so-called prize was that boy in the white shirt. Word on the street was that his sister owed loan sharks a massive debt, and he had been dragged to the raceway as a human bargaining chip. Whoever won the race could take him home.
What a clichĂŠ storyline. What a dramatic, trashy trope.
Under normal circumstances, I would grab a bag of popcorn and watch the drama unfold from the curb. But right now, I could not bring myself to smile.
Because this meant my personal cash cow was running away.
Stacey put on her helmet and climbed into her flashy red sports car without looking back once.
The engine let out a deafening roar. Surrounding rich kids erupted into wild cheers.
“Stacey is insane!”
“Raging through the track for a pretty boy!”
“Felix, you are her official boyfriend, but you really can’t keep a leash on your woman, can you?”
A few upper-class trust-fund boys who always disliked me sauntered over, spouting cold mockery.
I kept my head low, my shoulders shivering uncontrollably.
To them, I looked like a heartbroken mess crying his eyes out.
In reality, I was desperately holding back a laugh while rapidly running numbers in my head.
My name is Felix.
I am a professional boy toy. Or more accurately, a wild animal trainer hired at a premium rate by Eileen Sinclair, the eldest daughter of the Sinclair empire.
Stacey was the wild animal I was assigned to manage.
Three years ago, Stacey was an uncontrollable terror who got into street fights, drag races, and bar brawls every single day. Her grandfather nearly had a heart attack from stress.
When Eileen took over the family conglomerate, her very first move was to clean up the household. But running a multi-billion dollar enterprise left her with zero time to baby her rebellious teenage sister.
So, she sought me out.
“I will pay you fifty thousand a month.”
Eileen had sat behind her leather executive desk, sliding a contract across the polished wood with icy composure.
“Your mission is to make her fall in love with you. Then, use that romantic devotion to keep her in line. No drag racing, no brawls, no landing in the tabloids. Once she graduates university and enters the firm smoothly, you get a five million dollar final bonus in one lump sum.”
I stared at the row of zeros and signed my name on the spot.
Are you kidding me? Fifty thousand a month base pay!
That did not even include the watches, shoes, and pocket money Stacey showered on me. Taking two salaries at once was the absolute peak of corporate employment.
For three years, I worked tirelessly.
I played the role of a gentle, attentive, hopelessly fragile college student, driving Stacey completely crazy for me.
For my sake, she quit smoking and drinking. She even dyed her neon hair back to natural black. She picked me up from class on time every day and spent weekends sitting quietly beside me in the library.
The entire social elite rumored that the wild second daughter of the Sinclairs had been tamed by a commoner boy.
Eileen was extremely satisfied with my performance, even handing out year-end bonuses twice.
Stacey was only six months away from graduation. That five million dollar bonus was practically waving at me from the finish line.
And then tonight, for some ungodly reason, she insisted on hitting the canyon pass with her degenerate friends, stumbling straight into Vincent, the innocent white-shirt boy.
The red sports car launched forward like an arrow, its taillights cutting a red streak through the darkness.
I let out a soft sigh, dropping the tearful act instantly.
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out my backup phone, opened an encrypted chat, and located the plain black avatar.
“Boss, we have an emergency,” I typed rapidly. “Target Two has encountered an uncontrollable emotional variable. In layman’s terms, she fell for someone else. My tears no longer work. To avoid an embarrassing dismissal, I am applying for immediate termination of contract. Resignation has been sent to your email. How will this month’s salary and severance be calculated?”
After sending the text, I exhaled deeply.
A professional must know when to hold on and when to let go. Losing the five million bonus stung, but I had saved plenty over the last three years. It was more than enough to buy a villa in my hometown and retire comfortably.
The phone vibrated.
Eileen replied within seconds. Her message contained only one word.
“Location.”
I blinked in surprise, quickly dropping a pin of the raceway.
No further response came.
I leaned against the bleacher railing, staring bored into the freezing canyon air, pondering how to wrap things up.
Stacey winning the race was a foregone conclusion. She was a former semi-professional track champion. When she returned triumphantly with her new boy, what posture should I adopt?
Should I hysterically demand why she betrayed me? Or should I play the strong, heartbroken martyr who wishes her well before slipping away quietly?
Which act would yield a higher break-up payout from her?
While I was calculating the odds, a roaring engine echoed from the end of the canyon pass.
The red sports car crossed the finish line first, pulling off a slick drift before stopping right in the middle of the crowd.
Stacey pushed the door open and stepped out. She pulled off her helmet, running a hand through her sweat-dampened hair. That arrogant, wild demeanor was admittedly attractive to younger boys.
The crowd burst into loud cheers.
The organizers who set up the wager walked forward with sour expressions.
“You won,” the leader gritted out.
Stacey smirked coldly. She walked straight to the corner of the bleachers, grabbing Vincent by the wrist.
“He is coming with me. His sister’s debt is cleared.”
Vincent struggled against her grip, failing to break free. He raised his head, glaring at Stacey with reddened eyes.
“I don’t need your pity! I will pay off my sister’s debt myself!”
What a line. Absolutely classic.
Stacey clearly ate it right up. The grin on her face deepened.
“Pay it yourself? With what? From today on, you belong to me. Be good, and don’t make me angry.”
I watched from the sidelines with immense satisfaction, almost wanting to play background music for them.
Until Stacey dragged Vincent along, striding straight toward me.
The air around us instantly dropped to dead silence. Everyone focused on me with eager eyes, waiting for a pathetic show.
I quickly pinched my own thigh hard, forcing a fresh pair of tears to weld in my eyes.
“Stacey…”
I lowered my head slightly, my voice trembling, eyes filled with shattered emotion.
“Who is he?”
Stacey looked at me, a brief flash of guilt flickering across her eyes before cold indifference replaced it.
“Felix, let’s break up.”
Her tone was as casual as discussing the weather.
“I treated you well over the past three years. I bought you everything you wanted. You should be satisfied. I realized tonight that what I felt for you wasn’t love. I just liked how obedient you were.”
She tightened her grip on Vincent’s hand.
“Until I met him, I didn’t know what real sparks felt like.”
I barely suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.
Lady, you met him for the first time tonight! What on earth do you mean by real sparks? You were captivated by his looks, plain and simple. Stop dressing it up as grand romance.
Still, I had to finish my scene.
I stumbled back two steps, my face pale, looking as if I might collapse at any second.
“I don’t believe you…”
I bit my lip tightly, letting fat tears roll down my cheeks.
“You said you would marry me! You promised we would get married right after graduation!”
Stacey frowned, showing her impatience.
“Felix, stop making a scene. Let’s part on good terms. Tomorrow, I will have my assistant transfer two million to your account. The downtown apartment is yours as well. Don’t come looking for me again.”
Two million dollars plus a downtown luxury apartment!
My heart sang with pure joy. This was a massive win!
The severance pay from the boss combined with the breakup payoff from the sister meant instant financial freedom!
Just as I was preparing to take the exit ramp, crying hysterically while running off into the night, a massive roar descended from above.
Violent wind swept across the ground, blowing sand and gravel into everyone’s eyes.
Everyone looked up in sheer horror.
Three black helicopters hovered directly above the raceway. Heavy spotlights cut through the darkness like blinding blades, illuminating the entire venue bright as day.
Immediately after, a dozen black Maybachs roared up from both ends of the canyon road. The screeching of tires echoed together, completely blocking every exit from the raceway.
Panic broke out through the crowd.
“What is going on?”
“Is it a police raid?”
“Look at those license plates!”
Stacey’s face drained of color. She instinctively pulled Vincent behind her back, staring fixedly at the central Maybach.
The car doors opened.
Dozens of bodyguards in black suits and earpieces filed out, quickly forming two disciplined lines.
A woman in a tailored black trench coat stepped out of the vehicle. She was tall, with sharp, striking features. Her eyes radiated an overwhelming authority that instantly brought the surrounding temperature down to freezing.
Eileen Sinclair.
My cold, ruthless capitalist employer.
She actually showed up in person?
I froze in place, entirely forgetting to fake my tears.
Eileen stepped forward, her high heels making heavy, deliberate sounds against the asphalt. She did not even glance at the trembling rich kids around her, walking straight in our direction.
Stacey swallowed hard, her voice tight.
“Sister…”
“Why are you here?”
She assumed Eileen came to drag her home. After all, the family rules were strict. Drag racing and taking home a random boy at midnight would result in severe punishment if their grandfather found out.
Stacey set her jaw, standing tall.
“Sister, I take full responsibility for this. I started it tonight. It has nothing to do with Vincent. Take it out on me, but leave him alone!”
Her dramatic, protective stance almost gave her a heroic aura. Vincent hid behind her, staring at Eileen with deep suspicion and hostility, as if looking at a villain tearing lovers apart.
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Seven days before our wedding, my fiancĂŠ vanished into thin air.
His car was found abandoned by the river, his wallet, phone, and wedding band left sitting on the driver’s seat.
I didn’t sleep a wink for three days and three nights. My future mother-in-law fainted twice from grief, and my best friend walked the streets with me, plastering missing person fliers on every lamp post in the city.
Until my best friend went to take a shower, and her phone lit up with a notification from a group chat named “Operation Dream Come True.”
I unlocked her phone. The latest message was from my missing fiancĂŠ.
Is she still searching by the river?
My best friend’s reply was right below it: Don’t worry, she can barely stand up right now. She’d never guess you’re watching the sunrise on the mountain with your first love.
1
Seven days before the wedding, Jonah disappeared.
At two in the morning, the police called to tell me his car had been found along Coastal Highway.
The driver’s side door was wide open. His wallet, phone, and platinum wedding band were resting neatly on the driver’s seat. Near the guardrail by the riverbank, a set of chaotic footprints trailed off into the mud.
By the time I rushed to the scene, yellow police tape had already been strung up around the perimeter.
It was pouring rain. The black river churned in the dark, roaring like a gaping maw ready to swallow everything whole.
Jonah’s younger brother, Seth, hurried over to catch me as I stumbled. “Mindy, don’t panic! My brother probably just got stressed out and stepped down to catch some fresh air.”
I stared at the wedding band resting on the leather seat, my legs giving out beneath me.
Just seven hours ago, Jonah had called me on the phone, asking whether I wanted white roses or champagne roses for the bridal bouquet.
I had teased him for asking so many little details and told him to pick whatever he liked.
He had laughed softly. “Then I’ll go with white roses. Mindy, I’m going to make sure you’re the most beautiful bride in the world.”
Those were the last words he ever spoke to me.
The officers asked if Jonah had been acting unusually before his disappearance.
I shook my head violently.
We had been together for six years. We were getting married in seven days. Lately, he had been busy handing out invitations, refining the reception schedule, and practicing his wedding vows in secret.
Just last night, he had warmed up a glass of milk for me before stepping out.
How could a man like that suddenly abandon his phone and his wedding ring beside a dark river?
When Jonah’s mother arrived, she was so distraught she had put her shoes on backward. The moment she saw her son’s car, she collapsed onto the muddy ground.
“Jonah! My boy!”
I forced myself to pull her into my arms. She clutched my arm with hysterical strength, her fingernails digging deep into my skin. “Mindy, you have to find him! He loves you more than anything, he would never abandon you!”
My throat felt choked with ash, but I nodded repeatedly to reassure her. “We’ll find him, Mom. He’ll be back in time for the wedding, I know he will.”
She shook violently against me, weeping tears of agony.
My best friend, Tori, pulled off her raincoat and draped it over my shivering shoulders, giving me a tight squeeze. “Mindy, go sit in the car for a minute. We’re all here. You can’t break down first.”
I shook my head. Jonah was missing. How could I possibly sit still?
2
The search and rescue team dragged their nets along the riverbanks.
Seth and a few mutual friends split up to search the nearby pine woods, abandoned industrial lots, and surrounding countryside.
Tori stayed glued to my side.
As dawn began to break, a text notification lit up her screen. Her face turned pale in an instant.
I grabbed her wrist immediately. “Is there news about Jonah?”
She reflexively slammed her screen off before forcing a strained, reassuring smile. “Someone said they saw a guy who looked just like him near the East Pier. I already sent Mark over to check it out.”
I turned to go there right away, but Tori pulled me back. “You haven’t eaten a bite all night, Mindy. Going there in this state will just slow things down. Mark knows Jonah well, he’ll call us the second he confirms it.”
I refused to sit around waiting. In the end, Tori had no choice but to drive me to East Pier herself.
We searched the docks for three excruciating hours.
The so-called eyewitness was long gone, and the security footage nearby only picked up a grainy figure in a black jacket walking away from the camera.
You couldn’t make out his face at all.
I stood in the security room, staring at the blurry screen, playing the clip over and over.
The gait was wrong. The height was off by an inch or two.
It wasn’t Jonah.
Tori let out a heavy, sympathetic sigh and guided me out by the arm. “Don’t lose heart, Mindy. At least it proves someone fitting his description is out there. Maybe Jonah really is safe.”
I gave a numb nod.
By the time we returned to the riverbank, my future mother-in-law had woken up from her dizzy spell. With bloodshot eyes, she handed me a thermos cup of warm water. “Mindy, Jonah is so blessed to have you. Don’t you worry, when he gets back, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind for putting you through this.”
I took the warm cup, and tears spilled over my eyelashes without warning.
3
By the second day of Jonah’s disappearance, the rain showed no signs of stopping.
The river swelled, forcing the rescue team to expand their search radius downstream.
The police pulled traffic camera footage from the highway. At one-seventeen in the morning, Jonah’s car had entered Coastal Highway alone.
However, the spot where he parked was right next to a construction barrier, where a dirt path led down toward an abandoned freight dock.
That path had been decommissioned years ago and had zero security cameras.
The footage showed his car pulling in, but nobody ever saw how or where he left the vehicle.
Later that afternoon, the search team pulled a wet black leather shoe out of the muddy water downstream.
The moment Jonah’s mother caught a glimpse of it, she wailed and threw herself toward it, crying that it belonged to Jonah.
I held that soaked, heavy shoe, my heart practically stopping in my chest.
Jonah had bought a brand-new pair of formal shoes just like this for our wedding.
I tried to break through the crowd to reach the water’s edge, but Tori and Seth held me back in a vice grip.
“Mindy, calm down!” Tori yelled over the wind. “The shoe hasn’t even been identified yet! What good does rushing into the mud do?”
I struggled until my arms throbbed with pain. “Let go of me! I have to look for him! He’s terrified of deep water! If he fell in, he’s scared out of his mind right now!”
Seth shouted at me with red, angry eyes, “Mindy, stop making a scene! The rescue crew is doing everything they can, going down there just gives them one more person to save!”
All the strength drained out of my limbs. I collapsed into the mud, sobbing until I couldn’t catch my breath.
Tori dropped to her knees and pulled me into a tight embrace. “Mindy, look at me. Jonah promised to marry you, he wouldn’t just leave you behind.”
I clutched at her jacket, asking her over and over, “Why did he take off his wedding ring? Did he regret marrying me?”
Tori denied it fiercely. “How could he? Everyone knows how much he adores you! Maybe the ring just slipped off his finger when he opened the door.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the ring hadn’t slipped off. It had been placed upright, perfectly aligned right next to his phone.
It didn’t look like an accident. It looked like a goodbye.
Over the past forty-eight hours, moments from the night before Jonah vanished kept flashing through my mind.
Before he left the house, he had hugged me for a very long time.
He had asked me, Mindy, if something unexpected happens on our wedding day, will you wait for me?
I had been buried in guest lists at the time, answering casually, Depends on what kind of unexpected thing.
Jonah had fallen silent for a moment, then leaned down to press a soft kiss against my hair. You’ll wait. I know you will.
Thinking back on it now, those words felt like a jagged needle thrust into my chest, leaving me icy cold.
By evening, the shoe was officially confirmed not to belong to Jonah.
Everyone let out a collective breath of relief.
However, the emotional roller coaster proved too much for my future mother-in-law, and she fainted once again.
I had to leave the riverbank to accompany her to the hospital.
The doctor informed us it was severe physical and emotional exhaustion and advised plenty of rest.
Sitting by her hospital bed, she gripped my hand tightly. “Mindy, if anything terrible really happened to Jonah… I don’t think I could go on living.”
My nose stung with tears. “Mom, don’t say that. You still have Seth.”
She blinked, surprised for a second, before bursting into even heavier tears. “How could Seth be the same? Jonah has always been the most dutiful, caring son. You two were about to start a life together, how could fate be so cruel to us?”
I leaned down to tuck her blanket in securely. “Get some rest, Mom. I’ll step out to buy you some warm soup.”
Just as I pulled the door shut behind me, a loud text chime echoed from inside the room.
Her weeping stopped dead instantly.
Through the thin door panel, I caught her low, hushed voice saying something softly.
I couldn’t hear the full sentence, but I distinctly caught a single name: Serena.
4
I pushed the door open and stepped back inside.
She frantically shoved her phone beneath her pillow, her face instantly morphing back into a mask of pure tragedy. “Why are you back so soon, dear?”
“I forgot to ask what kind of soup you wanted.”
Her eyes darted around nervously. “Anything is fine. Mindy, go on ahead, I just want to be alone for a bit.”
I stood by the door, watching her for a few silent seconds. A strange, inexplicable knot tightened in my gut.
A second later, fresh tears spilled from her eyes once more. “Do you think… do you think Jonah is already…”
“No.”
I cut her off sharply, burying the flicker of suspicion deep down.
She was a mother sick with worry over her missing son. How could I entertain dark doubts over a misheard name?
Leaving the hospital, I received a pin location from Seth. He claimed someone had spotted a man matching Jonah’s description along the North Outskirts highway.
I couldn’t hail a cab in the downpour. I ran through two flooded streets in the freezing rain before Tori managed to pick me up in her car.
Throughout the drive, her phone rang repeatedly. Every time I glanced over, she immediately tapped the decline button.
“Who keeps calling?”
“The wedding coordinator,” she explained under her breath. “They were asking if they should halt the preparations. I told them to keep everything moving according to plan.”
My heart squeezed with dull pain.
In just five days, our wedding was supposed to take place.
Was Jonah still alive? Would he come back to me? Was there any chance our wedding would still happen?
I had no answers. But I didn’t dare cancel it. I was terrified that canceling the venue would mean admitting he was never coming home.
When we arrived at the North Outskirts, we found a blood-stained jacket inside an abandoned gas station.
It was Jonah’s.
I recognized it instantly. On the left pocket was a tiny, custom cross-stitch I had sewn by hand to fix a snag.
The blood on the sleeve was dried and crusty, mixed with dark mud.
I clutched the jacket to my chest, the world spinning black around me.
Seth rushed deep into the abandoned station, shouting his brother’s name. Tori held me up, her voice trembling with tears. “Mindy, stay strong! Jonah might be injured, he’s waiting for us to find him!”
I nodded, holding his coat tight as I sprinted toward the overgrown hill behind the gas station.
The muddy trail was slick. I fell three times, scraping my knees and palms raw against sharp rocks. Blood mingled with rainwater, dripping down my hands.
Tori ran behind me, calling my name, but I couldn’t hear a word.
Only one thought consumed my mind: Jonah was hurt. He was bleeding out in some dark corner, waiting for me.
By nightfall, the rescue team had combed every inch of the hill.
Still nothing.
The officers examined the jacket and informed me that the blood spatter was minimal, suggesting a minor surface wound rather than a fatal injury. That meant Jonah was likely still alive.
I hugged that jacket tightly, refusing to let go of it all night.
I didn’t find out until much later.
Before setting off, Jonah had personally sliced his own forearm with a razor, smearing his blood onto the sleeve. He had even pressed it against the fabric several times, terrified it wouldn’t look convincing enough.
Then he had handed the jacket to his brother, Seth, instructing him to plant it at the abandoned gas station the following day.
That very night, Serena dropped a digital cash gift into their private group chat.
Her memo read: Thank you, everyone. Jonah says thanks for keeping her occupied for another day.
The person who claimed the highest amount in that cash transfer was my best friend, Tori, who had spent ten hours standing beside me in the pouring rain.
5
By the morning of the third day, I ran a burning fever of a hundred and two degrees.
Tori practically dragged me back to her apartment. She fetched fever reducers, sat by my bedside, and patiently fed me porridge spoonful by spoonful.
My throat was so swollen and raw I couldn’t speak.
She gently touched my burning forehead, her eyes bloodshot. “If you keep destroying yourself like this, Jonah will be heartbroken when he comes back.”
I stared at her, my voice raspy. “Do you really think he’s coming back?”
Tori’s hand holding the spoon paused for a fraction of a second. “Of course he is. You two love each other so much, how could he bear not to?”
I closed my eyes.
Ever since Jonah went missing, every single person had been repeating the exact same script to me.
He loves you.
He can’t bear to lose you.
He will definitely come back to marry you.
Yet for three whole days, search and rescue hadn’t found a single trace of him. His phone GPS, transit records, and bank transactions were completely frozen on the night he vanished.
It was as if he had evaporated into thin air.
I forced myself to sit up against the headboard. “I need to go back to the river.”
Tori pressed me down by the shoulders. “You have a fever of a hundred and two! Will you please stop pushing yourself? The search team hasn’t stopped, you waiting at home makes no difference!”
“It makes all the difference,” I rasped, shoving her hands away. “That was the last place he was seen. If he comes back and doesn’t see me there, what will he do?”
Tori stared at me, her lips parting slightly.
In that fleeting second, a deeply complex emotion flickered across her eyes. It looked like guilt, mixed with a trace of pity.
Ultimately, she helped me lie back down. “Mindy, take a quick nap first. I’ll take you there in two hours, okay?”
Overpowered by the medicine, I drifted into a heavy, fitful sleep.
When I woke up, the sky outside the window had turned dark.
Tori was in the bathroom, the sound of the shower running echoing through the apartment.
Her phone sat on the nightstand. The screen suddenly lit up.
I hadn’t intended to pry. But the pop-up notification displayed my name clearly.
How is Mindy holding up today?
The sender contact was saved as Aunt Jennings.
I froze.
Mrs. Jennings was supposed to be lying in a hospital bed, claiming she didn’t even have the strength to touch her phone.
I reached out and picked up Tori’s phone. On instinct, I typed in the four-digit passcode she had used for twelve years, the date we signed the lease on our first shared apartment.
The device unlocked instantly.
The message had come from an active group chat.
The group name was: Operation Dream Come True.
There were eleven members in total.
Seth, Mrs. Jennings, Tori, Serena, and all of our mutual closest friends.
At the very top of the list was a profile picture I knew by heart, Jonah’s secondary account.
And the administrator at the top of the member list was a woman I recognized instantly.
Serena.
Jonah’s first love, the woman he had dated for four years before me.
6
The most recent update had been posted three minutes ago: a photo sent by Jonah.
A sprawling, majestic snow-capped mountain peak was bathed in the golden light of the morning sun.
Serena, wearing a bright red wool scarf, was leaning her head gently against Jonah’s shoulder, her eyes shimmering with faint tears.
Tied to the fringe of that red scarf was a delicate, hand-woven red silk cord.
It looked hauntingly familiar, but before I could process where I had seen it, my eyes moved down to the text.
Jonah was looking down at her in the photo with an expression of tender devotion, a look I had once believed belonged exclusively to me.
Below the photo, Serena had sent a message first.
Jonah, maybe we should head back early. Mindy has been looking for you for three days, she must be going out of her mind.
Jonah’s reply came swiftly: We’re already at the summit. We leave after watching the sunrise.
Serena sent a crying emoji. But I feel so guilty inside. She’s about to become your wife. I don’t want her to get hurt because of me.
A few seconds later, she added: I just wanted to say a proper goodbye to the man I loved most before I get married abroad. Once the sun rises, I’ll give you back to her.
The group chat went quiet for a moment.
Mrs. Jennings was the first to chime in with words of comfort. Silly child, you’re just fulfilling a final wish. Don’t go blaming yourself for everything.
Seth chimed in right after: My future sister-in-law has a gentle temper. Once my brother gets back and sweet-talks her a bit, she’ll be fine.
Serena didn’t refuse their comfort. She posted another photo of herself snuggled deep into Jonah’s chest. Thank you, everyone. Without you, I would have carried this regret for the rest of my life.
Right after that, Jonah typed: Is Mindy still searching by the river?
Tori replied: Don’t worry, she came down with a heavy fever, she can barely stand. I locked her up at home. She won’t interrupt your sunrise view.
Seth dropped a laughing emoji. She’s so dense. She literally cried all night holding that bloody jacket. Bro, you better sweet-talk her real good when you get back.
Jonah replied: She’s easygoing. A few sweet words and it’ll blow over. Serena leaves tomorrow, I can’t leave her with regrets at the end.
I sat on the edge of the mattress, my hands shaking so violently I could barely hold the phone.
The chat kept scrolling with incoming messages.
Mrs. Jennings typed: My head aches from pretending to faint all day! You guys better wrap it up. If the search party keeps dragging the river, this is going to turn into a massive public scene.
A mutual friend added: Tomorrow, according to plan, Jonah will magically show up at the abandoned cabin on Shadow Ridge. Tear his shirt up a bit, smear some blood on his forehead, and say he fell down a slope and passed out.
Seth asked: Will Mindy buy it?
Tori replied: She lost her damn mind these past three days. As long as Jonah walks back alive, she’ll believe whatever comes out of his mouth.
Tears flooded my eyes, blurring the harsh white text on the screen.
I scrolled up through the chat history.
Three days ago, Serena had dropped a long voice message into the group. Her voice had been trembling with soft, fragile restraint.
Jonah, I’m moving abroad to get married next week. All these years, I keep dreaming about that snow mountain trail we never got to finish. But you’re getting married soon, I shouldn’t disrupt your life. Forget it, pretend I never mentioned it.
Directly beneath that voice note, Jonah had typed: I’ll take you.
Serena took a long time to reply: What about Mindy?
Jonah said: She won’t agree, so she can’t know.
What followed was a step-by-step masterclass in deception, as everyone in that chat helped them engineer the perfect lie.
Mrs. Jennings was the first to give her blessing. Go ahead. Mindy is sensible, she won’t break up with you over a small thing like this.
Seth had asked: What about Mindy though? You two are getting married in seven days.
Jonah replied: As long as she thinks I met with an accident, she won’t have the time or energy to track my whereabouts.
Tori had paused for a long time before sending her message: Isn’t this a bit too cruel?
My heart squeezed tight in my chest. I stared at the screen, a pathetic, foolish spark of hope still lingering in my soul.
A second later, Tori added another line: Mindy is hyper-perceptive. A simple disappearance won’t trick her. You have to park the car by the riverbank. Leave the phone, wallet, and wedding ring behind to make it look real.
Serena had immediately chimed in: Won’t that terrify Mindy? Jonah, maybe we shouldn’t go. I’m not worth putting her through all this.
Right after typing those words, she had posted a picture of herself sitting in a hospital corridor, looking pale with an IV band on her wrist. The doctor says my anxiety has been acting up again. But don’t worry, I’ll pull through on my own.
The group chat exploded with concern. Everyone scrambled to comfort her.
Not a single person mentioned whether I would be driven out of my mind with terror.
The eyewitness at East Pier was arranged by Tori.
The bloody jacket in the North Outskirts was planted by Seth.
Mrs. Jennings was tasked with using fainting spells and hysterics to tie me down.
Our closest friends took turns driving me to dead-end locations to keep me running in circles.
Even the wet leather shoe dragged out of the river had been purchased in advance by them and tossed downstream on purpose.
They had outlined every single detail in cold, meticulous prose.
And they had taken my complete mental breakdown as proof that their “Operation Dream Come True” was proceeding with wild success.
In the group media gallery, there was a short video clip.
In the video, Serena stood beneath the snow-capped peak, asking softly, “Jonah, lying to Mindy like this… is it really okay?”
Jonah adjusted her red scarf, pulling it snug around her neck. “She won’t find out. Everyone is on our side.”
Serena lowered her eyes, a single tear falling right on cue. “I still envy her. No matter what you do, she’s the one you’re going to marry in the end.”
Jonah stayed silent for a few seconds before wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close. “Don’t bring her up today.”
Leaning against his chest, a subtle, triumphant smile flickered across the corner of Serena’s lips.
The video cut off.
The shower in the bathroom shut off with a metallic click.
I swiftly forwarded the chat logs, photos, and video files to my own phone, cleared the transfer history, and placed Tori’s device back onto the nightstand.
The bathroom door swung open.
Tori walked out drying her wet hair with a towel. Seeing me sitting upright on the edge of the mattress, she froze.
“When did you wake up, Mindy?”
7
I raised my head and looked at her.
This woman had been my best friend for twelve years.
When her stepfather used to beat her, I was the one who snuck her out of her house in the middle of the night.
When her mother needed emergency surgery, I lent her the money I had saved for my housing down payment without a second thought.
During the darkest six months of her unemployment, she lived under my roof, eating my food and wearing my clothes, without paying a dime.
When Jonah vanished, she had held me while I cried, walked the freezing streets pasting fliers, and wiped the blood off my scraped palms.
Yet she was also the very first person to suggest leaving Jonah’s car by the river.
She knew precisely how to break me because she knew me better than anyone alive.
Tori shuffled uncomfortably under my gaze. “Mindy, what’s wrong? Why are you staring at me like that?”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing.”
She walked over and pressed her palm against my forehead. “Your fever dropped a bit. Seth just texted saying there might be a new lead near Shadow Ridge. Get a good night’s sleep, and we’ll head over tomorrow morning.”
Looking at her face, which was painted with such convincing concern, I suddenly wanted to ask her a question.
Tori, during those three days, when you held me in your arms, did you feel even a single second of disgust at yourself?
In the end, I asked nothing.
I pulled the blanket back over myself and closed my eyes. “Okay. Tomorrow, we’ll go together and bring Jonah home.”
Tori let out a quiet sigh of relief.
She had no idea.
When I said “bring him home,” I meant bringing him back to watch this sickening play crash down around his ears.
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While out for lunch, a sudden stomach cramp forced me to step away to the restroom.
When I returned to our table, my boyfriend and my best friend were already gone.
I reached to call them, only to realize my phone was still sitting inside my purse.
And my purse was right there on the chair.
I had been sitting against the wall, with my boyfriend beside me and my best friend across from him.
Neither of them had noticed my bag. Neither of them had noticed my half-eaten meal.
This was not the first time it had happened, and a wave of deep exhaustion washed over me.
1
I did not grab my bag and chase after them like I used to.
Instead, I sat back down in quiet solitude.
Without the endless talk of software architecture, product metrics, and bug reports buzzing in my ears, I finally enjoyed a peaceful lunch.
When I got back to the office, I did not go upstairs to complain to them either.
I went straight to my workstation at the front desk.
All three of us worked for the same tech firm.
The difference was that my boyfriend, Derek, was the R&D Manager, a core pillar of the company.
My best friend, Brooke, was a Senior Product Manager, one of the elite rise-stars.
And I was just the front desk receptionist.
They were bright and accomplished.
Compared to them, I was little more than a pretty piece of office furniture.
“Hey Paige, Derek and Brooke already went upstairs. Why didn’t you go with them?” my shift partner asked, looking at me curiously.
In the past, I always went upstairs with them before the end of lunch break. We would drink coffee and chat in the breakroom.
Though, it was mostly the two of them talking while I listened. They talked about work stuff I did not understand and could never join in on.
“I am fine down here,” I replied casually.
It was time I seriously considered whether this relationship was worth keeping.
At three in the afternoon, my phone buzzed with a text message.
[Hey Paige, are you back at your desk? Something urgent came up at work, so we had to rush back first.]
I flipped my phone face down and did not reply.
It was always like this. Urgent work matters, high-level discussions, things a simple receptionist supposedly could not grasp.
At five o’clock sharp, I clocked out.
I did not wait for them.
They worked overtime constantly. In the past, I would ask what they wanted to eat, pick up the takeout, bring it upstairs, and keep them company late into the night.
Even if they stayed till dawn, I stayed with them.
Today, I bought groceries and went straight home.
Not to Derek’s apartment, but to my parents’ house. My true home.
“Paige is back! How come you have time today? Isn’t work busy?”
My mother took the shopping bags from my hands and called out toward the kitchen. “Honey, stop reheating the leftovers! Paige is home, cook something fresh!”
Listening to my father’s cheerful voice from the kitchen, I sank into the sofa.
No making dinner for those two, no stressing over how late I would have to stay up, no worrying about missing my alarm the next morning.
An unprecedented sense of relief filled my chest.
Then a text notification ruined the peace.
[Paige, Brooke wants that spicy Thai food from across the street. Grab a takeout order and bring it up to the fourth floor.]
So he was not checking in on his girlfriend.
He just realized his food delivery person was missing.
A surge of annoyance hit me.
[Order it yourselves. I went home.]
It took thirty minutes for his reply to come through.
[Why didn’t you tell us sooner? Brooke is starving. Fine, get some rest, don’t wait up for me.]
Rare for him to send two texts in a row, though one was a guilt trip and the other was a brush-off.
2
At the dinner table, my parents kept piling food onto my plate.
I caught myself staring at my dish, realizing I used to do the exact same thing for Derek.
He used to do it for me too, at the beginning. But then a third person joined us.
Brooke used to laugh at us, calling us sickeningly sweet.
From then on, Derek never put food on my plate again.
Putting down my fork, I took a deep breath. “Mom, Dad, I want to change jobs.”
They both looked up at me.
“Did something happen at work?” my mother asked softly.
I stayed silent and shook my head.
She studied my face carefully. “Did you and Derek have a fight?”
I paused before speaking. “Mom, do you think… he and I are just not right for each other?”
When Derek and I first started dating, my mother said that Derek had a great degree and a promising career, while I might not be as accomplished, but I was sweet, pretty, and good-natured. A balanced match.
She seemed to guess what was going on.
My father began clearing the dishes, giving my mother a subtle look.
“Derek is a capable young man, Paige,” my mother said gently. “But it is your life. If you feel you cannot walk this path together anymore, taking a step back to clear your head is not a bad thing.”
She was right. A step back was long overdue.
I was never the sharpest student growing up, but I was blessed with good looks.
That was the primary reason I was hired as the face of the company at the front desk.
During a heavy rainstorm three years ago, Derek and I were stranded at the office late one night. That was how we met.
He did not know who I was, but I knew him. He was a brilliant software engineer, and I heard people praise his talent constantly.
When I first met him, he was quiet, a classic introverted tech guy.
I pursued him first. Perhaps because of my looks, it only took a month of courting before we became an official couple.
Over the three years we were together, Derek rose from a junior developer to R&D Manager, and the company even provided him with a corporate apartment.
I remained at the front desk.
As soon as he got the apartment, Derek insisted I move in with him. It was close to work, so I happily agreed.
Not long after I moved in, Brooke reentered my life.
She had just lost her job and came to the office to visit me, running into Derek in the lobby.
Knowing she was my friend, Derek asked if she wanted to interview for an open position at our firm.
Brooke was nothing like me. She was brilliant, picked up everything instantly, and held a degree from a top tier university. She passed the interview with flying colors.
In no time, she was promoted to Senior Product Manager.
I could not pinpoint when it started, but suddenly they had an endless stream of work topics to discuss.
At first, I would pucker my lips and ask them not to talk about work during our dates.
They were cooperative at first, raising their hands like school kids promising to stop.
Yet whenever they sat together, the conversation drifted back to work automatically.
Gradually, they forgot there was another human being sitting right beside them.
The very next morning, I handed my resignation to HR.
The HR manager told me the offboarding process would take a month. I nodded and agreed.
At noon, Brooke and Derek walked toward the front desk together, laughing at an inside joke.
“Paige, let’s go get Thai food across the street!” Brooke said warmly, linking her arm through mine like she always did. “We went last night after you left, and it was amazing. You have to try it.”
I looked over at Derek. “I thought you couldn’t eat spicy food?”
Derek rubbed the back of his neck, but before he could speak, Brooke chuckled. “He really can’t handle spice, but we can’t make everyone suffer just for his weak stomach, right?”
Derek chimed in immediately. “Brooke is right. We shouldn’t avoid spicy food just because of me.”
I loved spicy food. But because Derek disliked it, I had spent three years accommodating his palate, cooking bland meals every day.
It turned out he did not mind accommodating someone else.
I gently pulled my arm out of Brooke’s grip. “You two go ahead. I will pass.”
3
Brooke stopped smiling and reached out to touch my forehead with concern. “What’s wrong? Are you feeling sick?”
Derek stepped closer too, his eyes softening. “Where does it hurt?”
I stepped back, putting physical distance between us. “I am completely fine. Go enjoy your lunch.”
Brooke suddenly gave Derek a playful shove. “Oh, this is all your fault! I knew it! It’s because you kept talking about work during lunch yesterday. See? You made Paige upset again.”
Derek put his hands up helplessly. “How was that my fault? You brought up the testing phase first!”
“I was worried your engineering team wouldn’t meet the deadline!”
“When has my team ever missed a deadline? If your product specs weren’t changing every five minutes, we would have shipped last week!”
“Those specs came from my market research! Without my oversight, could you even launch on time? Instead of thanking me, you complain!”
“Fine, fine, Manager Brooke is always right…”
I turned around and walked away, refusing to listen to another word.
I took three steps before Derek realized I was leaving. “Paige, don’t be like this!”
Brooke ran up after me. “I’m sorry, Paige! It’s his fault for getting me worked up. I won’t talk about work anymore, I promise!”
To prove her point, she zipped her lips with her fingers, wide-eyed and staring at Derek dramatically.
Derek chuckled at her antics, then turned to me. “Paige, give it a rest. If you stay mad, Brooke is going to blame me all afternoon.”
When I did not respond, a flash of annoyance crossed Derek’s face.
“Honestly, I should be the one mad at you for walking out last night and running off to your mother’s house without a word,” he added, his voice hardening. “We were just talking about company projects. Why are you getting so petty lately?”
“Enough,” I interrupted him.
I turned around, looking at him with cold detachment, and uttered the words I had weighed all night.
“Derek, let’s break up.”
The moment the words left my mouth, even I felt a brief shock.
I had not expected saying it to feel so simple, so liberating.
Derek froze, caught off guard for a second, before breaking into a sudden chuckle.
“Paige, stop playing around. That’s not funny at all.”
“I am not joking.”
“I am completely serious. You should take time to process it.”
Brooke had tried to jump in when I first said the word breakup. Seeing my stony expression now, she could no longer hold back.
“Paige, please don’t be mad!” she pleaded, reaching out for my hand. “It’s really not a big deal, just take a deep breath…”
I dodged her hand cleanly. “I am not mad, and I am completely calm. I mean every word. Derek, we are over.”
The dismissive smile in Derek’s eyes melted into irritation.
Treating my breakup statement as a childish tantrum, he grabbed Brooke’s elbow.
“Brooke, let’s go,” he snapped. “Let her sit here and cool her head.”
“Wait, Derek, Paige hasn’t eaten yet!”
“She’s an adult, Brooke. When she gets hungry, she’ll eat.”
As if deliberately trying to spite me, Derek pulled Brooke along, walking away without looking back once.
Brooke kept glancing back over her shoulder.
I did not stand there sulking. I turned around and ordered takeout on my phone.
Right after I finished eating, Brooke came rushing back into the lobby holding a sleek takeout container, with Derek trailing casually behind her.
“Paige, I packed some food for you! Eat while it’s warm!”
An hour had passed. They had clearly finished their own meal.
“No need to trouble yourself. I already ate.”
Brooke froze mid-action as she opened the container.
Seeing my indifferent expression, Derek lost his patience entirely. He stepped forward and shoved the food containers back into the bag.
“I told you not to bother packing food for her,” Derek sneered at Brooke. “Now you see what happens when you try to be nice? If she wants to starve, let her.”
I remained silent, watching him calmly.
Truth be told, I had never seen Derek act this sharp and impatient before.
He was defending Brooke, just as he used to defend me years ago.
Having dated him for three years, claiming I felt no pain would be a lie. My chest felt tight, suffocatingly sore.
4
From that day on, Derek initiated a silent treatment.
I remained unaffected, staying comfortably at my parents’ house.
The only time I crossed paths with him was during the morning rush at the office entrance.
Derek acted as though I were invisible. Even if we accidentally ended up face-to-face, he would shift his gaze away, as if delivering a silent punishment.
I paid it no mind, focusing solely on finishing my final month at work.
Brooke continued to greet me every morning. I responded politely, maintaining the exact tone one would use with a distant coworker.
At lunch, Derek still pulled Brooke along to eat out every day.
Brooke played the part of the helpless, sympathetic friend caught in the middle of a couple’s squabble to perfection.
After dining with Derek, she would come down to lecture me on reconciliation.
“Paige, stop picking fights with Derek. Just make up with him already.”
When Brooke brought it up yet again, I could not hold back a weary sigh.
“Brooke, I am not picking a fight.” I looked her dead in the eye. “And we have officially broken up. Please stop telling me to make up with him.”
Even if he had not verbally accepted it, the words had been spoken. As far as I was concerned, the relationship was dead.
Brooke looked stunned. “Paige, what is wrong with you? I just want to see you two happy.”
I tilted my head, studying her. “Happy? And then what? Continue letting you tag along on every date? Or rather, continue letting me play third wheel to the two of you while I get ignored?”
My direct confrontation made Brooke’s eyes well up with tears.
Looking utterly wronged, she turned and ran off.
Not long after she left, Derek stormed downstairs in a fury.
He no longer ignored me. He walked straight up to my desk, his face set in a stern glare, looking like a manager about to reprimand an incompetent subordinate.
“What did you say to Brooke?”
I knew he was here to fight Brooke’s battles again. A wave of profound powerlessness washed over me.
I could not help but roll my eyes. “I didn’t say anything.”
Derek snapped instantly. “You didn’t say anything? Then why is she crying upstairs?!”
“Paige, whatever issues exist between us, why do you have to take it out on Brooke? If you have a problem, direct it at me!”
“Isn’t she supposed to be your best friend?”
“Look at yourself! When did you become so bitter and petty?”
“Over one tiny argument, you are throwing a massive fit!”
Derek raised his voice, completely uncaring of how sharp the stares from passing colleagues felt against my skin.
Tears spilled from my eyes.
Not out of hurt or embarrassment, but out of pure, unadulterated rage.
“Derek, who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”
“What did I do to her?”
“Did I hit her, curse at her, or steal her boyfriend?”
“In what capacity are you standing here interrogating me and protecting her?”
“As her boyfriend?”
A flicker of panic crossed Derek’s face, but he recovered instantly, letting out a cold laugh.
“I knew it. You are jealous.”
“You just can’t stand seeing me discuss work with Brooke!”
“I told you a thousand times, it’s work! Purely professional!”
“You are always so immature. You make everything so exhausting for everyone around you.”
His mocking words nailed me to the spot.
The rage that had been boiling inside me instantly went cold, chilling me from head to toe.
Having heard the commotion, Brooke came running downstairs again.
“Derek, what are you doing?” she yelled, grabbing his arm. “How could you say that to her?”
Derek realized his words had been harsh, though he merely shifted his eyes briefly before regaining his righteous posture.
“She’s the one making a scene out of nothing,” he muttered, turning on his heel and walking away.
Brooke looked at me, her eyes filled with guilt. “Paige, I didn’t know… I didn’t know he would say those things…”
I let out a cold laugh, cutting her off. “Brooke, you must be feeling pretty proud right now.”
“He just humiliated me to defend you. You must be thrilled.”
I rarely spoke with such venom, but seeing her tragic, innocent act made my stomach turn.
“Paige, how could you think of me like that?” Brooke looked deeply hurt.
“Why shouldn’t I? Didn’t you run upstairs to cry to him? Isn’t this exact outcome what you wanted?”
Brooke choked on her words, unable to produce another innocent excuse.
“Now if you will excuse me, I am working. Please refrain from coming down unless you have official business.”
I wiped my tears away and ignored her entirely.
Before the day was over, news of the blowup between Derek, Brooke, and me had spread through the entire company.
5
My shift partner at the front desk offered a few comforting words before leaning in. “Paige, did you really break up with Manager Derek?”
I nodded without hesitation. “Completely.”
She smiled. “Good for you! Every time I saw those two flirting under the guise of work, I wanted to throw up.”
It turned out everyone saw it clearly. I was the only fool clinging to denial.
Seeing my pale face, my coworker dropped the topic. “Anyway, it’s in the past now! With a face like yours, you can get any high-quality guy you want. Don’t waste tears on him.”
Brooke seemed truly stung by my words, as she did not come down to see me for several days.
Derek continued his cold shoulder routine, pretending I did not exist.
Just like that, a whole week passed without a single word spoken between us.
Yet, being in the same building, gossip about them never stopped reaching my ears.
For instance, how Manager Brooke and Manager Derek teamed up to launch a major new product feature.
Or how the two of them worked late into the night together and received praise from the executive board.
A few curious colleagues tried to pry information out of me, but I simply smiled and told them Derek and I were split up, and his life was none of my concern.
Until one afternoon, the front desk received an urgent courier package meant for the Administration Department on the fourth floor. My shift partner happened to be on break, so I had to take it upstairs myself.
In the elevator, I ran into a few colleagues from marketing.
They looked at me with a mix of pity and subtle anticipation.
I knew why they pitied me, assuming a simple front desk girl had been dumped by a rising manager. But I did not care to entertain their drama.
I just wanted to drop off the document and head back down.
However, the moment the elevator doors slid open on the fourth floor, I bumped right into Brooke.
“Paige! You came up!”
“Are you here to see Derek? How did you know we were in the conference room? Let me go call him out for you…”
Before Brooke could finish her sentence, Derek walked out from the hallway, having clearly overheard her.
His eyes swept over me coldly. “Since you’re here, come sit in my office for a moment.”
His tone was aloof.
“No thanks. I am only here to deliver an urgent package to Admin.”
Brooke looked at the thick envelope in my hand and snatched it right out of my grip.
“What package is so important? I’ll drop it off at Admin for you! Go sit in Derek’s office and rest.”
She gave me a gentle push toward Derek.
Wearing high heels, the nudge forced me to take two steps toward him to keep my balance.
A knowing smirk flickered in Derek’s eyes. He reached out to steady my elbow, lowering his voice.
“Come on. Brooke will deliver it for you.”
“Since you realize you were wrong, let’s just forget about the past few days.”
“You throwing a fit like this hasn’t been easy on me either.”
Without a second of hesitation, I pulled my arm back and stepped away from him.
“Manager Derek, we are broken up. This kind of physical contact is inappropriate.”
Derek’s eyes darkened instantly. “Paige, are you ever going to stop?”
Unwilling to waste more breath, I turned to Brooke with polite distance. “Then I will trouble Manager Brooke to drop off the file. I have work downstairs.”
Derek’s face turned thunderous.
Brooke gave his arm a light nudge. “What are you standing there for? Go after her! Why else would the front desk send her up to deliver a file personally? She’s just putting up a front because she’s stubborn.”
I heard Brooke’s words clearly, but I did not bother to clarify. They could believe whatever fantasy made them feel superior.
Derek made a move to step forward, then caught himself and stopped.
As the elevator doors closed, I heard Derek call out sharply, “Don’t run around during work hours!”
I could not tell if he was speaking to me or to himself.
When the elevator reached the third floor, another colleague stepped in. It was Phoebe.
We had joined the company in the same hiring batch. She held a master’s degree and worked in the analytics team.
During our first year, she often came down to the front desk to chat with me, and we became close friends. But she had always made a point to avoid eating lunch with Derek and me.
6
“Paige, I haven’t seen you come upstairs for lunch lately,” Phoebe said, taking my wrist. “I have a few things I really need to tell you. Come with me to the breakroom.”
I assumed she wanted to complain about work, but seeing as the front desk was unattended, I declined gently.
“I can’t right now, Phoebe. I’m the only one covering the desk today. Let’s catch up after work.”
Phoebe looked disappointed, but nodded. “Alright, I’ll come down to see you as soon as I finish this report.”
I thought I would coast through my remaining two weeks peacefully, but the very next morning, the moment I set foot in the lobby, my shift partner pulled me aside frantically.
“You’re finally here! Did you sign for an urgent envelope yesterday for the Admin Department? Mr. Briggs from Admin is throwing a massive fit upstairs right now! Go take the file up to him!”
I frowned in confusion. “I brought it up yesterday afternoon.”
My coworker knitted her brows. “That’s strange. Why is he screaming that he never received it?”
“Never mind that, just go upstairs and clarify with him before he calls HR!”
Under her urging, I hurried up to the fourth floor.
Mr. Briggs, the head of Administration, was bowing and apologizing into his desk phone when I walked in.
Seeing me enter, he motioned for me to sit on the couch and wait.
After five minutes, he slammed the phone down, his face dark as a thundercloud.
“Paige, where is that courier package?”
“I brought it up yesterday afternoon.”
“Brought it up? To whom?”
“I gave it to Manager Brooke right outside the elevator. She promised to hand it to you personally.”
“Brooke?” Mr. Briggs stood up immediately. “Come with me to get it. That file contains crucial vendor contracts for the new project launch!”
Realizing the severity of the situation, I quickened my pace behind him.
We found Brooke inside Derek’s office. The two of them were leaning over a laptop, discussing work.
Mr. Briggs knocked forcefully on the glass door. Both of them looked up.
Brooke immediately stood up and walked toward me with a wide smile. “Paige, are you here to see Derek again? I’ll head out so you two can talk!”
Every single time I came upstairs, she made sure to announce to the room that I was chasing after Derek.
Finding it intensely pathetic, I ignored her jab and spoke in an official tone.
“Manager Brooke, did you fail to hand yesterday’s urgent package to Mr. Briggs?”
A flicker of panic flashed across Brooke’s eyes.
Mr. Briggs could not hold back his impatience. “Brooke, that document is extremely time-sensitive! Hand it over right now!”
“I…” Brooke shot a helpless glance at Derek.
A bad feeling bloomed in my chest.
Derek stood up, stepping between Brooke and Mr. Briggs. “What document, Mr. Briggs? Is it really that urgent?”
“Of course it’s urgent! It’s the master licensing agreement from headquarters! My team needs it to finalize the quarterly compliance report!”
Hearing how critical the document was, Brooke cast another pleading look at Derek.
“Brooke, Paige said she handed it to you directly,” Mr. Briggs demanded, holding out his hand. “Where is it?”
At that moment, Derek took a step forward, completely shielding Brooke behind his back.
“Mr. Briggs, Brooke was working in my office all afternoon yesterday. I certainly didn’t see her take any document from anyone.”
“That’s impossible! She literally grabbed it out of my hand by the elevator!” the protest burst from my mouth.
Derek narrowed his eyes at me, his gaze laced with cold warning.
“Paige, delivering files is front desk responsibility,” Derek said smoothly. “Brooke is a Senior Product Manager. Why would she do your job for you?”
“If the document is missing, it is obvious you lost it yourself.”
I stared at Derek in sheer disbelief, then turned my gaze to Brooke.
Derek shifted his eyes away from mine. Brooke kept her head lowered, too guilty to look me in the eye.
7
“Mr. Briggs, I swear on my job I handed that file to Brooke,” I said firmly. “If you don’t believe me, pull the security footage from the fourth floor elevator hallway from yesterday afternoon. You will see her take it from my hands.”
“Paige!” Derek snapped, his face turning dangerously dark.
Mr. Briggs was already beside himself with anxiety over the missing paperwork.
Hearing my suggestion, he snapped, “I’m going to Security right now. If that file isn’t found, someone is getting fired!”
I moved to follow Mr. Briggs, but Derek suddenly grabbed my wrist with a firm grip.
He lowered his voice, his tone shifting into a mixture of pleading and expectation.
“Paige, listen to me. Brooke was exhausted last night and forgot about the file, and now she can’t find where she misplaced it. Can’t you just say you lost it downstairs?”
My eyes widened as I looked at him, feeling as though I were looking at a complete stranger.
“Say I lost it? Why should I take the blame for her mistake when she literally…”
Derek rubbed his temples, interrupting me with rising irritation.
“I know she took it! But you heard Mr. Briggs, that file is worth a fortune to the company!”
“You are just a receptionist! Taking a strike on your record for a lost package is no big deal! But Brooke is a product manager. If she gets tagged with a blunder like this, it will ruin her reputation with upper management!”
Just a receptionist.
I thought Derek was merely a oblivious guy lacking social boundaries, but it turned out he harbored a deep seated professional snobbery.
A sharp, unbearable ache radiated through my chest.
In that moment, I had to admit the painful truth: I had misjudged his character entirely.
I ripped my wrist out of his grip and slammed my hand across his face with a loud, ringing slap.
“Derek, do you have any shame left at all?!”
The slap echoed sharply in the quiet office. Brooke gasped in horror and immediately stepped in front of Derek, shielding him.
“Paige! How could you hit him?!”
I glared at her, my voice ice-cold. “Because of your pathetic, incompetent mistake!”
Brooke’s eyes turned red, tears instantly welling up. “Fine! It’s all my fault! I was careless! I’ll go tell Mr. Briggs the truth right now!”
She made a dramatic move to leave, but Derek caught her arm instantly.
“Brooke, don’t be stupid!” Derek urged, holding her back. “You worked so hard to get this position! If headquarters penalizes you over this contract, your career trajectory is ruined!”
Brooke hesitated, biting her lip. “But we can’t make Paige take the fall…”
Seeing that I remained completely unmoved by her tears, Brooke gritted her teeth. “At worst, they can just fire me!”
Hearing that, Derek turned to me and barked furiously, “You slapped me, you yelled at her, haven’t you vented enough?! Can’t you just help Brooke out this once?!”
“Isn’t she supposed to be your best friend?!”
“Can’t you do a simple favor for her?!”
“Paige, don’t make me despise you!”
Looking at the two of them standing united against me, my stomach churned so violently I nearly gagged.
“Save your breath,” I said coldly. “Once Mr. Briggs checks the surveillance footage, the truth will speak for itself.”
Hearing my words, Derek did not look nervous at all. Instead, a mocking smirk touched the corner of his lips.
My heart sank instantly.
Within minutes, Mr. Briggs marched back down the hall, fuming with rage.
“Unbelievable! How could that hallway camera happen to be offline yesterday of all days?!”
I whipped my head around to stare at Derek.
Derek met my gaze with a triumphant smirk. He had actually used his systems access to wipe or disable the footage just to protect Brooke.
Mr. Briggs stopped in front of us, rubbing his temples. “Paige, the footage is missing. I don’t care who touched what, I only care about accountability!”
Before I could speak, Derek immediately stepped forward.
“Mr. Briggs, I can testify as a department head that Brooke never received any file yesterday. However, I did see Paige come up to the fourth floor afternoon. She claimed to be delivering a document, but where she dropped it off, nobody knows.”
Derek looked at me with cold cruelty, nonchalantly shrugging his shoulders.
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The new semester had barely begun when the principal announced that all student guardians had to attend a school-wide classroom clean-up. I saw my chance and approached the principal privately to explain my situation. âPrincipal, my parents have very specialized jobs. They truly canât make it.â To my surprise, the principal slammed his lesson plan down on his desk and roared at me, âEvery other parent can make it, but yours are âspecialâ? You wrote âconfidentialâ for their profession on the enrollment form, and now youâre making excuses for them not showing up? You donât take me seriously at all!â He then laid down a harsh ultimatum: âIf your parents donât come, then we wonât keep you in this class!â
I was utterly stunned. The regulations of their classified agency mean they canât just go out in public! But when my parents actually showed up at the school, the principalâs attitude instantly changed.
1.
Principal Vanderberg walked into the classroom, a grim look on his face, and slammed his lesson plan onto the podium. âFor the new semester, I asked guardians to come to school for a clean-up. Only one studentâs guardians didnât show. What, is it embarrassing to sweep a floor at school? Or do you think your childâs grades are so good they donât need to do âmenialâ tasks?â His voice rose. âLet me tell you, in my class, the way guardians treat the school is how I treat their child.â
Guardians coming to school for clean-up was supposed to be voluntary, but Principal Vanderberg was image-conscious. He felt the more guardians attended, the better it reflected on him as a principal, so he demanded all guardians must be present. âLily Adams.â He called my name directly. I stood up. âWhat exactly do your parents do for a living? Street sweepers? Janitors? They must have some off-hours, right?â He asked, arms crossed. Someone snickered. âTheyâŚâ I paused. âTheir agency is⌠special. They canât leave.â âWhat agency? Tell me about it.â âI canât.â A brief silence fell over the classroom. Principal Vanderberg was furious. âCanât say? Or are you embarrassed to say it?â âStarting the school year off with that passive-aggressive attitude, you think I canât handle you?â I quickly explained, âPrincipal, Iâm not. They truly canât sayâŚâ
Principal Vanderbergâs face was livid. He slammed his hand on the table. âIâve been teaching for years, Iâve seen every kind of guardian! Iâm calling your guardians right now! Iâll ask them myself! If they donât tell me why they canât come, youâll stand for every class until graduation!â With that, the principal pulled out his phone and immediately dialed the number I had provided, deliberately putting it on speaker. From the phoneâs speaker came a mechanical female voice: âHello, the number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and dial again.â
The classroom erupted in laughter. Principal Vanderberg hung up, his chest heaving. He felt mocked and humiliated by me. âLily Adams.â He gritted his teeth. âYouâre playing games with me?â âNo, Principal, they truly areâŚâ âSilence.â He pointed a finger at me. âDo you think Iâm an idiot? Youâve been lying from start to finish. Thereâs no such thing as a âclassified agency.â You just didnât want your parents to come. Youâre deliberately defying me!â He grew angrier as he spoke, his face red. âSince your parents wonât come to school, then you donât need to attend class. Get out now!â I explained again, âPrincipal, I already told you, my parentsâ work is highly sensitive. Not just anyone can reach them.â Principal Vanderberg was trembling with rage. âGet out!â I sighed, resigned, and walked out into the corridor.
Principal Vanderberg was notoriously petty. Once, a student merely misremembered the timetable and took out a textbook for another subject. Principal Vanderberg publicly berated him for an entire class. If I couldn’t resolve this, who knew how much trouble heâd cause me later. I pulled out my encrypted phone and sent a message to the group chat with my parents: [My principal, Mr. Vanderberg, has some misunderstandings about me because you couldn’t come for the clean-up. Can you explain to him?] A moment later, my mother replied, indicating understanding: [Understood. Situation reported. Someone will handle it.]
2.
I stood in the corridor for a full class period, my legs aching. Finally, when the bell for the break rang, I went to the staff office to explain, but at the door, I overheard Principal Vanderbergâs voice. âThat Lily Adams, sheâs a rotten apple! Doesnât show up for clean-up, her parentsâ profession is âconfidential,â and her phone number is out of service! What kind of behavior is this? This is blatant deception of the school, deception of the teachers! Her family values are clearly problematic!â My heart sank. Another teacher spoke up. âNo, that canât be right? Maybe thereâs a special reason? The child is usually very well-behaved.â Principal Vanderbergâs voice rose. âWell-behaved? Iâve seen plenty of students like her. Whatâs the use of good grades? If their character is flawed, theyâll just be a blight on society! Her parents are probably fugitives, thatâs why sheâs so secretive!â
I couldnât take it anymore. I kicked the door open. It might have been my fault for not explaining properly, but how dare he, as a principal, insult my parents? All the teachersâ gazes turned to me. I looked directly at Principal Vanderberg. âMr. Vanderberg, you can question me, but you cannot slander my parents like this! You have no evidence, so how dare you say my parents are fugitives!â Principal Vanderbergâs face was livid. He pointed at me. âWhat kind of attitude is that? Eavesdropping on teachers, then barging in to talk back! Was I wrong? I think you lack proper upbringing!â âMy upbringing teaches me to be truthful and to follow rules!â I met his gaze without flinching. âWhat Iâm saying is the truth, and as for my parentsâ profession, you have no right to know!â âYouâre out of line!â Principal Vanderberg was trembling with rage. He grabbed his lesson plan book from the table and threw it at me, but I dodged it. He roared, âGet out! From now on, youâre out of my class!â I pressed my lips together and turned to leave. Behind me, Principal Vanderberg roared, âLook at that! What an attitude, incorrigible! Iâll definitely teach her a lesson!â
Back in my classroom seat, three or five classmates huddled together, whispering, then all turned to look at me, then turned back to continue talking. âPrincipal said her parents are fugitives!â âWe should stay away from her!â My hand, which was turning a page, froze. The class president stood up from his seat, clapped his hands. âEveryone, hand in your holiday assignments. Separate by subject, pass them up by group.â I lowered my head, rummaging through my bag, about to pass my holiday assignment to the student in front. Principal Vanderberg walked directly towards me. In front of the whole class, he took the stack of assignments from my hands, turned around, and tossed them into the trash bin. The classroom was dead silent. All the blood rushed to my head. âPrincipal Vanderberg!â âWhat?â He turned to me. âYouâve repeatedly challenged my authority. Since I canât control you anyway, you donât need to hand in your assignments anymore.â He took a stack of test papers from the podium and handed them to the class president. âThese are this weekâs practice sheets. Hand them out.â Principal Vanderberg glanced at me again. âOh, and donât give any to Lily Adams. Iâve confiscated her papers.â âAlso, Iâve spoken with the other subject teachers. From now on, Lily Adams doesnât need to hand in any assignments or test papers for any subject. Itâll be useless, we wonât accept them.â My body went cold. Just because my parents couldnât come to school for clean-up? I was going to be treated like this? The class bell rang. Principal Vanderberg pointed to the corridor. âMy class, you can get out!â I gritted my teeth, turned, and left the classroom, knocking on the head of student affairsâ office.
3.
I recounted the entire incident to Dean Thompson. âPrincipal Vanderberg, because my parents couldnât come to school for clean-up, called them fugitives and made the whole class aware. He also threw my assignments in the trash, saying he wouldnât accept my work anymore, wouldnât give me test papers. I want the Dean to judge this fairly.â Dean Thompson listened to my words, then remained silent for a moment. âLily, dear,â his voice was serious. âIâve heard what you said. I know Principal Vanderberg; heâs a bit hot-headed, but his intentions are good.â A kindly smile spread across his face. âHow about this, in a little while, Iâll use the school intercom to speak on your behalf, and Iâll explain your parentsâ situation to everyone, so the teachers and students donât misunderstand. How does that sound?â My eyes welled up. âThank you, Dean Thompson! Thank you!â âGo on, go on,â he waved his hand. I bowed deeply to him and left the office.
Standing in the corridor, I let out a deep sigh of relief. The intercom would ring soon. Once this was resolved, I could go back to class and study like before. I stood outside the classroom, where Principal Vanderberg was teaching. The intercom crackled to life. I immediately stood up straight. âAttention all faculty and students.â Dean Thompsonâs voice came through the speaker. âHere is an announcement.â I took a deep breath. âRegarding the disciplinary action against junior student Lily Adams.â âUpon investigation, it was found that the student provided false guardian information, defied her principalâs authority, and refused to cooperate with class duties. After multiple attempts by the principal to educate her, she showed no remorse, and today, during a break, she left class without permission and disrupted the teaching order. Her actions severely violate school rules and regulations, creating a negative impact.â âAfter deliberation by the grade committee, it has been decided to place student Lily Adams on school probation. All students are advised to take this as a warning, and respect their teachers. End of announcement.â I felt as if struck by lightning, my mind completely blank. Principal Vanderberg gave me a mocking smile from inside the classroom.
I turned and ran, kicking open the Dean of Student Affairsâ office door. Dean Thompson was drinking tea. He frowned and shouted. âWhatâs wrong with you? Donât you know to knock before entering?â âWhy did you lie to me?â I gasped, my voice trembling. âDidnât you promise to help me? Why did the announcement say I was being disciplined?â He stood up, enraged. âLily Adams, let me tell you, donât make trouble here. Your disciplinary action is final!â Principal Vanderberg stomped in. Her eyes were spitting fire. âOh, Lily Adams, you dare to come looking for the Dean!â She took a few quick steps, and without a word, slapped me. My face burned, and I stumbled sideways. âYou little brat!â Principal Vanderberg pointed at my nose and yelled, âEven if you go to the Headmaster, it wonât matter! I run this class! Iâm telling you, you messed with the wrong person today!â âCousin, calm down,â Dean Thompson said from the side. I clutched my face, staring at them in disbelief. No wonder Principal Vanderberg was so arrogant; Dean Thompson was backing her up. My phone vibrated. A message from my mother: [Daughter, weâll be at your school in ten minutes.]
Principal Vanderbergâs face darkened. She stepped forward and roughly knocked my phone out of my hand. âStill trying to call for help? Dream on! Iâll teach you a good lesson for your fugitive parents right now!â My fists clenched. All the blood rushed to my head, the pain on my cheek, the heat in my eyes, all mixed together into something indescribable. But my parents were arriving soon. Then, letâs see how arrogant she could be! I scoffed. âMr. Vanderberg, are you really sure you want to do this?â
4.
Principal Vanderberg scoffed, yelling, âSecurity! Now!â Two security guards ran in. Principal Vanderberg pointed at me, furious. âThis student violated school rules and assaulted a teacher!â âLook at this slap mark on my face! Sheâs completely out of control. She needs a lesson!â I looked at Principal Vanderbergâs smooth face and laughed, exasperated. This was a complete inversion of the truth. The guards rushed forward, twisting my arms, one on each side, pinning me in place. I struggled, but two fists were no match for four hands. Principal Vanderberg stood before me, looking down. âIf your parents wonât discipline you, then Iâll do it for them. Iâll teach you respect!â âNow, get on your knees and apologize!â I struggled, shouting, âIâm not wrong!â âI wonât kneel!â The guardsâ grip was strong, pressing on my shoulders until they ached. I twisted my body, kicking at the ground. âHold her down!â Dean Thompson yelled, and from behind, he kicked the back of my knee. My leg gave out, and I slammed to my knees on the floor.
Principal Vanderberg squatted in front of me, holding her phone, the camera pointed at my face. âCome on, look up. Let everyone see what a student who hits a teacher looks like.â âSay, âMy parents are fugitives.ââ I bit my lip, staying silent. She stood up and handed her phone to one of the security guards. âHold this. Get a clear shot.â The guard took the phone, the camera still on me. Principal Vanderberg circled behind me and kicked me in the back. I stumbled forward, bracing myself with my hands on the ground, my palms scraping against the floor, a burning pain. âWonât say it?â Her voice came from above. âFine. Letâs see how long you can hold out.â She bent down, grabbing a handful of my hair, yanking my face upward. My scalp screamed in pain, feeling like my hair was about to be ripped out. âLook at the camera. Admit your parents are fugitives. Say it.â Principal Vanderberg commanded. Tears streamed down my face from the pain, but I bit my lip and remained silent. My silence enraged Principal Vanderberg. She snatched the stun baton from the security guardâs belt. My blood ran cold. I fiercely demanded, âPrincipal Vanderberg! This is illegal! You are a disgrace to the teaching profession!â She pressed the stun baton to my shoulder, and I trembled with fear. âScared now? Will you say it or not?â âNever! My parents are not fugitives.â My voice trembled, but each word was clear. âThey protect this country. People like you donât deserve to mention them.â Her face darkened, and she snapped, âYou think youâre so tough!â With that, she moved to press the button.
Just then, the classroom door was kicked open, and several figures appeared in the doorway. I cried out: âMom, Dad, youâre finally here!â
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