Category: English

1 My name is Sarah. Five years into my marriage with Jean, I gave up my life to save his, leaving this world forever. The only piece of my soul I left behind was our four-year-old son, Toby. In the years that followed, Jean raised our little boy all on his own, fiercely guarding every single memory of the life we shared. That was, until a woman named Nicole walked into his life. She pursued Jean relentlessly, throwing her whole heart at him. But no matter how desperately Nicole confessed her feelings, Jean turned her down cold. “I made a promise to Sarah,” he told her. “For the rest of my life, my heart belongs entirely to her. She is my one and only wife.” I floated right beside him as a spirit, watching him, silently praying he would keep that promise. I never expected what would happen next. A massive fire broke out at Toby’s school. Nicole charged into the burning building without a second thought. She managed to save my son, but she was trapped under a falling beam and slipped into a deep coma. Jean lost every ounce of his composure. He fell to his knees beside her hospital bed, begging Nicole to open her eyes, over and over again. Nicole’s eyes remained firmly shut. But I, inexplicably, felt a violent pull. Before I knew what was happening, I was sucked directly into her body. I blinked her eyes open. The first person in my line of sight was Jean. He didn’t recognize me. With tears streaming down his face, he looked at me, or rather, the woman he thought was Nicole, and choked out a confession. “Nicole, I love you.” For a split second, I honestly thought the smoke had messed with my hearing. But Jean immediately said it again. “Nicole, I love you.” “I already talked to my parents. The second you’re out of the woods and fully recovered, we are planning the wedding.” “Thank God you’re okay…” He pressed my hand against his wet cheek, looking at me with pure, unadulterated devotion. I lay there completely paralyzed. I had no idea how to tell him that I wasn’t Nicole. I was his dead wife, Sarah. Worse yet, I had no idea how to process the crushing reality that he had genuinely fallen in love with another woman. Seeing my silence, Jean panicked and started apologizing. “I’m so sorry, Nicole. I was a fool before. I clearly had feelings for you, but I was just too much of a coward to admit it.” “I swear to you, from this day forward, I will love you and only you. Okay?” Those words were the exact same words he used when he proposed to the real me years ago. Back then, I had wrapped my arms around his neck, laughing and teasing him. “It’s a deal! If you ever change your mind, I’ll never forgive you, even if I’m dead!” And yet, here we were. All I could do was dig my fingernails into my palms, fighting back a wave of bitter tears as I tried to correct him. “But I’m not Ni…” Before the name could fully leave my lips, a tiny figure bolted into the hospital room. “Mommy! You’re finally awake!” My entire body violently jolted. I watched helplessly as my little boy threw his small arms around my torso, his eyes swollen and red from crying. Feeling the radiating heat of his small body, a massive rush of joy completely short-circuited my brain. My voice trembled uncontrollably. “What… what did you just call me?” “Can you say it one more time?” It had been so unbelievably long since I heard my Toby call me Mom. But before Toby could open his mouth again, Jean gently covered the boy’s lips, offering a patient correction. “Toby, buddy, you can’t call her that yet. Auntie Nicole hasn’t agreed to marry daddy.” “She isn’t your mom right now.” Those words hit me like a bucket of ice water. The brutal reality snapped back into place. Right now, in their eyes, I was Nicole. Even Jean couldn’t spot a single difference. How could my sweet, innocent son possibly know that his real mother was trapped inside this woman’s body? My nose stung fiercely. I lowered my gaze, trying to explain myself one more time. “Actually, I really am Toby’s mo…” Jean completely misunderstood my hesitation. He grabbed my hands, his eyes wild with excitement. “Wait, does that mean you’re saying yes? You’ll marry me?” I froze. I was just about to shake my head. But Toby let out a joyful cheer and hugged me even tighter. “Yay! That means Auntie Nicole is going to be my new mommy! Right?!” I looked at the absolute elation lighting up both of their faces. The truth withered and died in my throat. In the three agonizing years since my death, this was the first time I had seen either of them look so genuinely happy. They truly loved Nicole. As for me… I was a ghost who had been dead for three years. No matter how much it tore me apart, what right did I have to steal the happiness they so desperately wanted? My eyes burned with fresh tears. I awkwardly turned my face away and offered a single, stiff nod. “Yes.” I had no idea when my soul would be ripped away from this body. But if Nicole was the only person they wanted to see, then I would give them exactly what they wanted. 2 Hearing my answer, both father and son practically tackled me in a massive hug. Jean’s voice cracked with raw emotion. “Nicole, thank you…” “Thank you for forgiving me, and thank you for being willing to be Toby’s mom.” Toby was too young to understand the gravity of it all. He just buried his face in my chest, echoing his dad’s thank you. As I sat there, the scent clinging to their clothes drifted into my nose, leaving me entirely dazed. After all these years, they still smelled exactly like gardenias. It was my absolute favorite scent. When I was alive, I constantly bought that specific floral detergent to wash all of their laundry. Whenever I hung the clothes up to dry, Toby used to cling to my legs and grin. “Mommy smells so good! I love it!” And Jean would always pull me into his chest and whisper. “Every time I smell gardenias on you, it just makes me feel so grounded. So safe.” It was the signature scent of our little family of three. But right now, they were carrying that exact same scent while holding another woman’s body. A sickening wave of revulsion and rejection clawed at my throat. I pushed them away, holding my breath. “What is that smell on you two? It’s way too strong. It’s suffocating.” Jean lifted his sleeve to his nose, and his entire body went rigid. Toby immediately piped up to explain. “It’s gardenia flowers! Daddy says it’s because my first mommy loved…” Before he could finish, Jean clamped a hand over his mouth. “It’s just a regular detergent. If you don’t like it, I’ll throw it out and buy a new one tomorrow.” Jean looked at me with total caution, treating me like fragile glass. The very next day, the scent on their clothes completely changed. It was a sickly sweet citrus scent. The exact kind of fruity smell I absolutely despised. To make matters worse, Toby kept clinging to me, excitedly asking if I liked the new smell. Looking at his sweet, innocent face, I forced a fake smile and nodded, silently ordering myself to let go of the past. I wasn’t Sarah anymore. I had to play the role of Nicole perfectly, right up until the day she returned to claim her life. I arrived in silence, and I would leave in silence. If I did that, I could at least lie to myself. I could pretend that in my memories, our family was still as beautiful and flawless as it used to be. To the current Jean and Toby, “Nicole’s” feelings were the only things that mattered. Because he thought “Nicole” didn’t like it, Jean voluntarily took off his wedding ring, leaving behind a stark, pale indentation on his ring finger. Because he thought “Nicole” didn’t want to see any reminders of Sarah, Toby took off the custom silver locket I had personally engraved for him. He stuffed it in a drawer and never wore it again. Bit by bit, piece by piece, father and son meticulously scrubbed every trace of my existence from their lives. And I was forced to sit there and watch it happen. Right before I was discharged from the hospital, my period hit. I lay curled up in the hospital bed, shivering violently from the brutal cramps. Toby scrambled up onto the mattress and snuggled into my chest, using his little body heat to warm my aching stomach. Jean actually called out of work. He rushed all the way home just to cook a pot of warm, brown sugar pecan oatmeal for me. Everything was playing out exactly like it used to. But I knew the truth. They still hadn’t recognized me. Jean scooped up a spoonful of the hot oatmeal and brought it to my lips. “Be a good girl, eat it while it’s hot. The pain will go away soon.” It was a sweet, comforting bowl of food, but the steam rising off it made my eyes sting with unshed tears. I turned my head away. “I don’t want it.” Jean’s hand froze mid-air. His voice hitched with sudden anxiety. “But this used to be your absolute favorite. Why don’t you want it? Is your stomach acting up?” He turned around, fully prepared to hit the call button for the nurse. My voice sliced through the air and stopped him dead in his tracks. “Jean, I’m highly allergic to pecans. I’ve never touched the stuff in my life.” “Who exactly is the woman in your head right now?” 3 My dead heart suddenly sparked back to life. God knows how desperately I wanted Jean to figure out the truth. I wanted to find even the tiniest crumb of evidence that he still loved me. But he just stood there, his lips parting and closing for several agonizing seconds, completely speechless. I wasn’t allergic to pecans. Sarah loved them. But in my inherited memories, the real Nicole was severely allergic, and she had explicitly warned Jean about it multiple times. The fact that he completely forgot about her allergy… did that mean I still held the top spot in his heart? Toby looked back and forth between us. He tugged gently on Jean’s sleeve and whispered a reminder. “Daddy, the person who loves pecan oatmeal is Mommy.” My eyes flooded with heat. I bit down hard on my lower lip and looked away. I couldn’t even describe the twisted, suffocating feeling in my chest. Jean slowly set the bowl down on the nightstand. He pulled me into a tight embrace, apologizing over and over again. “I’m so sorry, Nicole… I completely forgot.” “Sarah always loved eating this. Whenever her time of the month came around, making this for her always made her smile.” “I just haven’t adjusted yet. I’m so sorry. Please, just give me a little more time. I swear I’ll memorize every single thing you like, and I’ll wipe Sarah from my memory entirely. Please?” I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper, letting the metaphorical blood drip straight down into my shattered heart. Fine. Let it be like this. I needed to stop holding onto these pathetic delusions. I was only torturing myself. I rested my head against his shoulder and gave a weak nod. “Don’t let it happen again.” Toby pressed his little face against my arm and spoke up in his sweetest voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll supervise Daddy! We’ll memorize everything about you!” They were men of their word. From that day forward, they never got “Nicole’s” preferences wrong again. After I was officially discharged, Jean brought me back to our family home. During the years I existed purely as a spirit, I had haunted this house. I knew Jean couldn’t bear to throw any of my belongings away. He had kept the house in pristine condition, looking exactly as it did the day I died. He forbade anyone from touching a single thing. Once, when Nicole shamelessly invited herself over, she accidentally knocked over a half-finished Lego castle I had been building with Toby. Jean had completely lost his mind, screaming at her to get out. Afterward, completely ignoring his usual polished dignity, he had dug through the trash bin to find the missing plastic bricks. He and Toby spent hours rebuilding it, placing it perfectly back on its display shelf. But now… I scanned the expansive living room. The Lego castle on the entryway console was gone. The custom ceramic vase I bought for the coffee table had vanished. Even the massive family portrait of the three of us that used to hang proudly above the fireplace had been taken down. The only things left were a few bare nails sticking out of the drywall, acting as a ghost of what used to be there. Every single trace of my existence had been surgically removed by Jean’s own hands. My chest caved in, leaving a hollow, echoing ache. Without thinking, I murmured aloud. “This house… it’s missing so many things.” Jean stepped up behind me, wrapping his arms securely around my waist. He spoke softly into my ear. “You’re right.” “This house is missing a hostess.” “Nicole, will you marry me?” As he spoke, a flawless, glittering diamond ring appeared directly in my line of sight. Even though I knew this exact moment was coming, an uncontrollable tremor ran through my entire body. Should I say yes? If the real Nicole were standing here, she would accept it in a heartbeat, wouldn’t she? As my thoughts spun into total chaos, Jean took a step back. He held the ring up and dropped to one knee right in the middle of the living room. “Nicole, I have never been more serious.” The very next second, a dozen people poured out from the adjacent dining room and hallways. Confetti cannons popped with a loud bang, showering us in colorful paper as our friends erupted into cheers. “Say yes! Say yes!” For a fleeting, dizzying moment, I thought I had traveled back in time to the day Jean first proposed to me. Back then, we were surrounded by this exact same crowd, cheering us on, wishing us a lifetime of happiness. And Jean had spoken his vows in front of everyone, just like he was doing now. He thanked Nicole for lighting up his dark world. He thanked Nicole for dragging him out of the abyss of his grief. And he thanked Nicole for saving his son’s life. “Sarah was the love of my past, but Nicole… you are the salvation of my entire life.” “Please, marry me.” The blinding sparkle refracting off the diamond cut sharply into my eyes. I knew Nicole would say yes. I knew I was supposed to just accept it. But in that exact moment, my throat locked up. I couldn’t force a single syllable out. What kind of woman could stand there and willingly hand her own husband over to someone else? I couldn’t do it. Seeing my frozen silence, Jean’s parents stepped forward. Their eyes were red and pleading as they approached me carefully. “Nicole, honey, we know any woman would feel hesitant about marrying a widower.” “But ever since that woman passed away, Jean has been a walking corpse. You’re the first person to bring him back to life.” “As his parents, our only wish is to see our son happy. We just want him to walk out of the past and actually live again.” “Nicole, please, won’t you say yes to our family?” 4 Looking at my former mother and father-in-law, I suddenly felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Even they had completely, effortlessly accepted Nicole as the new woman of the house. Jean’s close friends gathered around, chiming in, urging me not to worry about his history. “Jean is the most fiercely loyal guy on the planet. Once he commits to someone, he loves them until the bitter end. You never have to worry about him changing his mind.” I stood rooted to the hardwood floor, completely dazed, a bitter smirk tugging at the corners of my mouth. Loves them until the bitter end? Never changes his mind? Then why doesn’t he love me anymore? My fingertips turned ice-cold from the emotional pain. I knew I had to make the final call. I reached my hand out toward Jean, pulling every last ounce of strength from my bones to force the words out. “Okay. I will.” His eyes lit up like fireworks. He grabbed my hand with trembling fingers and slid the heavy diamond onto my ring finger. The metal felt incredibly weighty on my skin. Yet somewhere deep inside my chest, there was a gaping, desolate void. The crowd around us clapped and cheered, wiping away happy tears as they showered us with blessings. Toby danced around our legs in a circle, totally ecstatic. “Yay! Daddy and Mommy are getting married! I have a mommy again!” Jean swept me up into a crushing hug, laughing and crying at the exact same time. “Once you’re completely healed, we’re going to have the biggest wedding this city has ever seen.” “I promise you, I’m going to give you an unforgettable day…” I felt like a wooden puppet suspended by strings. I forced my facial muscles into a stiff, unnatural smile. “Okay…” Before the word could fully register, the heavy mahogany front doors burst violently open. Two familiar figures stormed into the entryway, screaming at Jean. “What the hell do you mean, a wedding?! We absolutely forbid it!” I jumped, my head snapping toward the entrance in total shock. Dad… Mom? Toby sprinted toward them, throwing his arms around my mother’s legs. “Grandma! Grandpa! I’m getting a new mommy!” Hearing that, my parents’ faces turned dangerously dark. “What new mommy?!” “You only have one mother in this world, and her name is Sarah!” My mother marched straight past the kid, walked right up to Jean, and slapped him directly across the face. Smack. “You were the one who insisted on dragging Sarah out on that road trip! When that drunk driver crossed the median, Sarah threw her body over yours to take the impact!” “She was our only child! She wasn’t even thirty years old! She died so you could live!” “What did you promise us at her funeral?!” “You swore you would guard her memory forever and dedicate your life to raising Toby!” “My daughter hasn’t even been in the ground for three years, and you’re already rushing to get a new wife?!” “What about my little girl? Was she nothing to you?!” “How is her spirit supposed to rest in peace watching you do this!” “I’m telling you right here, right now. If you think you’re going to remarry and bring a stepmother in to raise Toby, you’ll have to do it over my dead body!” I stared at the deep wrinkles etched into my parents’ faces, at the stark white hair framing their temples. My heart physically ached, a tearing sensation ripping through my ribs. In this entire massive, cold world, my parents were the only people left who still cared about my pain. Jean kept his head bowed, taking the abuse in total silence. He was probably replaying the horrific car crash that stole my life. His face was a mask of suffocating guilt and panic. His mother immediately stepped up, screaming right back at my mom. “My son is in the prime of his life! He mourned your daughter for years, why shouldn’t he be allowed to move on?!” “Besides, Toby needs a mother! What is so wrong with bringing a new woman into the house! Can’t you see the boy wants her here?!” “Are you trying to drive my son and my grandson into an early grave just to satisfy your own grief?!” My mother’s face turned ash-gray with fury. She pointed a trembling finger at Jean’s mother. The next second, her eyes rolled back into her head, and she collapsed. My heart completely stopped. I lunged forward, catching her before she hit the floor, screaming on pure instinct. “Mom!” In the sheer chaos of the moment, nobody seemed to catch the slip of my tongue. Nobody except Jean. His pupils dilated in sheer shock, staring down at me with an expression of total, unadulterated disbelief.

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I have been feeling like there is a pair of eyes rummaging through my brain lately. It feels exactly like someone flipping through my private diary in the dead of night. Memories that should be carved into my bones are slipping away. My apartment passcode, my parents’ phone numbers, even my own name feels blurry sometimes. It all started when our new coworker, Erik, showed up. He wears crisp, tailored suits and a textbook perfect smile that makes my stomach turn. The most terrifying part happened during our project pitch. I suddenly blanked on the core algorithm steps, and he recited them word for word, exactly as I had conceptualized them in my head. “You have been a bit forgetful lately, Rainey,” he said with fake concern. “Am I?” I stared dead into his eyes. “Then how do you know the exact ideas I have never told a single soul about?” He panicked, averted his gaze, and practically ran out of the conference room. I finally understood. He was using some kind of neural interface to hack my mind. My three years of blood, sweat, and tears were being siphoned away drop by drop. This monster in a tailored suit was using my intellect as a stepping stone to climb the corporate ladder. But he didn’t know one crucial detail. Memory transfer is a two-way street. While he was digging through my head for secrets, I caught a glimpse of his own filthy skeletons. 01 Erik parachuted into the company three months ago. He is tall, maybe six foot two, always rocking a perfectly pressed suit and flashing that blinding, rehearsed smile. The girls in the office swooned over him, gossiping about his relationship status by the water cooler. But he rubbed me the wrong way from day one. It was a subtle feeling. The way he looked at me wasn’t friendly. He looked at me like I was a commodity on a shelf, calculating my exact market value. I never thought it would get this bad. I got booted from the core engineering team and tossed onto a dead-end project. Meanwhile, Erik, a guy who hadn’t even been here a hundred days, took over the exact project I had poured three years of my life into. I dragged my heavy feet home tonight, only to realize I couldn’t even remember my own front door code. I had to pull up my phone notes just to get inside. The second the door clicked shut, I collapsed onto my bed, tears spilling out uncontrollably. I unlocked my phone to call my parents and vent, but my mind drew a complete blank on their numbers. I scrolled through my contacts, realizing with absolute horror that I couldn’t even tell which number belonged to my dad and which to my mom. It was terrifying. I grabbed a notebook and frantically started scribbling down the day’s events. “April 12. Project pitch failed. Severe memory glitches.” “Erik knew things only I could possibly know. I suspect he has something to do with my missing memories.” I ripped the page out and taped it right above my pillow. Starting tomorrow, I was going to document every single anomaly. My phone buzzed. It was Maggie from HR. “Rainey, are you okay? That meeting today was rough.” “Maggie, I think I am losing my mind.” I spilled everything about my memory gaps. The line went dead quiet for a few seconds. “You need to see a neurologist. I will go with you.” “It is not a medical issue.” I pulled at my hair in frustration. “I swear it is Erik. He knows what is inside my head.” “Are you saying he snooped through your files?” “No. He knows ideas I haven’t written down anywhere. It is like he literally stole my memories.” Maggie stayed silent for a much longer time. “Rainey, listen to yourself. That is completely impossible.” “I know it sounds insane, but I need you to trust me. Just do a deep background check on Erik, please?” “I will see what I can do. But you seriously need to see a doctor.” I hung up and started tearing my apartment apart. I dug up every single old work journal and reviewed every project detail, absolutely terrified I would wake up tomorrow and forget something crucial again. That night, I had a bizarre dream. I was standing in a strange, high-end apartment, staring at a monitor filled with code. My fingers were flying across the keyboard, tweaking a predictive algorithm. But it didn’t feel like my hands. They were the hands of a man. Then I walked into the bathroom. The face staring back at me in the mirror was Erik. 02 The next morning, I showed up at the office two hours early and made a beeline for the main conference room. I had an epiphany last night. If my memories were really bleeding into Erik’s brain, he should be able to answer a question only I knew the answer to. I needed to test this crazy theory. I grabbed a marker and drew a complex math equation on the whiteboard. It was a personal shorthand system I invented back in college. Absolutely nobody else could decipher it. I snapped a quick photo on my phone and erased it spotless. At exactly nine o’clock, Erik strolled into the bullpen, looking sharp and wearing his signature fake smile. “Morning, Rainey.” He gave a polite nod, his tone dripping with a winner’s superiority. “Morning, Erik.” I squeezed out a smile faker than his. “Thanks for bailing me out in the meeting yesterday.” “Anytime.” He stopped by the espresso machine. “You have been looking pretty exhausted lately, though. Memory loss is usually the first sign of severe burnout.” He heavily emphasized the words “memory loss”, a sly glint flashing in his eyes. “Maybe.” I kept my voice casual. “Hey, by the way, what do you make of this formula?” I held up the photo I just took. Erik glanced at the screen, and his face instantly tightened. “That is your custom shorthand for the core predictive logic. You have been using that exact syntax since your sophomore year of college.” My stomach dropped to the floor. There was zero chance he could know that. Unless… “How do you know that?” My voice actually shook. He narrowed his eyes. “You must have mentioned it to me at some point.” He quickly turned on his heel and walked away, his stiff posture betraying his panic. I immediately pulled out my pocket notebook and logged the interaction. A horrifying reality was taking shape in my mind. My memories were genuinely being hijacked. At noon, Maggie dragged me to a quiet coffee shop down the street. “I dug up some dirt,” she whispered, leaning over the table. “His resume is completely cooked.” “He claimed he spent five years at Google, but I reached out to a buddy in their HR. He was there for two years, tops.” “And he left his last startup incredibly abruptly. Word on the street is he caused a massive disaster on a classified project.” “What kind of project?” I asked. “No idea. They scrubbed the data clean,” Maggie frowned. “But here is the real kicker. His graduate research at MIT wasn’t in Artificial Intelligence. His thesis was on Neural Interfaces and Memory Storage.” The ceramic mug nearly slipped out of my hand. “There is more,” Maggie continued. “I pulled the security logs for the building. For the past month, he has been staying late almost every single night. He usually doesn’t badge out until three or four in the morning.” I flipped open my notebook, matching the dates of my memory glitches. A perfect match. Every single time I woke up with a mental fog, Erik had been alone in the office until the early hours of the morning. “Maggie, do you believe me now? About the memories?” She hesitated. “I don’t know if the sci-fi stuff is possible. But I know you wouldn’t get this paranoid over nothing.” “If your gut says he is dirty, then he is dirty.” “I need hard proof. I am staying late tonight to see exactly what he is doing in the dark.” 03 That night, I packed my bag and pretended to leave for the day, but I actually just camped out at a diner across the street. By ten-thirty, the entire building was mostly dark. I slipped back in through the loading dock, using a spare keycard I borrowed from Gary, the night shift security guard. Gary was a sweet older guy who always appreciated the donuts I brought him on Fridays. “Rainey? Burning the midnight oil again?” “Yeah, tight deadline. Hey, is the new director still up there?” “Oh yeah. Guy practically lives here.” Gary lowered his voice. “He is a weird one. Always locks himself in the back lab and refuses to let the cleaning crew inside.” “The lab? What is he even doing in there?” “Beats me. Claims it is highly classified.” My suspicion deepened. The lab was supposed to be a shared testing space. Who gave Erik the right to claim it as his personal fortress? I took the service elevator up and crept barefoot toward my cubicle. The main floor was pitch black, except for a sliver of blue light spilling from under the lab door at the far end of the hall. I tiptoed closer, holding my breath, and peeked through the frosted glass panel. Erik had his back to the door. He was tinkering with a massive piece of hardware I had never seen before. It looked like a sleek, metallic helmet, wired directly into a stack of high-powered servers. The main monitor displayed a dizzying stream of raw data flowing into a glowing 3D model of a human brain. I pulled out my phone and quietly snapped a few photos. Suddenly, Erik spun around. I threw myself flat against the wall, but I was a second too slow. “Who is out there?” he snapped. I pressed my hands over my mouth, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. His heavy footsteps echoed as he marched toward the door. Just as the handle clicked, a voice called out from the opposite end of the corridor. “Mr. Mercer? Your food delivery is downstairs.” It was Gary. The footsteps stopped, then pivoted away. I seized the window and bolted into the women’s restroom, shaking uncontrollably. Once the coast was clear, I snuck out of the building and ran all the way to my apartment, too terrified to even look over my shoulder. Safe inside, I immediately checked my camera roll. Most of the shots were blurry garbage, but one captured the main monitor perfectly. I zoomed in. Right above the glowing 3D brain model was a distinct file name. Target: Rainey Woods. My phone hit the floor. I was right. Erik was literally hacking into my mind. But how was he doing it without touching me? And why me? My hands shook as I grabbed my notebook. I logged everything I saw, then set three aggressive alarms, absolutely terrified of what I might forget by morning. Right before I shut my eyes, I made a desperate move. I wrote a message on the last page, ripped it out, and shoved it under my mattress. “If you are reading this, remember. Erik is stealing your memories. The proof is in your photo gallery.” 04 I woke up feeling groggy. I couldn’t remember my dreams, but one specific visual was burned into my mind. I was in a dark, unfamiliar room, staring at a computer screen, editing a highly encrypted file. The document title was “Rainey Woods Memory Extraction Progress”. I bolted upright in bed, grabbed my notebook, and read the entry from last night. Seeing the photos on my phone brought the entire nightmare crashing back. I called Maggie immediately. “Maggie, I need a massive favor. Dig up everything you can find on Erik’s MIT research. Neural interfaces, memory extraction. Leave no stone unturned.” “What happened? You sound like you are about to have a panic attack.” “I saw him in the lab last night. He has this insane rig, and my name was literally on the monitor.” “I am completely positive he is using experimental tech to download my brain.” She went quiet. “Are you sure you didn’t just see a project file?” “Maggie, please. Just find the files.” “Okay. I will look. Just watch your back.” Hanging up, I made a solid decision. I was going to play the clueless victim today, but I was setting a lethal trap. When I got to work, I took a deliberate detour past Erik’s office. He wasn’t at his desk. His workspace was sterile, wiped completely clean. The only personal item was a heavy, biometric briefcase. I was just debating if I should risk touching it when a smooth voice echoed behind me. “Looking for something, Rainey?” I spun around, keeping my face perfectly neutral. “Oh, hey Erik. I brought over the weekly metrics, but I wasn’t sure if I should just leave them on your chair.” He took the invisible “metrics” from my empty hand with a knowing, condescending smirk. “Thanks. But maybe knock next time.” “Of course. Sorry for intruding.” I turned to walk away. “Hold on,” he called out. “Sleep well last night? Have any… vivid dreams?” My heart skipped a beat, but I forced a look of pure confusion. “Not really. Slept like a rock. Why?” “Just making conversation.” That slick, fake smile made me want to punch him. Back at my desk, I executed my plan. I opened my code editor and created a massive file named “Core Algorithm Final Build”. I stuffed it with thousands of lines of incredibly complex, totally useless garbage code. I pretended to review it obsessively, waiting to see if he would take the bait. At lunch, I faked a bathroom trip and looped past his glass office. Sure enough, he was glued to his monitors, typing frantically with a disgustingly smug look on his face. At three o’clock, our CEO, Mr. Harrison, called the engineering heads into the boardroom. Erik sat at the right hand of the boss, practically glowing with confidence. He shot me a smug glance across the table. “Alright team,” Mr. Harrison started. “We pitch the algorithm prototype to the venture capitalists next week.” “Erik, where do we stand?” Erik stood up, buttoning his suit jacket, and projected his laptop to the big screen. “We are in perfect shape. I just finished optimizing the final core logic, and the efficiency metrics are blowing our projections out of the water.” He began flipping through a deck of complex diagrams and data sets. It was word-for-word the garbage data I had planted in my fake file that morning. I clenched my fists under the mahogany table. He took the bait. The second the meeting wrapped, I texted Maggie. “Massive breakthrough. Meet me after work.” She replied instantly. “I have something huge too. See you at six.” At seven, Maggie drove us to a run-down diner on the edge of town, making sure nobody from the office could track us. “I pulled some serious strings,” she said, sliding a thick manila folder across the sticky table. “His MIT project was called ‘Cognitive Extraction and Transfer Protocols’. The university shut it down three years ago for severe ethical violations.” “His lead professor testified that the tech violated basic human rights and had terrifying potential for corporate espionage.” “I knew it!” I flipped through the classified documents, my pulse racing. “He is using that exact tech to strip-mine my brain!” “It gets worse.” Maggie pointed at a redacted NDA form. “His last employer? Horizon Dynamics. Our biggest market rival.” I sucked in a sharp breath. “He is a corporate rat.” “Exactly. I talked to my industry contacts. Horizon has been trying to launch a predictive model just like ours.” “But their backend is years behind us. If he steals your technical knowledge…” “He hands them the keys to crush us,” I finished her sentence. “And the dead-end project I am on right now? It actually houses the foundational architecture for our entire ecosystem.” “We have to take this to Mr. Harrison.” I shook my head. “Without hard proof, Harrison will laugh us out of the room. He thinks Erik walks on water.” “Then what do we do?” I stared at my cold coffee. “I have a plan.” “If he wants to dig around in my head, I am going to serve him something incredibly toxic.”

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The year my mother and father’s mistress fell to their deaths, I cut off my family and followed Jake to New York. Broke back then, he gave me everything after years of struggle. Near the anniversary of my mother’s death, he said, “Anna, I’m moving the company to London. Will you be upset?” Touched, I told him to go ahead and set things up. Two months later, I was pregnant. I secretly flew to London to surprise him. At his townhouse, I heard a familiar voice—Sophie, my half-sister, the other woman’s daughter. “Honey, are we staying here?” she asked. Jake replied, “Yes. You and the baby are here. I couldn’t leave.” My blood ran cold. I hid as they came out. He helped her, her bump clearly showing. He fussed over her, calling himself an overprotective first-time dad. The way he looked at her was how he once looked at me. After they left, I wandered to my mother’s old house and sat in the dark until Jake called. “Anna,” he asked gently, “sleeping okay?” I couldn’t speak. “No, Jake. I haven’t been feeling well lately. When are you coming back to New York?” “Not feeling well? What’s wrong? Did you go see a doctor?” He sounded so frantic. So worried. If I hadn’t seen that devastating scene with my own eyes, I would have instantly comforted him, told him I was fine, told him not to stress. “I can’t sleep. I have no appetite, and I keep throwing up. Jake… I think I’m pregnant.” The line went dead silent. After what felt like an eternity, he finally spoke. His tone was tight, edged with agitation. “Anna, I’m right in the middle of the most chaotic phase of the corporate move. This is a really bad time for a baby.” He paused, forcing his voice to soften. “Be a good girl. The pregnancy is still early. Go to a clinic and take care of it. Once we’re fully settled back in the UK, we can plan for a family. Okay?” I let out a broken laugh, swiping at the wetness completely covering my face. “Are you saying it’s a bad time for a baby, or is it just a bad time for my baby?” “What the hell is that supposed to mean! I told you, the timing is terrible. Why can’t you just be understanding for once?” I hung up the phone. I opened my laptop, pulled up the UK visa application site, and began filling out the forms. Under marital status, I selected ‘Married’. A line of glaring red text popped up on the screen. “The information provided does not match system records. Please verify and resubmit.” Thinking I had typed the marriage certificate number wrong, I entered it again. Same red text. I stared at the glowing screen for several seconds. My fingers were trembling uncontrollably as I clicked the dropdown menu and changed it to ‘Single’. Approved. So, when Sophie called him her husband, she meant it legally. And the courthouse wedding Jake and I had in Brooklyn three years ago was a complete fake. When we got “married,” Jake had told me the process in the States was incredibly streamlined. No officiant needed, no witnesses required, just signing some papers and getting a certificate. I had trusted him implicitly. I never harbored a single doubt. It turned out he had been playing me for a fool from the very beginning. I booked the next flight back to New York. I dug out that flimsy, pathetic excuse for a marriage certificate. The whole room started spinning. When I finally opened my eyes again, I was blinded by hospital white. “Anna, you’re awake!” Seeing the mix of anxiety and relief in Jake’s eyes made my stomach violently turn. I weakly raised my fists, pummeling his chest. “Why! Why did you lie to me! The marriage certificate is fake! It’s all fake! You legally married Sophie in London. I saw everything! You’re a piece of trash, Jake!” A flash of pure panic crossed his face. “Anna… please calm down. Just let me explain…” Smack. My palm collided with his cheek, draining the last ounce of my strength. Jake pinned my wrists down, the words spilling out of him in a rushed frenzy. “Sophie had a terrible life. Everywhere she went, people treated her like dirt because she was an illegitimate child. Your dad came to me. He begged me to give her a legitimate status. But I love you, Anna. It’s always been you. Once Sophie has the baby, I’ll divorce her immediately, and we’ll get properly married…” I clutched my head, a raw scream tearing from my throat. “Her mother killed my mother! Did you forget that?! My mother paid for your college tuition! Why would you help our enemy? Why!” Jake yanked my hands away. A look of deep impatience settled over his features, and his volume spiked. “Her mother is dead too! Anna, can you not have an ounce of empathy? You’re both victims in this, there is no right or wrong. You have me for the rest of your life. She has absolutely nothing. I just felt sorry for her. I couldn’t let my gratitude to your mother blind me to basic human decency.” I went completely still. I looked at him, my eyes devoid of anything but dead ash. “I’m going back to London.” There were too many things I needed to uncover. The car ride from Heathrow Airport headed toward the suburbs. “That townhouse is in Sophie’s name. I’ve arranged a new place for you,” Jake explained from the driver’s seat. “How many months along is she?” The car jerked to a violent halt. I slammed my head against the dashboard. Pain and dizziness hit me simultaneously. “What are you trying to do?” he snapped. In the past, if I even got a paper cut, he would coddle me for hours. Now, his only concern was whether I posed a threat to Sophie. I laughed out loud. “When exactly did you two start screwing each other? Three years ago? Five?” Humiliation tightened Jake’s jaw. “Anna, what’s done is done. Digging up the past is pointless. If you want to keep your baby, I won’t force you to get rid of it. But I’m warning you, you will not lay a finger on Sophie’s child.” That last sentence was a flat-out threat. I thought my heart was already dead, but those words still sent a vicious, stabbing pain straight through my chest. The second I walked into the new house, I saw Sophie. She was wearing a tight knit maxi dress, proudly jutting out her belly, standing right in the middle of the living room like she owned the place. “Sis, you’re back!” Jake immediately rushed to her side, supporting her lower back. His tone was laced with gentle reprimand. “Why didn’t you stay home and rest? What are you doing here?” Sophie smiled softly, trailing her fingers down his arm. “The baby has been so good today, not kicking too hard. Don’t be such a worrywart.” Jake pinched her nose. “You’re acting like a kid yourself. I swear I can’t handle you.” Sophie shot a sideways glance at me, acting entirely bashful. “Stop it, you’re embarrassing me. My sister is right there.” I stood there like an unwanted guest, forced to watch their disgusting display of domestic bliss. Despite my best efforts, my eyes burned with hot tears. A dull ache started pulsing in my lower abdomen. “Does the deed to this house have my name on it?” I asked. Jake guided Sophie to the plush sofa, settling her down before looking at me. “Of course it’s yours.” I placed a protective hand over my stomach and took a deep breath. “In that case, I want everyone who doesn’t belong here to get out of my house.” Jake’s brow furrowed. Sophie’s eyes instantly welled up with tears. “It’s my fault. I just missed you so much since we haven’t seen each other in forever. If you don’t want me here, Sis, I’ll leave right now.” She made a dramatic show of struggling to stand up, which sent Jake into a full panic. “Sophie is your younger sister. You shouldn’t treat her like this.” The rage I had been suppressing violently boiled over. I screamed at the top of my lungs. “I don’t have a sister! My mother only gave birth to one daughter!” Sophie buried her face in Jake’s chest, her voice trembling with manufactured sobs. “Hubby, just let me go home. Please don’t upset her anymore.” “I’ll drive you back.” He supported her weight as they walked past me, dropping his voice into a low, disappointed register. “I really hope you can get your emotions under control.” The front door clicked shut. I collapsed onto the couch, buried my face in my hands, and cried until I was completely hollowed out. Jake didn’t come back that night. Instead, my phone lit up with a video message from Sophie. [My pregnancy is making things difficult, but he was so worried about my needs, he insisted on helping me out like this.] The video showed them in bed. I didn’t need to watch the rest. [Sis, do you think he’ll be this attentive when your belly gets big too?] A foul wave of nausea hit the back of my throat. I bolted to the bathroom, dry heaving over the toilet bowl. Everything that had happened over the past few weeks felt like a twisted fever dream. I honestly didn’t know what my next move should be. Suddenly, there was a tiny flutter in my belly. It was a kick. My baby’s first movement. Right then and there, I made my decision. I was keeping this child. But this baby would have absolutely nothing to do with Jake. The next morning, I went straight to the sprawling estate of the man I had disowned. My biological father, Richard. “I’m here to take back the shares of the family trust my mother left for me.” A flicker of guilt crossed Richard’s face. “When you ran off five years ago, I already transferred your mother’s portion to Sophie.” My stomach plummeted. “That belonged to my mother! What right did you have to give it to the daughter of a homewrecker!” “Jake knew about it. In fact, it was his suggestion.” Jake… When his tech company went public in New York, I had asked him to help me fly back to London to reclaim my mother’s shares. At the time, he told me Richard had used a corporate loophole to buy them out at a rock-bottom price, and that he could only salvage a cash payout for me. Why? My mother had paid for his entire Ivy League education. He used to tell me she was like a second mother to him. He promised her he would protect me for the rest of his life. How could a human being rot so completely from the inside out? When I got back to the house, Jake was already there. He walked over, reaching out to grab my hand. I sidestepped, letting his fingers grasp empty air. “Exactly how many things are you hiding from me?” He looked me dead in the eye, perfectly composed. “Aside from marrying Sophie, absolutely nothing.” I lost it. I threw myself at him, slamming my fists into his chest. “Liar! Liar! You told my father to give my mother’s trust fund to Sophie! You gaslighted me for years! Who the hell are you, Jake? If you were skilled enough to play me for five years, why didn’t you have the guts to lie to me for the rest of my life!” “Anna, stop it! You have me! I’ll make sure you never have to worry about money for as long as you live. But Sophie has nothing. She needed a safety net. Can you just let this go? We still have a life to build together. If you keep acting like a hysterical maniac every single day, who could possibly stand being around you?” “If you can’t stand it, then get the hell out! I never want to see your face again! Ah…” A sharp, tearing pain ripped through my stomach. I doubled over. “Take me… to the hospital…” Jake’s face drained of color. He reached out to catch me, but his phone rang. “Hubby, my stomach is hurting so bad… please come back, I’m so scared…” His entire demeanor shifted in a heartbeat. “Don’t move! I’m on my way!” He looked down at me. “Anna, Sophie is further along, she can’t handle any stress. Stop throwing tantrums. Let me go check on her, and I’ll come right back to you.” Without a backward glance, he sprinted out the door. “Jake…” I pulled out my phone with trembling, sweaty fingers and dialed emergency services. “The baby is fine,” the doctor told me later. “A few days of bed rest and you’ll be okay. But you cannot afford these massive emotional spikes. The baby feels whatever the mother feels. For the sake of your child, you need to find a way to stay calm.” I exhaled a massive, shaky breath. “Thank you, doctor.” During my days recovering in the sterile hospital room, Jake didn’t call once. Instead, Sophie bombarded my phone with taunts. “All I had to do was say the baby kicked, and he lost his mind with worry. Sis, there’s no point staying by his side as a pregnant mistress with no legal standing. You should just leave. He’s never going to divorce me.” For the sake of the life growing inside me, I locked my phone away and forced myself to breathe through the anger. Once I was discharged and back at the house, I started packing. I was leaving. I would figure out the rest later. Just as I zipped up my suitcase, Sophie let herself in. “Glad to see you finally came to your senses, Sis. But you probably still have some lingering questions. I came over to clear things up for you.” She looked down, gently stroking her swollen belly. Her voice was terrifyingly soft. “Actually, the night before you two flew out to the States? We slept together.” The words hit me like a physical blow. “You must think it’s impossible, right? Since he hated me so much back then. I went to his apartment with a bottle of whiskey to say goodbye. I told him I had no mother, I’d never get a dime of the family money, and I was doomed to be mocked as an illegitimate bastard for the rest of my life. “He felt sorry for me. He drank glass after glass. When he got drunk, it just… happened naturally. “But Sis, do you really think a black-out drunk man can perform? He knew it was me the whole time. “So you see, you lost to me before you even got on that plane.” I stood glued to the floor. I had imagined a thousand different timelines, but I never thought the betrayal ran this deep. On our flight to New York, Jake had been incredibly distracted. I thought he was just anxious about leaving his home country. Now I knew he was leaving a piece of his heart behind. It was pathetic. I had spent the last five years treating him as my safe harbor. Trusting him unconditionally. I was nothing but a spectacular, colossal joke. Seeing the devastation on my face, Sophie smiled. She slowly pushed up the sleeve of her designer cardigan, revealing an exquisite, vintage Cartier bangle on her wrist. That was my mother’s heirloom. When the homewrecker stole it and sold it years ago, it vanished. Later, I heard it surfaced at a private auction in London. I had begged Jake to fly back and bid on it for me. He had returned looking absolutely gutted, telling me he got outbid by an anonymous buyer. Because his startup was struggling, I swallowed my heartbreak and comforted him. I told him if my mother was watching over us, the bracelet would find its way back to me eventually. “Figured it out yet?” Sophie whispered. “He fought tooth and nail in a bidding war to buy this for me. And he lied straight to your face. From the very beginning, you’ve always been second place.” I lunged at her. “Give it back! Give it back to me!” We grappled. In the chaotic shoving, my foot slipped. I crashed hard onto the hardwood floor. A blinding, agonizing cramp seized my lower abdomen. A thick, terrifying warmth spread between my legs. The metallic scent of blood hit the air. My baby… Sophie immediately threw herself onto the floor and started screaming at the top of her lungs. “Ah! It hurts! Sis, why did you push me?!” “Sophie! What happened?! Don’t be scared, I’ll get you to the hospital right now!” Jake had arrived. He didn’t even look at me. He only had eyes for her. Clutching my stomach, fighting through the blinding agony, I begged him. “I’m bleeding… my baby is dying…” Jake finally turned his head. His eyes were a twisted mixture of disappointment and pure rage. His voice dropped to a sinister, chilling octave I had never heard before. “If anything happens to Sophie or my child, I will make you pay.” “Don’t go…” I watched helplessly as Jake scooped Sophie into his arms and bolted. Before he turned the corner, Sophie’s lips curled into a victorious smirk. She silently mouthed the words: You lose again.

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I was reborn. Brought back to the exact moment the hospital laboratory went up in flames. Fire devoured everything in sight. Christian and I were trapped inside the burning room. Then Stella appeared. She was my girlfriend. But without a single second of hesitation, she chose to save Christian first, treating me like I was completely invisible. I did not stop her. I did not beg. Because the memories of my past life were still burned into my brain. Back then, I revealed my secret identity as the hospital director’s son, using her career to force her to save me. Christian was left behind in that inferno forever. Afterward, she weaponized my guilt, slowly draining every single cent of my family’s wealth. In the end, she locked me inside a lab and set the room on fire. As I begged for my life in sheer despair, she flashed a twisted, demonic smile. “Rowan! If you hadn’t used your family’s power to threaten me, Christian would never have died that horrible death!” “Every ounce of pain he felt in those flames, I am going to make you pay back a thousand times over!” This time, I chose to let her have exactly what she wanted. And in doing so, I would save myself. … 01 A deafening crash shook the room. The heavy steel cabinet slammed into my body, the agonizing pain instantly snapping me fully awake. Ignoring the blinding agony, I desperately tried to make sense of my surroundings. Thick, toxic smoke forced my eyes shut. I could only cover my mouth, coughing so hard my lungs felt like they were bleeding. A dull, throbbing pain radiated from my right leg. I instinctively threw my arms over my head to protect myself. “No!” But my arms, which had been charred to the bone in my past life, were perfectly intact. How was this possible? Before my brain could process anything, a frantic, desperate voice pierced through the roar of the flames. “Christian! Christian! Are you okay?!” Why did that voice sound so agonizingly familiar? A second later, Christian’s weak, pathetic voice drifted over. “Stella… please help me…” I forced my head up in total disbelief. Through the haze, I saw Stella kneeling next to Christian, frantically shoving a fallen desk off his body. Watching the two of them, I literally couldn’t catch my breath. Wait. Wasn’t I just locked in a lab, burning to a crisp while Stella laughed at me? The realization hit me so hard I curled into a ball, my entire body violently shaking. From the lab doorway, my best friend Ben screamed until his voice cracked. “Stella! Are you completely out of your mind?! Save Rowan! He is your boyfriend!” The raw heat on my skin and the smoke stinging my eyes made it undeniably real. This wasn’t a nightmare. I was reborn. Brought back to the very day Christian, the hospital’s golden boy, and I were trapped in the fire. With a loud scrape of metal, Stella finally pushed the desk away. Without so much as a glance in my direction, she hauled Christian up and dragged him toward the exit. A bitter, mocking laugh escaped my throat. In my last life, this was exactly what she did. I was supposed to be the man she loved, but her eyes only ever saw him. It made sense. Christian was gorgeous. He was practically worshipped by the staff, and rumors constantly swirled that he was the sole heir to the Harrington Medical Empire. Even if Stella wasn’t single, she had probably fallen for him a long time ago. I struggled to stand, but the steel cabinet had my leg pinned to the floor. Shards of broken glass had sliced my calf open, and blood was pooling beneath me. I couldn’t move an inch. Stella finally seemed to notice I existed. But there was zero concern in her eyes. Only pure annoyance. She wrinkled her nose. “Christian is the sole heir to the Harrington family. If he dies here, this entire hospital goes down with him!” “I am looking at the bigger picture!” “Your injuries aren’t even that bad. Once I get Christian to safety, I will come back for you.” I laughed again. If I hadn’t already lived through this hell once, I might have actually believed her garbage excuse about “the bigger picture.” I was covered in my own blood, yet to her, my injuries “weren’t that bad.” Ben didn’t hesitate. He tried to charge straight into the fire, but a group of panicked nurses dragged him back. “Ben! Stop! The lab is full of combustible chemicals! It’s going to blow!” They were right. In my memory, this room had roughly fifteen minutes before it detonated. In my past life, after I was dragged out, I immediately screamed for everyone to evacuate, saving dozens of lives. Stella had actually wanted to run back in for Christian, but the flames grew too wild, and she chickened out. So why the hell would I ever believe she was coming back for me this time? I knew she wouldn’t. But I refused to drag the people who actually cared about me down into the grave. I propped myself up on my bloody elbows, screaming at the door with everything I had. “Ben, stay back! It’s going to blow! All of you, run!” Hearing the word “blow,” Stella froze in her tracks. She snapped her head back, glaring at me with eyes so cold she looked like a total stranger. “Rowan, since when did you become such a manipulative liar?!” “The fire department will be here in half an hour to contain this. If you scream about explosions, what are all the colleagues outside going to think of me?!” “Can’t you be a little more like Christian and show some actual basic human decency?!” Her absolute hypocrisy made my blood boil. “You didn’t call me manipulative when you were in my bed!” Hearing that, Christian weakly tugged at Stella’s collar, his voice trembling. “Stella, it hurts so much…” The moment Christian spoke, Stella immediately broke eye contact with me, her gaze softening entirely. “Hold on, Christian. I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.” And just like that, she practically carried him out the door. She never looked back. 02 I gritted my teeth and pushed against the crushing weight of the cabinet. A blinding, drilling pain shot up my spine. But compared to being burned alive in my past life, this was absolutely nothing. Watching Stella abandon me, Ben collapsed to his knees in the hallway, his face pale with disbelief. “Stella! You are sick in the head!” “The Chief of Medicine is going to ruin you for this!” Ben was the only person in the entire hospital who knew my real identity. But his threat only earned a cruel, mocking sneer from Stella. “The Chief is going to ruin me? Hilarious.” “Christian is the only son of the Harrington Medical group! If he dies, the Chief will be the one begging for mercy!” I dragged my bleeding body through the narrow gap beneath the cabinet. The jagged edges tore my wound open further, soaking my clothes in fresh blood. But I didn’t care. I needed to live. Seeing the clock ticking down, I screamed at Ben. “Stop talking to her! Get out of here!” I would never forget the look in Stella’s eyes when she poured gasoline over my head in my past life. There was no love left. Only absolute, psychotic hatred. She ignored my begging. She ignored our years together. She just struck the match. That was when I realized she had blamed me for Christian’s death every single day since the fire. She despised me. Before I could fully shake off that agonizing memory, Ben broke through the crowd and charged straight into the burning room. “Rowan! Stay with me!” Toxic smoke filled my lungs, blurring my vision. The only clear thing in the world was Ben’s figure pushing through the orange flames. “Are you insane?! Get out!” I roared. Ben ignored me. He gritted his teeth, hoisted half my weight onto his shoulder, and began dragging me toward the exit. The blistering heat scorched our skin. I watched a lock of his hair catch fire, glowing with orange embers, but he acted like he couldn’t feel a thing. He just kept pulling. Looking at his soot-stained face, a massive wave of guilt crashed over me. I weakly lifted my arm to check my watch. Time was up. If we didn’t move now, we were dead. I took a deep, ragged breath and screamed in his ear. “Listen to me! I am going to count down from three. When I hit one, we dive for the door. Do not look back at me, do you understand?!” Ben didn’t even turn his head. “Keep screaming! I am not letting go of you!” A knot of emotion tightened in my throat. I stopped arguing and locked my eyes on the doorway. Our only way out. Three! Two! One! “Jump!” I roared with every ounce of strength left in my broken body, dragging Ben with me as we launched ourselves through the door. Boom! The exact second we cleared the threshold, a catastrophic explosion detonated behind us. The massive shockwave blasted us across the hallway. My eardrums felt like they had ruptured. My vision went completely white. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. Just a high-pitched, endless ringing echoing in my skull. “Rowan! Rowan! Can you hear me?!” I don’t know how long I blacked out, but Ben’s panicked voice eventually broke through the static. I forced my eyes open. “I’m fine… just my leg…” Ben followed my gaze down. His face instantly drained of color. “It’s bad. Don’t look at it. Just… wait right here!” He scrambled to his feet and sprinted down the hall. A few minutes later, Ben returned with a team of colleagues carrying a stretcher. When they saw the state of my leg, every single one of them gasped. One of the male nurses covered his mouth. “Oh my god… how many stitches is that going to take?!” My entire body felt shattered, but my mind was violently clear. As they wheeled me past the emergency triage, I saw Stella. She had her arms wrapped tenderly around Christian’s shoulders, whispering sweet comfort into his ear, acting like the horrors of the last twenty minutes never happened. Acting like I didn’t exist. The head nurse, who had always treated me well, began examining my wounds. She shook her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “Rowan… what kind of karma is this? You have so many fractured bones. It’s going to take at least a year of physical therapy to walk right…” Her voice cracked into a sob. “Thank God your right hand is safe. Once you heal, you can still operate.” I managed a weak, bloodstained smile, wanting to comfort her, but the pain robbed me of my voice. The head nurse lowered her voice, glancing nervously toward the triage bay. “That Christian guy… I heard it’s just a few minor scratches! And look at Dr. Stella treating him like he’s dying. Disgusting…” Hearing that, Ben completely snapped. He marched right up to triage, pointing a shaking finger directly at Stella’s face. “Stella! You make me sick to my stomach!” Before Ben could even finish his sentence, Christian let out a pathetic, breathy cough. “Stella… I’m feeling really weak…” Stella immediately went into panic mode, stroking his hair. “Just hold on, Christian. The specialists will be here any second.” Then, she slowly looked up, glaring daggers at Ben. “Rowan is fine, isn’t he?!” “Rowan is my boyfriend. Whatever happens between us is our business. Why do you always have to stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?!” I stared at Stella’s repulsive, self-righteous face from my stretcher. My voice was hoarse, but it cut through the room like a knife. “We are done.” “We are breaking up.” Ben nodded aggressively. “Good! No point reasoning with trash!” Stella froze. She clearly hadn’t expected me to drop the hammer in front of everyone. Her brow furrowed in deep annoyance. “Rowan, what is your problem now? Are you playing games with me?” I let out a cold, raspy laugh. “Playing games? You aren’t worth the effort.” I forced the tears back, staring dead at Christian hiding behind her. “You would rather save another man than save my life. And you have the nerve to call yourself my girlfriend?!” Christian, a grown man, immediately forced tears into his eyes like a victim. “Rowan… how could you say that to her?” “She just knows you’re stronger than me. She believed in you. She simply chose to save the person who needed her the most…” The ER erupted into chaotic whispers. Stella’s aggressive defense and Christian’s pathetic weeping drew a massive crowd of onlookers. “Well, the golden boy has a point. He’s so fragile, obviously he needed help first!” “Exactly. Dr. Stella was just making the logical choice. Why is Dr. Rowan being so incredibly bitter?” “No kidding. Christian is the heir to the Harrington Empire. Saving him is objectively more important!” Just then, my father rushed into the ER, having caught the first flight back from his overseas conference. Seeing him, Stella instantly dropped her defensive attitude and rushed over, putting on a professional, respectful face. “Chief Thomas! The lab exploded, and I… I risked my life to pull Christian out of the flames.” “Christian just promised me he would have Harrington Medical double their funding for our hospital!” My dad’s face was completely black. “Where is Rowan?!” Assuming the Chief was looking for someone to blame, Stella eagerly threw me to the wolves. “Sir, it was just Rowan and Christian in the lab. Christian is flawless with his protocols, so this incident is entirely Rowan’s fault.” “They just pulled him out. His injuries aren’t severe. But honestly, I strongly recommend banning him from the research labs going forward. Christian is more than capable of leading the projects alone.” My father’s expression turned murderous. Lying on the stretcher, I just smiled coldly to myself. Just wait, Stella. Once I am out of the picture, your life is going to become a living hell. Before I could even see my dad’s reaction, the darkness pulled me under, and I passed out cold. When I woke up, it was already dusk the following day. My arms and legs were encased in heavy plaster and bandages. I couldn’t move, but breathing the sterile hospital air, I felt completely reborn. “Rowan!” Ben walked up to my bed, looking exhausted but incredibly relieved. I tried to lift my hand to greet him, but a sharp spike of pain forced me to stop. Seeing me wince, Ben lost his composure. “You absolute idiot! Do you have any idea how close you were to dying?!” I offered a weak smile. “At least… I’m still breathing…” In this life, I didn’t owe Stella a damn thing. And neither my dad nor I were going to die. “Man,” Ben sighed heavily, pulling up a chair. “I already told your dad exactly what happened. He was so furious he called an emergency disciplinary board meeting for tomorrow morning!” Hearing about my dad, hot tears finally spilled over my eyelashes. In my past life, my blind trust in Stella eventually led to my father’s tragic death. “Ben…” I took a shaky breath, steadying my voice. “I need you to do one last thing for me.” “Name it.” “The security cameras… inside my private lab. I need you to pull the footage from right before the fire…” Ben grinned, leaning back in his chair. “Already on it, brother.” “We hit a small firewall, but don’t worry. I completely bypassed it. We have the video.” Looking at him, a tidal wave of guilt practically crushed my chest. In my past life, Stella had brainwashed me into believing Ben was jealous of me. She convinced me he was trying to sabotage my career. I got into a massive screaming match with him, cut him out of my life, and died before I ever had the chance to apologize. I was so blind. I threw away gold for a piece of trash. I was just about to close my eyes and rest when the door swung open. Stella walked in. And of course, Christian was trailing right behind her. He stood there looking absolutely flawless, adjusting the collar of his designer shirt, drawing the admiring eyes of the passing nurses. Then there was me. Mummified in plaster, broken on a hospital bed.

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The divorce from my ex-husband six years ago was the single most humiliating chapter of my life. He’d lost his mind back then, spewing the vilest curses, swearing I’d never find happiness. I was shaking with rage. That same day, I bought a one-way ticket and fled the country. It wasn’t until a high school reunion last week that I set foot in this city again. During dinner, someone enthusiastically tried to pour me a glass of wine. But Daniel, my ex, who was sitting right next to me, shot his hand out to block the bottle. “Don’t,” he said, his voice low but shockingly firm. “She’s allergic to alcohol.” 1 The moment he said it, the lively chatter in our private dining room died, replaced by a thick, awkward silence. Every eye in the room darted between me and Daniel. After all, our breakup had been a spectacular train wreck. Six years ago, Daniel had an affair with my best friend, Jessica. He claimed he didn’t want to hurt either of us and actually suggested the three of us could learn to coexist peacefully. The idea was so warped it shattered my reality. After a massive fight, I left the country in a storm of fury. And I hadn’t been back until today. Everyone knew the story, which is why they’d been carefully avoiding any sensitive topics during the initial pleasantries. But here was Daniel, practically begging for attention. After vetoing the wine, he took it upon himself to stand up and fill my glass with iced tea. Mike, one of our old friends, shot him a disapproving look but didn’t say anything when I remained silent. He just forced a smile and tried to smooth things over. “No worries, no worries! If Sophie can’t drink, she can’t drink. A toast with tea is just as good.” “Yeah, totally,” others chimed in, desperate to move past the cringeworthy moment. A reunion was a rare thing, and no one wanted our personal drama to ruin it. I didn’t want to make a scene either. I gracefully raised my glass of tea and took a sip. As I set it down, I caught a flicker of a smile in Daniel’s eyes, as if my simple act of drinking the tea he poured meant something more. I refused to overthink it and calmly looked away. Just then, the waiters began bringing in the food. I was surprised to see they were all my favorite dishes. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks: Daniel had been the one to place the order. I glanced at him from the corner of my eye. He was leaning back in his chair, a smug, expectant look on his face, as if he’d been waiting for me to notice his grand gesture. It all clicked into place. Every single thing he’d done tonight was a calculated move to get close to me. And honestly? It was making my skin crawl. A good ex is a dead ex. They should vanish from your world completely, not pop up trying to play the knight in shining armor. Especially not when, less than a month after I left the country, Daniel had married Jessica. As far as I knew, they were still very much together. A married man making repeated, suggestive moves on his ex-wife? That wasn’t just inappropriate. It was disgusting. Trying to avoid any more drama, I coldly flagged down a waiter and ordered an orange juice. For the rest of the night, whenever a toast was made, I drank that, letting the iced tea Daniel had poured for me grow warm and forgotten. I thought my message was loud and clear. But then, Daniel suddenly reached across the table with his chopsticks and expertly placed a piece of brisket on my plate. “You’ve gotten so thin,” he said, his tone sickeningly intimate. “You must not have been eating well over there.” I stared at the meat in my bowl as if it were something rotten, unable to bring myself to touch it. But Daniel, acting completely oblivious, proceeded to serve me a little of everything, piling my plate high until it was a small mountain of food. Now, everyone was staring. 2 “What’s with those two? You think they got back together?” “No way! Isn’t Daniel still married?” “So what? They were the real couple. If it wasn’t for that Jessica butting in, they’d still be together.” “Man, nothing beats the original, you know?” Thanks to Daniel’s little performance, my former classmates were now convinced we were secretly hooking up again. Some even whispered that I’d come back to the country just for him. And the man himself, the architect of all this gossip, just sat there, watching it all unfold with a calm, detached expression. He didn’t say a word, content to let the rumors solidify into fact. I had no idea what his game was, but I wanted absolutely no part of it. I opened my mouth, ready to shut it all down by announcing that I was already married. But before I could speak, the door to the room swung open. Jessica stood there, a thundercloud on her face. Her eyes met mine, and for a second, she froze. Then, her expression shifted instantly, her face contorting into a sickly sweet smile. “Sophie! You’re back! Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?” She sauntered in like she owned the place and slid into the seat next to Daniel. The moment she sat down, her gaze fell on the dishes covering the table. As my best friend for years, she knew my tastes intimately. Her face went pale with humiliation. But just as quickly, she shot a venomous glare in my direction, as if I had personally orchestrated the menu just to embarrass her. A bitter irony washed over me. The Jessica I remembered wasn’t like this. I remember in tenth-grade gym class, I got my period and bled through my pants. A group of boys started pointing and laughing. “Hey, look! Sophie’s butt is bleeding!” “Ew, that’s so gross.” It was the first time I’d ever been publicly mocked like that. My back went rigid, and I froze on the spot, utterly clueless about what to do. Suddenly, Jessica charged in, whipped off her own jacket, and tied it around my waist. Then she spun around and roared at the boys. “What the hell are you laughing at? It’s called a period. It’s normal! If you’re that clueless, maybe you should pay attention in health class instead of acting like ignorant jerks.” The boys fell silent immediately. Later, I gave her a box of candy to thank her. She took it and thumped her chest, promising, “Anyone ever messes with you again, you just come find me. I’ll take care of them!” I thought she was just kidding, but Jessica was true to her word. Back then, Daniel and I were childhood sweethearts, practically joined at the hip. Our closeness fueled a lot of gossip. Someone even started a rumor that we had already gone all the way. At first, I ignored it. But we were still teenagers, and our skins weren’t as thick as they are now. Hearing it over and over started to get to me, making me feel miserable and wronged. So one day, after another crude joke was thrown my way, I finally broke. I walked to the front of the classroom and tearfully told everyone that Daniel and I had never crossed that line. Daniel stood up to defend me, but that only made things worse. The gossips exchanged gleeful looks and started jeering. “Ooh, look at that. Say two words about the girl and the guy jumps up to protect her. And you say nothing’s going on?” “They walk home together every day. Who knows what they’re doing in private!” “Hahaha.” Another wave of laughter crashed over me. I stood there, frozen, feeling like I’d been struck by lightning. That’s when Jessica slammed her hand on her desk. She stood up, marched over to the group of guys, looked them up and down, and then flashed a lewd grin. “Ooh, look at you three, always going to the bathroom together. Who knows what you guys are doing in there, huh?” She leaned in, her voice dripping with insinuation. “I heard real ‘bros’ are supposed to take care of each other when they’re in need. You guys been taking good care of each other?” If straight romance was a storm in our high school, a gay rumor was a full-blown apocalypse. The boys’ faces went white with panic. They immediately turned to me and Daniel, stammering apologies. After that, they never breathed another word about us. And from that day on, Jessica and I were inseparable. She was the kind of person who was optimistic, kind, and fiercely righteous. She was the one who would charge into battle for me. But the woman standing here today? For a man, she’d not only abandoned her own sense of justice but was now slinging mud at me without a second thought. “Sophie, are you still mad at me for taking Daniel all those years ago? Is that why you came back without saying a word to me?” I was so taken aback by her accusation that I didn’t know how to respond. She seized the opportunity, raising her voice into a pathetic, whiny tone. “I tried to talk to you when I came in, but you just ignored me. You just wanted to humiliate me, didn’t you?” Her voice rose to a crescendo, filled with theatrical self-pity. “I know you’ve never gotten over Daniel, but he’s my husband now! Are you really trying to seduce him right in front of my face?” The room erupted in gasps. Curious eyes bounced back and forth between me and Jessica. But what truly surprised me was Daniel’s reaction. He did absolutely nothing to stop Jessica’s lies. Instead, he just rested his chin on his hand, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips as he watched me. It was a look of pure anticipation. As if he was actually hoping I would try to seduce him. How could he look at me like that? Had he forgotten how he had cursed me, how he had wished me a life of misery? 3 I found out Jessica’s secret boyfriend was Daniel on the day she tried to kill herself. By then, I was already married to Daniel and five months pregnant with our child. She sent me a horrifying photo of her sliced wrist with a simple text: I’m so sorry. I can’t live anymore. The image of raw, red flesh made my scalp tingle with fear. I immediately called an ambulance. At the hospital, I was a wreck, pacing uselessly, not knowing what to do. I just knelt on the cold floor, my pregnant belly heavy, and sobbed, begging the doctors to save her. Thankfully, they managed to stabilize her. I finally let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. My relief quickly turned to rage. I was going to find the man who did this to her and make him pay. But I didn’t even know his name. All I had to go on were Jessica’s tear-swollen eyes from our last conversation. After composing myself, I went to her dorm to get her phone. My plan was to lure the bastard out and beat him to a pulp. But when I held her phone in my hand, my world tilted on its axis. The lock screen was a picture of two hands, fingers intertwined. On the man’s ring finger was a wedding band. I recognized it instantly. It was my wedding ring. The one I’d given Daniel. So… the man was Daniel? No. It couldn’t be. Impossible. My hands trembling, I frantically typed in my own birthday to unlock the phone. Password incorrect. I tried Jessica’s birthday. Still incorrect. Finally, with a shaking hand, I entered Daniel’s birthday. The phone unlocked. At that point, the truth was already screaming at me, but a tiny, desperate part of my heart clung to hope. Maybe it’s not Daniel’s hand, just someone with a similar ring… Maybe the password is just a random coincidence… But all my flimsy excuses were obliterated by the thousands of photos in her gallery. Over a thousand pictures of Daniel and Jessica together. Eating at restaurants. Vacationing on a beach. Lying in bed, tangled in sheets. And then… the one that broke me. A snapshot of a white bedsheet stained with a single, damning crimson blotch. A picture taken after the first time they’d slept together. The date stamp was from four months ago. The same day I found out I was pregnant. I remembered it so clearly. When I told Daniel the news, he was so ecstatic he lifted me up and spun me around. Jessica was there, too, excitedly declaring she would be the baby’s godmother. It had been the happiest day of my life. I was carrying new life, with the man I loved and the friend I cherished by my side. I had shared my joy with them in the morning. And that very afternoon, they had betrayed me together. What a fucking joke. The two people who had been my entire world, who had walked with me through my entire youth, had been lying to me all along. And I, in my blissful ignorance, had never suspected a thing. If I hadn’t been trying to play the hero for Jessica, would I have ever found out? The thought that just hours ago, I was on my knees, pregnant and desperate, begging doctors to save her… it made me want to laugh. But the laughter died in my throat. A cold, chilling thought sliced through my mind. Jessica’s suicide attempt… was it a calculated move to force my hand?

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I have been dead for three years. Today, my lawyer wife showed up at my overgrown childhood home in the countryside, clutching a printed plea deal. She couldn’t find me anywhere, so she eventually had to knock on a neighbor’s door to ask for my whereabouts. “Mike has been dead for a long time,” the neighbor told her flatly. “Word is, right after he got out of prison, the victims’ families tracked him down and beat him to death.” My wife refused to believe a single word. She was convinced the neighbor and I were running some kind of sick con. She scoffed, her face twisting with absolute disgust. “He spent a couple of years behind bars, and now he’s got the nerve to fake his own death to avoid me?” “You tell him something for me. If he doesn’t show up in court this Monday, his crazy mother locked up in that asylum won’t see another dime of my money!” With that, she turned on her heel and stormed off. The neighbor watched her stubborn, retreating figure and let out a heavy sigh. “But his mother already starved to death in that ward a long time ago…” 01 I floated in the weed-choked yard of my old estate, watching Diana stumble awkwardly through the dead grass in her designer stilettos. She was tightly gripping a few sheets of paper. A confession form, I figured, meant to make me take the fall one more time. “Mike! Get out here! Do you think hiding in this dump is funny?” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Her voice bounced off the empty, decaying walls of the farmhouse. “If I hadn’t pulled strings back then, you would have been beaten to a pulp inside! Now I actually need you, and you have the guts to hide from me?” Listening to Diana talk about the past with zero remorse felt like an ice pick driving straight into my chest. Three years ago, she said the exact same things. Back then, Oliver had driven drunk and hit someone. Diana came to me with fake evidence and a cold ultimatum. “It’s just two years. You go in for two years, and I guarantee your mother gets the absolute best medical care. But if you say no…” I remember staring at her in pure disbelief. We fought until I flipped the dining table. “Diana! I am your husband! How could you throw me in a cell just to save him?” She didn’t even bother to explain herself. She just looked at me with a sickening amount of contempt. “Either sign the confession, or watch your mother’s treatment get cut off today. Take your pick.” And now, here she was again, wearing the exact same ugly expression. It was late into the night, but Diana was still yelling. The noise finally woke up Mrs. Gable next door. The older woman shoved her window open and poked her head out. “What is all that screaming about at this hour? Nobody lives there anymore!” Diana immediately aimed her hostility at the old woman. “You know Mike, don’t you? Is he hiding in there?” Mrs. Gable squinted through her reading glasses for a good while before letting out a soft sound of realization. “Oh, you mean Mike? He passed away almost three years ago.” Diana’s face froze for a fraction of a second. “What did you just say? Dead?” “That’s right. He didn’t even make it two days out of prison before he was killed. People say it was the family of the victims from that old case. Beat him till he stopped breathing right on the spot.” Mrs. Gable frowned, her tone turning sour. “Who exactly are you to him? How do you not know this?” “Impossible!” Diana’s voice suddenly spiked in pitch. “Someone like him wouldn’t just…” Before she could even finish her sentence, her hands were shaking as she pulled out her phone. She dialed Oliver’s number. She put it on speaker. Oliver’s smooth voice drifted out into the cold night air. “Hey D, what’s wrong?” “Oliver, that fifty grand you said you gave to the victim’s family. Did you actually hand it over?” There was a half-second pause on the other end, followed by Oliver’s confident reply. “Of course I did. Handed it to them myself. Why?” I hovered right next to the phone, so close I could hear the static, and almost let out a string of curses. He didn’t do a damn thing. When I was released, those relatives showed up at my door, screaming about getting blood for blood. It was only as I was being beaten within an inch of my life that I realized Oliver had never paid them a single cent. They hadn’t even heard the word “settlement.” I died in Oliver’s place. Hearing his lie, the tension drained out of Diana’s face. She snapped her head back toward Mrs. Gable, glaring with pure revulsion. “I knew it. You and Mike are just teaming up to play me!” “So what if he had to sit in a cell for two years? Now he’s playing dead to hide from me?” “You tell him, Mrs. Gable. If he doesn’t show his face in court next Monday, that crazy mother of his can rot!” She spun around and marched away, her heels clicking sharply against the stone path with absolute finality. Mrs. Gable watched her go, shaking her head at the empty air. “Love really makes a fool out of people. Mike’s poor mother passed on ages ago. Heard nobody even checked her room for days. Starved right to the bone.” 02 Diana practically fled the old property, totally missing Mrs. Gable’s final words. My soul, tethered to her by some invisible, suffocating thread, had no choice but to drift along. Her cab sped through the city, eventually pulling up to Oliver’s downtown penthouse overlooking the bay. The moment the door swung open, Oliver was right there, a desperate, eager smile plastered across his face. “D, how did it go? Did Mike agree?” Diana paused as she took off her coat, avoiding his eyes. “He… wasn’t home.” The smile slid off Oliver’s face, instantly replaced by a masterfully crafted look of guilt. “Is he still mad at me? Mad about the time I made him take the fall? I know I put him through hell.” He looked down, his voice dropping to a miserable mumble as his eyes perfectly welled up with tears. “Maybe we should just drop it. It’s my mess anyway. I can’t drag him down again.” “It’s just… if I really get locked up, what are you going to do all by yourself…” Diana always crumbled when he played this card. She immediately pulled him into a tight hug, her brow furrowing with protective anger. “Stop talking like that. What right does he have to be mad?” “I paid him a massive amount of hush money last time, and I took care of the victims’ families! It was just a couple of years inside. It’s not like I asked him to die for you. He has absolutely no reason to be difficult!” She gripped Oliver’s shoulders, her tone absolute. “Don’t worry. I will find him. He has to take the heat for you this time, no matter what.” Floating right beside the living room chandelier, I caught the fleeting, smug smirk on Oliver’s lips. A coldness seeped into my ghostly core. I never saw a penny of that money. And those “taken care of” families were the reapers who took my life. Oliver buried his face in the crook of Diana’s neck, smiling his victorious little smile right where she couldn’t see. I reached out, desperately wanting to wrap my hands around his throat, but my fingers just phased through his flesh like smoke. “Trust me,” Diana whispered, rubbing his back. “I’ll track him down. He is going to fix this.” Determined to dig me out of whatever hole she thought I was in, Diana drove back to my old farmhouse at the crack of dawn. Morning light spilled through the shattered windowpanes of the decaying house. She stood in the overgrown yard, her frown deepening by the second. “These flowers…” She crouched down, running a finger over a massive bush of dead, blackened roses. She knew how much I worshipped my garden. Unless something physically stopped me, I would never have let them wither like this. I hovered behind her as she pulled out her phone, taking photos of the cobwebs thick on the window sills. Her thumb hovered over the screen for a long time before she finally called her assistant. “I need you to trace every move Mike has made. Dig up everything.” She hung up and took a few steps closer to the porch. My heart would have hammered in my chest if I still had one. Right there, just past the corner, the concrete was still stained with my dried, blackened blood from three years ago. Just two more steps. Suddenly, a piercing ringtone shattered the silence. It was her custom ringtone for Oliver. She answered, and Oliver’s panicked voice blasted through the speaker. “D! I just heard the victims got their hands on new evidence. If we don’t handle this right now, I’m completely screwed!” “What?!” Diana’s face drained of color. “I’m heading back right now!” She turned and sprinted for the car, abandoning the bloodstain and the dead roses without a second thought. I could only laugh bitterly. It didn’t matter what was happening; her precious Oliver always came first. 03 I was dragged along as Diana pushed her car well past the speed limit, the city blurring into gray streaks outside the window. She drummed her manicured nails frantically against the steering wheel, muttering to herself. “We have time. We have to have time…” The Bluetooth clicked on. Her assistant’s voice filled the cabin. “Diana, I still can’t find a single trace of Mike anywhere in the system. It’s almost like he really is…” “Useless!” she screamed, slamming her palm against the horn. “Keep digging! Hack into the city’s traffic grids if you have to!” She killed the call, her breathing ragged. Then, her eyes suddenly lit up. It was that familiar, calculating look she always got right before she won a tough case. She dialed Oliver, her voice actually trembling with excitement. “Oliver, I figured it out! That old bat is still locked up in the psychiatric ward. Mike cares about her more than anything in the world…” My soul violently violently shook. The image of my mother, reduced to skin and bones, flashed before my eyes. After all these years, she still wanted to use my mother as a bargaining chip! I screamed at her to stop, but she couldn’t hear a thing. Intoxicated by the thrill of finding my weak point, she slammed on the gas and aimed the car straight for the asylum. Her heels echoed like gunshots down the sterile, fluorescent-lit hallways. The air was thick with the suffocating stench of bleach and stale urine. Diana pinched her nose in disgust and raised her voice. “Somebody get out here! Where is Mike’s mother? Bring her out to me right now.” A middle-aged man in gold-rimmed glasses rushed out of an office. “Counselor, what an unexpected surprise…” “Cut the crap, Dr. Lawson,” she snapped. “Which room is Eleanor in? I’m taking her with me.” Dr. Lawson’s face hardened, a thin layer of sweat instantly breaking out across his forehead. “Well… you might not be aware, but Eleanor is…” “She’s what? Oliver was just here last month paying ten grand for her care! Take me to her right now!” My spirit twisted in agony. That ten grand went straight into Oliver and Lawson’s pockets. Dr. Lawson scrambled to his desk, frantically clicking through his patient database until a death certificate popped up on the monitor. [Time of Death: March 15, 2023. Cause of Death: Severe Malnutrition.] “Counselor… Eleanor passed away two years ago.” “Bullshit!” Diana shoved him aside and grabbed the mouse, her eyes boring into the screen. I watched her pupils dilate, her fingers trembling slightly against the plastic mouse. But a second later, she let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Wow. How much did Mike pay you to forge this, Doctor?” She leaned in close, dropping her voice to a lethal whisper. “Do you know the maximum sentence for falsifying medical records?” Dr. Lawson looked like his knees were about to give out. “I swear to God, this is the official system! You can check the registry number with the state…” “Shut up.” Diana slammed the laptop shut and marched toward the door. “I’ll look into this myself. And if I find out you two are playing games with me…” She didn’t finish the threat, but Lawson already looked like a corpse. I knew exactly what he was terrified of. He was the one who personally injected my mother with fatal doses of sedatives. When Diana got back into her car, her hands were shaking so badly she could barely turn the key. She called Oliver, her voice sickeningly sweet. “Hey babe, don’t panic. I will find that old hag. Mike does whatever she says…” Sitting in the passenger seat, watching the absolute devotion in her eyes, a wave of hatred so pure it burned washed over me. If ghosts could cry, I would have wept blood. 04 But Diana only ever saved her gentleness for him. The moment she hung up, her foot went flat to the floor. She tore through the streets, blowing past three red lights. She screamed at her assistant over the phone, gripping the leather wheel until her knuckles turned white. “Investigate that hospital right now! I want a full audit! Mike definitely bribed them to hide her!” I looked at her twisted, furious profile and couldn’t help but laugh. The irony was staggering. The hospital did fake the records. But it wasn’t my money. And they weren’t protecting me. They were covering up for her precious, untouchable Oliver. Watching the city blur past, I remembered a rainy night three years ago. Oliver had his arm wrapped around Diana’s waist. “That old woman is a massive problem,” he had whispered to her. “She’s at the precinct every single day. If she keeps making noise, she’s going to blow our whole cover.” Diana hadn’t even looked up from her phone. “Handle it however you want,” she had replied, utterly indifferent. And just like that, Oliver slapped a fake psychiatric hold on my mother and locked her in a living hell, stripping away her freedom and eventually her life. The violent screech of tires yanked me back to the present. Diana had slammed the brakes near City Hall, but she made no move to get out. She was staring at a text from Oliver. “D, the trial is tomorrow. Why haven’t we found Mike yet?” Her manicured fingers tapped a frantic rhythm on the steering wheel before she finally called him back. “Oliver, listen to me. We have to trigger an emergency to push the court date back.” Oliver sounded confused. “An emergency?” “Yes. A sudden illness, a severe accident, something undeniable that forces the judge to delay…” Oliver went dead silent on the line. A minute later, a blood-curdling scream erupted from the phone, followed by the heavy, sickening thud of someone tumbling down a flight of wooden stairs. All the blood drained from Diana’s face. “Oliver? Oliver!” There was a chaotic shuffling sound, and then a panic-stricken voice came through. “Ms. Diana! Mr. Oliver… he just fell down the entire staircase!” I floated behind her as she sprinted through the sliding doors of the emergency room. Oliver was lying on a gurney, his right leg already in a thick plaster cast, looking as pale as a ghost. Diana threw herself over him, tears freely pouring down her cheeks. “Are you insane? We could have figured something else out! Why would you hurt yourself like this?” Oliver managed to put on a weak, tragic smile. “I just… I owe you too much. I couldn’t bear watching you run yourself ragged trying to fix my mistakes.” Diana let out a ragged breath and kissed his forehead tenderly. “You idiot. But… the doctor said your tibia is fractured. You need two weeks of bed rest. That pushes the trial back by at least half a month.” “You just focus on healing. I’ll handle the rest.” By the time she walked out of the hospital, the cold, ruthless lawyer was back. She called her assistant. “What did you find? Good. Now scrub every location Mike might be hiding. His old friends, his favorite bars, anywhere…” I hovered in her shadow as she slid into the driver’s seat. She would never guess that the man she was tearing the city apart to find was sitting right beside her.

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For fifteen years, I was fiercely protective of my brother. But then came the twist of the century: he turned out to be the switched-at-birth heir to a billionaire family. When his biological parents arrived, I lost it. Crying, I grabbed his hand and swore blood didn’t matter—I’d always be the sister who loved him most. I warned him rich families often prefer the child they raised, and gave him a handwritten “True Heir Survival Guide,” promising our dogs, cats, and even the town’s angry geese would always have his back. My brother and his father looked ready to burst. Then his father cleared his throat and said I was coming too. I beamed, hugging my brother’s arm, already cheering about storming high society together to crush the “fake son.” My brother fell silent. The “fake son” I wanted to destroy was actually my own biological brother. 1 Gordon and I grew up scraping by in a forgotten, run-down town deep in the Appalachian mountains. Our parents passed away when we were young. We survived by sticking to the shadows, living off canned beans and stale bread. Gordon was the silent type. Even if the sky was falling, he wouldn’t make a sound. But if we only had one bite of food left, he would always force it into my mouth. I was the exact opposite. I had a sharp tongue, a wild temper, and I ran our neighborhood like a boss. If anyone dared to lay a finger on Gordon, I would chase them all the way to the county line, screaming insults until they couldn’t show their faces again. So when that sleek, pitch-black town car pulled up in front of our rotting wooden porch, my first instinct was to shove Gordon behind me. A man stepped out. He was dressed in a pristine tailored suit, his hair slicked back so perfectly it looked painted on. One look, and you knew he didn’t drink tap water like the rest of us. He introduced himself as Victor Sinclair. He was Gordon’s biological father. Gordon was the true heir the Sinclair family had accidentally swapped at the hospital sixteen years ago. What happened next played out exactly like the opening chapter of my survival guide. I cried until my face was a mess, Victor Sinclair looked at me with an expression dark as thunder, and finally barked out that the sister was coming too. I wiped my tears in a flash, grabbed Gordon’s hand, and hopped into the leather seats. It was my first time in a car that smelled like expensive cologne instead of gasoline, and I was definitely intimidated. But I was more terrified for Gordon. Plunging this innocent guy into a mansion full of billionaires was like throwing a rabbit into a shark tank. I leaned close to his ear, dropping my voice to a whisper. “Gordon, don’t panic. What is rule number one in my survival guide?” Gordon nervously picked at his cuticles, his lips trembling. “Watch more, speak less, play mute.” I nodded in approval and leaned in a little closer. “Then why do you think he brought me along?” Gordon just stared at me blankly. I puffed out my chest, mimicking his rich dad’s deep voice. “He obviously saw my potential! He knows I’m a natural-born business shark and wants to groom me as his protege!” The driver’s hands jerked, making the luxury car swerve slightly across the yellow line. Victor’s temple twitched. He shot me an ice-cold glare through the rearview mirror. “Say one more word of nonsense, and I will throw you out to feed the coyotes.” I shut my mouth, but in my head, I was reciting rule number two. Billionaire patriarchs are moody control freaks. Agreeing with them makes you a pushover. You have to play hard to get. A few silent minutes passed before I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “Hey, mister. Does this mean there’s a fake heir sitting in your house right now? Let me guess, he’s a two-faced, manipulative little angel who acts sweet in front of you but stabs people in the back.” I squeezed Gordon’s hand tight. “Don’t worry, bro. I’ll read his every move. As long as we stick together, we’ll crush him.” The temperature inside the car seemed to drop below freezing. Victor didn’t say a word. I was on a roll now, poking Gordon in the ribs. “And get this, Gordon. That fake heir is technically my actual biological brother.” Gordon froze. His brain completely short-circuited. The drive took nearly three hours. I even managed to take a nap, but when I woke up, Gordon still looked like he was on his way to the electric chair. His brow was furrowed so deeply it could crush a walnut. When we finally parked, he reached out and desperately grabbed Victor’s expensive sleeve. “Sir, if he and I get into a fight, whose side are you taking?” “Let’s get one thing straight. You and I share blood, but to him, you’re just tap water. No playing favorites.” The veins on Victor’s forehead throbbed like angry worms. “Relax. You are not going to fight.” Victor just didn’t want to admit that the only fight he was worried about was between himself and his biological son. I curled my lip, clearly not buying it. “Look at that. We haven’t even walked through the front door, and he’s already biased.” I couldn’t wait to see what kind of monster had this grumpy billionaire so completely brainwashed. 2 The fake heir, my biological brother Sebastian, was infinitely more manipulative than I could have ever imagined. He was dressed in a flawless white cashmere sweater, standing in front of the massive mahogany double doors. A pure, angelic smile was plastered across his face. His skin was paler than milk, and his eyes were glistening, looking like he was ready to shed a sympathetic tear at any given second. Standing next to Gordon, the contrast was brutal. Gordon looked like a potato freshly dug out of the dirt, while Sebastian was a perfectly manicured greenhouse lily. All my aggressive energy instantly evaporated. This guy’s combat level was way too high. Gordon was sweating through his cheap shirt. He instinctively hid behind my shoulder, only peeking out with wide, terrified eyes. Sebastian bypassed me entirely, stepping right up to Gordon with a slight, respectful bow. His voice was soft enough to melt butter. “You must be Gordon. I am Sebastian. We are going to be a family from now on.” He reached out, offering a polite handshake. I reflexively stepped in front of Gordon, glaring at the polished boy like a guard dog. “What do you think you’re doing? My brother is shy. Keep your hands to yourself.” Sebastian blinked in surprise. Instantly, his eyes went red. He looked at me with absolute heartbreak. “Sister, do you hate me? I am so sorry. I know I took his rightful place. This is all my fault.” I sucked in a sharp breath. Good grief. This was exactly what I wrote in the guide. The ultimate manipulative tactic. Act weak and farm for sympathy. Gordon, the absolute fool, fell for it immediately. He tugged at the back of my shirt. “Lexi, I don’t think he means any harm.” I shot him a glare of pure disappointment. Dinner was even more bizarre. Sitting at the incredibly long dining table, Sebastian eagerly piled food onto Gordon’s pristine china plate. Every single thing he picked was something I knew Gordon hated. “Brother, you must have never tasted anything like this out in the country. Eat up. You need the nutrition.” “This is Maine lobster, and this is foie gras. Here, let me show you how to hold your silverware.” Gordon gripped the heavy silver knife and fork, his hands shaking like he had tremors. His face was burning a humiliated crimson. I slammed my fork down on the table, pushing my own plate right in front of Gordon. “My brother doesn’t like this fancy European garbage. He likes the hearty beef stew on my plate.” I stabbed the biggest chunk of tender beef and shoved it directly into Gordon’s mouth. Sebastian’s polite smile completely froze. The unshed tears in his eyes began to well up again. He looked toward the head of the table, silently begging Victor for help. Victor finally broke his silence. “Gordon is sixteen now. I have already instructed the staff to transfer both of your academic records to Oakridge Academy. You will be attending the same prep school as Sebastian.” I let out a scoff, just about to reject the offer, but Sebastian beat me to the punch. “Dad, do you really think that is a good idea? The curriculum at Oakridge is incredibly demanding. Brother just got here from a rural public school, he will definitely struggle. What if people make fun of him?” He wore a mask of deep concern, but there was a distinct, undeniable layer of superiority bleeding into his tone. “Maybe we should enroll him in a middle school first? Building a solid foundation is what truly matters.” I laughed, a sharp, bitter sound. “Sure thing. Me and my brother are going to Oakridge. I would love to see which blind idiot dares to make fun of us. Even starting from absolute zero, we are ten times better than some spoiled rich kids with empty heads.” The tension in the dining room spiked. I could feel Victor’s sharp, calculating gaze burning into the side of my head. Sebastian shrank back in his expensive chair, looking like I had just physically assaulted him. I didn’t care. I wanted to stir the pot. I needed everyone in this house to understand one simple fact. Nobody messes with Lexi’s brother. 3 Victor had the staff arrange our bedrooms. Gordon’s room was massive and luxurious, basically a presidential suite. But it was located at the absolute end of the hallway, isolated from the rest of the family. My room was slightly smaller, but conveniently placed right next door to Sebastian’s. I hugged my faded cartoon pillow tightly against my chest, standing stubbornly in Gordon’s doorway, refusing to leave. “I am sleeping in my brother’s room.” The head butler looked deeply uncomfortable. “Miss Lexi, that violates the household protocols.” “What protocols? In our house, the only protocol is that I stay where my brother stays.” Sebastian heard the commotion and stepped out of his room. He was wearing silk pajamas, his hair slightly damp from the shower, making him look even more fragile and pathetic. “Sister, what is wrong? Do you feel claustrophobic in your room? It is okay, my suite is very spacious. We can switch.” I rolled my eyes. I didn’t even have the energy to play along with his act. “I am worried my brother will have nightmares. He has always been afraid of the dark.” Sebastian’s eyes instantly welled up with moisture again. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have come back tonight and startled him.” He turned to Victor, who was standing a few yards away, his expression unreadable. “Dad, please let her stay with him. Everything is new to them, they must be so overwhelmed.” Look at that. A masterclass in manipulation. He got to play the generous, forgiving saint, while simultaneously painting us as uncultured hillbillies who couldn’t handle sleeping in a nice bed. Victor gave me a freezing glare. “Do whatever you want.” I successfully claimed the left half of Gordon’s massive California King bed. In the middle of the night, a quiet rustling sound woke me up. Gordon wasn’t asleep. He was sitting by the large bay window, staring blankly at the moon. “Gordon, what’s going on in your head?” He looked over his shoulder. The moonlight caught his face, highlighting the deep insecurity and fear in his eyes. “Lexi, this place is too big. It scares me.” “I feel like a criminal. Like I broke in and stole someone else’s life.” My chest tightened painfully. I crawled across the mattress and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “Shut up. You are not a thief. You just finally came home. Everything in this house was supposed to be yours from the start.” “Sebastian is the real thief. He stole sixteen years of your life.” Gordon shook his head, burying his face into my shoulder. His voice was muffled and small. “But their dad likes him better.” I patted his back, my voice completely unwavering. “Who cares who he likes? I like you, and that is all that matters. Trust me, Gordon. We are going to win.” Early the next morning, Sebastian knocked on our door. He was holding a steaming mug of milk, a bright, welcoming smile on his face. “Good morning, brother, sister. Dad sent me to bring you down for breakfast.” He offered the mug to Gordon. “Brother, I had the chef prepare this warm milk just for you. It is excellent for your digestion.” I stared at that mug, the alarm bells from rule number three ringing wildly in my head. Beware of the fake heir’s random acts of kindness. Sugar-coated bullets are always the deadliest. I snatched the mug right out of his hands and, while they both watched in stunned silence, poured the entire thing directly into a large potted fern by the door. “My brother is lactose intolerant. He can’t drink this.” I lied without even blinking. All the color drained from Sebastian’s face. He stood there, completely out of his depth. “I am so sorry, brother. I had no idea.” I let out a cold laugh, grabbing Gordon by the wrist and pulling him past Sebastian into the hallway. “There is a lot of stuff you don’t know. Stay away from my brother.” As we walked down the corridor, I could feel two distinct gazes burning into my back. One was Sebastian’s manufactured victimhood. The other was Victor’s cold, calculating scrutiny. Good. I wanted them to know exactly who they were dealing with. Lexi doesn’t play nice. 4 Transferring to Oakridge Academy went much smoother than I expected. Victor probably just wanted us out of the house so he didn’t have to look at us. On our very first day, Sebastian immediately tried to put on a show of brotherly love. He gathered a massive crowd of his elite friends and blocked us right at the classroom door. “Everyone, I want to introduce you to my brother, Gordon. He just moved back home. And this is his sister, Lexi.” The boys and girls standing behind him were dripping in designer brands. They looked at us like we were some exotic animals freshly imported to the zoo. “Wow, so that’s the true heir from the mountains?” “He looks so incredibly trashy.” “His sister looks like a feral dog.” Sebastian put on a fake stern voice and scolded them. “Do not say things like that. They are my family.” Then, he pulled out a beautifully wrapped luxury box and offered it to Gordon. “Brother, this is a welcome gift. It is the newest model smartwatch. It connects directly to the campus mainframe, it will really help you catch up on your studies.” Gordon stared at the high-tech device, his hands awkwardly hovering in the air, not knowing what to do. I saw right through Sebastian’s little game. Gordon had never even owned a smartphone. Handing him a complex piece of tech in front of a crowd was just a setup to watch him struggle and embarrass himself. I shoved the box right back into Sebastian’s chest. “No thanks. My brother isn’t used to this flashy junk.” I reached into my faded canvas backpack and pulled out an object wrapped in crumpled newspaper. I pressed it firmly into Gordon’s hands. “Here, bro. I brought this for you. It isn’t expensive, but it’s a hell of a lot better than something that just looks pretty.” Gordon carefully peeled back the newspaper. Inside was a beautifully hand-carved wooden wolf. The wolf’s eyes were dark and fierce, its posture powerful and alive. Gordon had stayed up for four straight nights carving it by the light of a single bulb. Gordon’s eyes instantly lit up. He cradled the small wooden carving like it was the most precious artifact in the entire world. The hallway went dead silent. Sebastian’s face shifted through three different shades of pale before settling on a sickly green. A bleach-blonde prep standing behind him couldn’t take it anymore. He stepped up, pointing a manicured finger right at my face. “What is your problem? Sebastian is trying to be nice, and you’re acting like ungrateful trash.” I raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me? Are we legally required to accept his gifts? Did your dad buy the entire school, or do you just like sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong?” “You little—” Before things could escalate into a physical fight, the morning bell echoed through the halls. Sebastian grabbed the blonde kid’s arm, pulling him back. He shot me one long, heavy look. The fake victim routine was gone, replaced by pure, freezing venom. He led his entourage away. I knew the war had officially begun. After the final bell, I deliberately dragged Gordon out the back exit, trying to avoid being cornered. But it didn’t work. Sebastian was waiting for us in a blind spot near the parking lot. He was completely alone this time. No audience. He blocked our path, staring down at the wooden wolf still clutched in Gordon’s hand. He let out a harsh, arrogant scoff. “White trash will always be white trash. You are only fit to play with mud and sticks.” All the blood rushed out of Gordon’s face. He instinctively hid the carving behind his back. A white-hot rage exploded in my chest. “Who the hell are you calling white trash? You are a cuckoo bird who stole another family’s nest. What gives you the right to look down on anyone?” “The food you eat, the clothes on your back, the bed you sleep in. Every single thing belongs to my brother. What exactly are you so proud of?” Sebastian turned purple. I doubt anyone had ever spoken to him like that in his entire pampered life. He shook with anger, pointing a trembling finger at me. “You… you are going to regret this.” Right at that exact second, Victor’s sleek town car silently rolled to a stop right behind us. Victor stepped out of the backseat, his expression dark as a storm cloud. The second Sebastian saw him, it was like a switch flipped. Tears instantly flooded his eyes. He practically threw himself at Victor, sobbing beautifully. “Dad, I was just trying to talk to them, I wanted us to be a real family. But Lexi hates me so much. Is it because I took his place? Dad, maybe I should just pack my things and leave. I will give everything back to him.” He choked on his tears, looking like he had suffered the greatest injustice in human history. Victor’s expression darkened even further. His sharp, predatory gaze locked directly onto me. His voice was as cold as a frozen lake. “Lexi. Apologize to your brother.”

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1 My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Hot, bitter tears spilled over my cheeks, blurring my vision. Just yesterday, I took a freelance makeup gig. My client turned out to be a sweet young girl in a wheelchair, secretly in love with my boyfriend. She, just like me, viewed Nolan as the absolute light of her life. He was my anchor, the man who had pulled me out of my darkest psychological depths step by step. But today, the brutal truth finally hit me. His boundless warmth wasn’t exclusive to me. It was a public commodity. He held the young girl’s hand, looking at me with utter disappointment. “Alyson, she’s struggling. Can’t you just show a little empathy for once?” I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, choked back my tears, and boarded a flight across the ocean to get the psychiatric help I desperately needed. It all started with that makeup appointment. The client was a vibrant girl who had recently lost the use of her legs. Her eyes sparkled with a naive, contagious hope. “Could you give me a soft, romantic look?” she had asked, her cheeks flushing. “I want to confess my feelings to the guy I like.” Looking at her, I felt a pang of nostalgia. She reminded me of myself when I first fell for Nolan. On a rare whim, I decided to stick around and watch her big moment. “Sure,” I told her. “Having someone there might give you a little courage.” I hid behind a cluster of manicured hedges in the park, ready to witness this girl’s fiery declaration of love. But when the man turned around, the breath was knocked right out of my lungs. It was Nolan. My boyfriend. When their lips met, my mind short circuited into a deafening static. “So, does this mean my boyfriend can kiss me?” the girl asked softly. Nolan crouched down, gently cupping the back of her head, and pulled her into a deep, lingering kiss. The girl’s earlier words echoed in my ears like a broken record. “He’s such an amazing guy. Most people look at my wheelchair with pity or disgust, but he treats me like a normal human being. He told me we all have one mouth and two eyes, and I’m no different from anyone else. I was terrified to tell him how I felt, but he’s so good to me. He’s worth risking a broken heart.” Those words were practically identical to how I used to talk about Nolan. She was physically broken. I was psychologically broken. We were both just lucky enough to cross paths with a saint like him. Except reality was currently chewing me up and spitting me out. The man I worshipped was making out with someone else in broad daylight. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cause a scene. I just turned around and walked away, completely hollowed out. When I got back to our apartment, I grabbed my brushes and painted the exact scene of them kissing. I left the canvas right in the middle of the living room. Nolan had been incredibly busy lately. He told me he was assigned a new case, a devastated young woman named Daisy. She was in her early twenties, right in the prime of her life, when an accident took her legs. She was spiraling into a deep depression, and the community outreach program assigned Nolan to be her dedicated social worker. He even reassured me before he left. He said my bipolar episodes had been stable lately, so I should be fine on my own. Just call him if I needed anything. I always supported his career. I genuinely wanted people trapped in the dark to find their way out, just like I did. But he conveniently left out the part where his therapy sessions required tongue. Daisy was a chronic oversharer. After that makeup session, she flooded my phone with texts about her and Nolan. That was before I knew the “amazing guy” she was talking about was my boyfriend. But looking at the video she just sent, a clip of Nolan tenderly massaging her atrophied legs, a sick feeling twisted in my gut. Was she doing this on purpose? Was she rubbing it in my face, or did she genuinely just think we were friends and wanted to share her joy? People like me don’t have many friends. Nobody wants to deal with a ticking time bomb who could have a mental breakdown at any given second. My phone buzzed. A text from Nolan. [Her mental state is really fragile today. I need to stay and make sure she’s safe. Don’t forget to take your meds.] I stared at the neatly organized pill organizers on the kitchen counter. He had sorted them all for me. Every time my emotions went off the rails, I would inevitably knock those bottles to the floor in a fit of rage. And every single time, he would patiently pull me into his arms and sweep up the mess. But today, the apartment was dead silent. He wasn’t coming home. 2 “Why are you sleeping out here?” Nolan’s voice was as gentle as ever when he finally walked in. He draped a warm blanket over my shoulders, then sighed with a helpless smile as he noticed the scattered pills across the floor. “What’s wrong, Alyson? Are you mad I worked late?” I didn’t say a word. I just picked up the canvas from the table. “Nolan, do you think this painting is beautiful?” His pupils shrank the moment the image registered. A heavy silence stretched out before he forced a laugh and reached for my hand. “Why are you painting stuff like this? I thought you were working on those portraits for our anniversary.” I dodged his hand and stubbornly held up the canvas. “I asked you a question. Is it beautiful?” Before he could craft a lie, the doorbell rang. “Let me get that,” he muttered, practically sprinting away. The person at the door made both of us freeze. Daisy was sitting in her wheelchair, a bright, bubbly smile on her face. She rolled herself inside and naturally grabbed Nolan’s hand. “Hey! I came to drop off your wallet. You left it on my couch.” She paused, blinking at me in surprise. “Oh, hey! You’re here too? Wait, are you one of his assigned cases as well?” I kept my mouth shut. My eyes were locked onto Nolan. He didn’t drop her hand. Instead, he gave her a soft, affectionate pat on the head. “Yeah. She is.” He looked down at Daisy. “You shouldn’t have come all this way in the cold. Just text me next time, and I’ll come pick it up.” Daisy’s eyes drifted to the canvas I was holding. Her face lit up. “Oh my gosh, that’s gorgeous! Is that us? Did you paint this for us? Wow, I love it so much!” I stared at Nolan. He looked away, completely mute. My phone dinged in my pocket. It was a text from him, sent right there in the living room. [Daisy is highly unstable right now. Do not trigger her.] Do not trigger her? So I was just supposed to stand here and watch another woman act like a lovesick puppy with my boyfriend in my own living room? A wave of absolute exhaustion washed over me. I looked at Daisy. “Yeah. You two make a perfect match.” “Aw, thank you! I think so too.” Daisy tugged at Nolan’s fingers, lacing hers with his. “I’m starving. Come get late night takeout with me.” Nolan shot me a warning glance, then turned to leave with her. My hands were shaking uncontrollably now. I made one final, desperate attempt to pull him back. “Nolan, I haven’t taken my meds today. My chest hurts. The panic is starting again.” His footsteps didn’t even slow down. He didn’t even look back. “You’ve been doing great lately. One night won’t kill you.” But he was wrong. I was slipping back into the dark. I was waking up at 3 AM drenched in cold sweat, my hands trembling so badly I couldn’t even hold a paintbrush. He didn’t know any of this. Because for the past few weeks, he had been glued to Daisy’s side, terrified that the reality of her disability would push her over the edge. But what about me? I was his client once too. I was his girlfriend. Why was I always the one getting pushed to the back of the line? I walked over to my laptop and opened an email from a highly specialized psychiatric facility in Europe. My condition had plateaued here. The local treatments weren’t doing enough anymore, and I had been considering this overseas program for months. But Nolan’s whole life and career were here, and having him around used to keep me grounded. I had initially declined the offer for him. Tonight, I changed my mind. Nolan’s compassion was a bottomless well for everyone else. He put his clients on a pedestal, willing to sacrifice anything to fix them. Even if it meant playing the role of someone else’s boyfriend. And me? The actual girlfriend? I was just a ghost haunting his apartment. The next morning, I was dragging my suitcase toward the front door when the lock clicked. Nolan walked in. “Where are you going?” he demanded, his brow furrowing. “This isn’t my home. I’m going back to my own place.” He stepped forward and gripped the handle of my luggage, stopping me in my tracks. “Stop making a scene, please. I already explained this to you. Daisy is in a really dark place. She needs me right now.” “But Nolan, I’m sick too. I need you too.” The tears I had been fighting finally broke free. “You’re perfectly stable right now. You’ve been sleeping through the night, haven’t you?” His absolute ignorance felt like a bucket of ice water to the chest. I violently yanked my hand away from his, shoving my sleeve up to my shoulder to expose the mottled bruises and raw scratches on my arms, the physical aftermath of my recent panic attacks. “Before we got together, you actually cared. You hovered over me, terrified I would have a breakdown and hurt myself. But the second I became yours, all your energy went to saving other people. You’re so dedicated to your job you’ll just play boyfriend to a patient?” “Kissing? Holding hands? Is that standard protocol for a social worker now?” I fired the questions at him like bullets. Nolan stood there, his jaw tight, unable to form a single excuse. A heavy silence stretched between us until his phone started buzzing in his pocket. “Yeah, I’m here. Don’t panic, Daisy. I’m on my way back right now.” He hung up the phone and looked at me. His eyes were cold, completely drained of the warmth I used to love. “Alyson, grow up. Do you have any idea how young she is?” “You’re almost thirty. She barely just hit twenty. And you’ve been managing your condition for years. This is her first time dealing with trauma. I kissed her to calm her down, to give her some hope. Stop being so damn heartless.” He reached out and roughly grabbed my bruised arm, inspecting the marks with a scoff. “Scratches? You haven’t had an episode in months, and the second I start spending time with Daisy, you suddenly magically relapse?” “Alyson, you’re disappointing me.” I said absolutely nothing. I just rolled down my sleeve. Grabbing the handle of my suitcase, I walked out the door and never looked back.

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