Category: English

From the moment I could remember, I knew my mother hated me. When I was three, she gave me sleeping pills. At five, she fed me bug killer. But I was a stubborn kid, hard to get rid of. By the age of seven, I’d somehow learned to fight back. She’d starve me, and I’d flip the dinner table, making sure no one ate. She’d beat me with a stick until I was rolling on the floor, and I’d punch her precious youngest son until he was black and blue. I battled her with a hard head until I was twelve. Then my youngest sister was born. I was clumsy, fumbling with the tiny bundle as I changed her wet diaper. That’s when my mother grabbed me, slamming me against the wall. Her eyes were a mix of disgust and fear. “What are you trying to do to my daughter?” she snarled. “You’re just like your rapist father! Why don’t you just die with him?” In that moment, I finally understood why she hated me. I clutched my bleeding head, not fighting back for the first time. And for the first time, I genuinely believed she was right. My existence was a mistake. I should die. … By the time I limped to my grandma’s house, night had fallen. Grandma didn’t bat an eye at my blood-soaked clothes. She calmly pulled out her small first-aid kit, cleaned my wounds, and then set a bowl of simple noodle soup in front of me. Usually, I’d devour the noodles, grumbling about how I’d get even tomorrow. This time, I just stared at the clear broth, quietly asking, “Grandma, I’m not my dad’s kid, am I?” Grandma said nothing, but the sudden aversion in her eyes spoke volumes. She abruptly stood, repeatedly wiping the table where the first-aid kit had sat with an old rag. I understood then – my blood was tainted. I was the rapist’s son. No wonder Mom hated me. A wave of nausea unlike anything I’d ever felt before washed over me. I stumbled out the door, clutching the courtyard wall, dry heaving. The night wind cut through me, making the gashes on my face sting. Before, when Mom hit me, I saw those wounds as debts she owed, debts I’d collect someday. Now, I felt too ashamed to even look at her. I didn’t go back to Grandma’s, and she didn’t come looking for me. I limped aimlessly through the streets, lost and unsure where to go. Then I saw a family celebrating a birthday outside a restaurant. The woman in the center, surrounded by her loved ones, had a radiant smile that made me shrink back. Last year, on Mom’s birthday, she’d worn a similar happy smile—until she saw me. The moment I walked in, her joy twisted into pure disgust. I remembered a school essay assignment called “My Mother.” I’d written about Mom as an absolute monster. My English teacher had pulled me into her office, pointing at my paper, lecturing me for an entire class period. I hadn’t really heard what she said, but one line stuck with me: “No mother in this world could ever hate her own child.” I’d believed her. I used the money I’d saved from selling scrap metal to buy Mom a birthday cake. All I wanted was for her to hug me, just once, like she hugged my brother. But her icy stare pierced me, making me feel like a clown with the cake in my hands. A flash of rage consumed me. When no one was looking, I caught a few frogs from the yard and hid them inside the cake. I still remember Mom’s scream when the frogs jumped out. Back then, a twisted satisfaction had filled me; she didn’t deserve to be a mother. She deserved it. But now, I understood. I was the one who didn’t deserve it. My very existence was a wound to her. Looking at the mother’s smile in the restaurant, I made a decision. This year, for Mom’s birthday, I’d give her a gift she’d truly love. A gift that would finally set her free. I decided to die. The moment the thought of dying surfaced, my steps became unnervingly light. I even started to plan how to die in a way that wouldn’t inconvenience anyone, how to disappear without a trace. But my plan was cut short; the patrolling police caught me and brought me home. Mom opened the door. It closed behind me, and I kept my head down, not daring to meet her eyes, only hearing her cold voice. “Why didn’t you just die out there?” My usual retort died in my throat, swallowed whole. Yet, driven by some twisted impulse, I hesitated, then asked her, my voice barely a whisper, “If… if I really… died, what would you do?” Would you be even a little sad? “Hmph. If you’ve got the guts, go die sooner. I’d be overjoyed.” She walked into my siblings’ room without looking back, closing the door. I stood in the living room. After a long while, I clumsily wiped my face and forced a laugh. I knew it. The birthday gift I’d chosen, Mom would definitely love it. Cole, the orphan kid I usually collected junk with, lived by his wits. He was street smart, always finding ways to make a buck. So, after school, I treated him to an ice cream. Crouching by the curb, I lowered my voice and asked him how to make someone disappear without a trace. Cole shot me a weird look, then shoved his half-eaten ice cream into my hand. “Stay away from me. I don’t do anything illegal.” I held up both ice creams, confused. “What are you talking about? Just tell me how someone could die by accident. You know… preferably not too painfully. That person might be a bit sensitive to pain.” Cole gasped and started to get up to run. Forgetting the ice cream, I grabbed him, holding him tight like a pig tied for slaughter. “I don’t care! You ate my stuff, so you’re with me! You have to help me!” Unable to break free, Cole just flopped onto the ground, looking miserable. “No, man, my good man, you’ve got parents, why are you so determined to throw your life away? Yeah, you get hit a lot, but they don’t starve you. Look at your arms, you’re bigger than me!” A lump formed in my throat, stuck between up and down, and I choked. I wanted to tell him that it was because they were neither wholly good nor completely bad that I felt this agonizing pain. Especially after knowing my birth story, even that profound, wronged hatred had no solid ground to stand on. I couldn’t live anymore. But saying that would only cause Mom trouble, so I rasped back at Cole, “None of your business! Just tell me if you’ll help or not!” Cole wailed, “Dude! You want to kill your mom! How can I help with that?!” I froze, looking down at Cole on the ground in disbelief. When did I say I wanted to kill Mom? But before I could argue, a loud, familiar wail pierced the air from nearby. “Waaah! The big bad guy wants to kill Mommy!” My brain short-circuited. I slowly turned my head towards the sound. It was my idiot little brother. Crying and screaming, he was running so fast he’d lost a shoe and didn’t even care. That night, the sound of slaps echoed through the house for most of the evening. Mom swung the broom at me, hitting me head-on, her eyes blazing with the same fierce hatred she reserved for an enemy. But I saw it — tears streamed from her eyes. I’d seen those tears a few times before, but then I’d dismissed them as crocodile tears, stiffening my neck and butting my head into her stomach, promising her I’d get her back when I was older, that I’d kill her. Now, I just curled up on the cold tile floor, unmoving. Finally, she tired herself out. The broom clattered to the floor. But she didn’t look at me, just stumbled back to her room. After a long silence, I slowly pushed myself up, only to hear the muffled, broken sobs from her room, choked back as if she was trying to stifle them. The sound was like a knife, twisting repeatedly in my chest. My face burned, and the body I’d just managed to prop up crashed back to the floor. I raised a hand to cover my eyes; my hand came away wet. Not with tears, but with a mixture of blood and dirt. Just like me. Filthy. “Your mother, she was crying on the floor just like that when she was nineteen.” I snapped my head up. Grandma had appeared in the doorway at some point, her cloudy eyes seeming to fix on me, yet also on someone, some moment in time. “That night, her clothes were torn, and her body… was bruised all over.” “She didn’t cry out loud, just bit her lip until it bled.” My breathing hitched. “She tried to get rid of you later, but her body wouldn’t let her.” “After you were born, I threw you away, but by morning, the police brought you back to the door.” “They said abandoning you was a crime, that she’d go to jail, and they’d follow up.” My life was so absurd it was laughable. No one welcomed my arrival, yet I clung stubbornly to life for twelve years. Grandma, as always, tended to my wounds. Her face was old, her voice rambling. “Don’t blame her. Her heart’s in pain. She never got over it.” I lowered my head and smiled. “Grandma, I don’t blame her anymore.” I no longer hated Mom, but Mom still hated me enough to want me dead. She didn’t know I was awake when she pressed the pillow over my face. I could even feel the pillow trembling with her shaking hands. I didn’t struggle. I just closed my eyes and waited. Just as my lungs began to burn, a powerful force yanked Mom off me. Grandma’s voice was hoarse and trembling. “Are you insane! You’ll throw away another lifetime for him? It’s not worth it! Once was enough…” Mom crumpled into Grandma’s arms, letting out a broken whimper. “Mom! Mom! I can’t take it anymore! Is he as evil as his father?” Grandma held Mom tightly, but her eyes flickered towards me. For a second, I thought she saw my half-open eyes. But she just murmured calmly, “Go back to sleep.” Mom’s whimpers faded into the distance. I lay there, gasping for air, then pulled the covers over my face and turned over. I don’t know how long passed, but as dawn approached, Grandma came in carrying a large enamel mug. Inside was steaming hot chicken soup. Drinking chicken soup first thing in the morning was obviously odd. But Grandma simply placed the mug on my bedside table, her voice as calm as the lines etched on her face. “Drink it.” I understood. I wanted to say how impatient they were; I could have quietly died in a few days. Now, like this, they’d be in so much trouble after I was gone. But I said nothing. I reached for the heavy mug, its sides burning hot. I tilted my head back and gulped down the entire bowl of chicken soup. The strangely bitter taste spread from my tongue to my very core. The mug was empty. I placed it back on the nightstand, then lay back down, pulling the covers over myself, quietly awaiting the end. Grandma picked up the empty mug, stood there looking at me for a few seconds, then left without a word. The poison worked fast. First, a violent stomach ache, like countless hands tearing at my insides, then an overwhelming coldness, making me shiver uncontrollably, my teeth chattering. My vision blurred, and sounds grew distant. I heard Grandma’s footsteps in and out of the room, heard her making a phone call. Later, there was the piercing wail of an ambulance, a jumble of voices, blinding lights. Under the harsh hospital lights, the stomach pump tube was roughly forced down my throat. I vomited until I thought I’d tear apart, tears and snot streaming down my face. A young doctor looked at me, then at Grandma, whose face was ashen, his brow furrowed. “What happened? This soup…” He lowered his voice, suspicion lacing his words. With my last ounce of strength, I clutched the doctor’s white coat sleeve, my voice so hoarse it was almost inaudible. “It was… I took the medicine myself…” The doctor froze, his eyes complex as he looked at me. I released my grip, slumping back onto the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling. Being tough to kill, I guess, was also a curse. Even dying had become a luxury. Grandma stood by the bed, her back hunched, her white hair fluttering against her thin, wrinkled face. Before I closed my eyes, I thought I saw a single, cloudy tear fall from her dry eye, hitting the cold floor with a silent splat.

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My fiancée hired a male assistant. He called himself a good luck charm. When I closed my first million-dollar deal, he said it was because he’d prayed for it. When I pulled an all-nighter to win a bid, leading my team to success, he claimed it was due to his lucky draw. When I selected a piece of land, developed it into a resort, and reaped a billion-dollar profit, he insisted it was because I wore his good luck charm. After he’d snatched credit for all my achievements, HR approached me at year-end: “All your performance metrics are attributed to Dylan Finch. Your annual bonus has been cancelled this year.” “All your performance rewards will also go to Dylan!” I immediately gave up, slacking off, playing games all day at work. The ‘good luck charm’ panicked. Without me, where would an inexperienced intern like him get credit to steal? So, at the year-end review meeting, he dramatically smashed my computer, putting on airs: “If you continue to be a deadbeat and slack off, I’ll have the boss fire you!” My fiancée chimed in from the side: “The company’s success is all thanks to him. How dare you not put in effort when you don’t even have his luck?” “If it weren’t for the good fortune he brought, the company might have gone under.” I laughed, exasperated, and said to my CEO-dad in my game: “Hear that? He thinks he can land projects just by being lucky!” “In that case, let’s see if he can secure a hundred-million-dollar order by year-end, purely with his luck!” … The company held its year-end meeting. All employees, including management, were present, except for me. I was at my desk, deep in a thrilling team battle. A colleague passed by, asking me to join them: “Stop playing games, the VP called for a meeting. We’ll be publicly criticized if we’re late.” “Not going,” I flatly refused. “Anyway, the company has Dylan Finch, the good luck charm. What’s the point of being ambitious and working hard?” My colleague choked. He knew that when I’d secured that multi-million dollar order, Dylan had snatched the credit with a single sentence: “It’s all thanks to my prayers that you could sign such a big deal.” This was the third time Dylan had stolen my credit, and I had completely given up, playing games on the company’s dime every day. “You’re not going to the meeting, just sitting here playing games?” My fiancée, Lindsay Hayes, stalked over in her heels, confronting me. “You don’t even attend meetings, just slack off all day. Do you have any ambition at all?” “Why can’t you learn from Dylan? Even if he’s a good luck charm, he arrived early and is diligently participating in the company’s planning!” I was fiercely cornering a boss in my game, not even looking up. “Sorry, I have no ambition. He does, so let him handle it.” “Besides, isn’t this meeting to praise him? Why should I go?” Lindsay frowned. “He closed a million-dollar deal, aren’t you going to congratulate a colleague?” Her words were deeply sarcastic. My blade moved faster as I took down the boss. “You know best how many days I slaved away, how many times I entertained clients, drinking until my stomach was bleeding, just to get that deal. Your intern, Dylan Finch, casually stole all my efforts with one sentence.” “And you want me to congratulate him? Congratulate a useless freeloader?” This angered Lindsay. She slammed my laptop shut and dragged me to the conference room. “You’re going today whether you like it or not!” As I entered the conference room, I heard the Vice President on stage effusively praising Dylan for bringing good fortune to the company. “One wave is truly stronger than the last! Even interns these days can close million-dollar deals! Everyone in the company should learn from Dylan; he’s our company’s lucky star!” Seeing me enter, the VP shot me a contemptuous glance. “Unlike some people, who just play games and slack off all day! They spent half a month on one deal and still couldn’t close it. An intern’s few words are more effective!” My colleagues whispered amongst themselves, their snickers occasionally reaching my ears: “That intern closed a deal with just a few words. After a year’s work, he’s less useful than Dylan’s single sentence. What a loser…” “I heard Manager Hayes is Aaron Miller’s fiancée, yet she promotes Dylan. Shows how useless Aaron is, doesn’t it?” I ignored them, sitting directly in a corner. My dad happened to call me to help him rank up in our game, so I immediately joined the team. Lost in the game, someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up to find everyone in the meeting room staring at me. That’s when I heard Dylan on stage accusing me: “A deadbeat like Aaron Miller, who contributes nothing, will only hold this company back!” “Your projects only succeeded because of my subtle guidance, otherwise you’d never achieve such high performance, would you?” “I advise you to turn off your game, or today, on behalf of the company, I will take serious action against you!” I took off my headphones, looking utterly indifferent. “What, you, an intern, think you can fire me?” “Do you even have that authority?” Everyone gasped. They hadn’t expected me to confront Dylan directly. Everyone knew Lindsay Hayes was backing him. I looked at Lindsay; her eyes, returning my gaze, were incredibly cold. “What if I gave him that authority?” “The company’s achievements are all thanks to Dylan. How dare you not work hard without his good luck?” “If it weren’t for him, the company might have already gone under.” My eyes immediately darkened. I scoffed at my dad in the game’s voice chat: “Hear that? Turns out all the company’s deals are signed thanks to an intern’s good luck.” Lindsay openly tearing into me for Dylan’s sake was something no one had expected. Dylan grew even more arrogant, looking at me provocatively. I shrugged, standing up to leave. “Fine, then process my resignation today.” My indifference clearly surprised Lindsay; Dylan’s face, in particular, turned sour. His achievements were stolen. Without me, he had no one to guarantee his position in the company. “Wait! Lindsay, firing him is too extreme.” Then Dylan went to my workstation, dragged my computer into the meeting room. “How about we teach him a lesson, make him remember!” In front of everyone, he directly threw my computer from a height, smashing it to pieces on the floor. “I warn you, no more slacking off or playing games!” The loud crash instantly silenced the meeting room. My computer was a mangled mess of scrap metal. Everyone’s faces were a picture of surprise and excitement as they stood up to watch the show. “His computer’s smashed! Aaron Miller’s life is going to be tough now!” “People are desperate to get into our company; Aaron Miller doesn’t even care about being fired. Is he playing hard to get, trying to force Manager Hayes to keep him?” “Still a low-level employee after a year, so pathetic. Manager Hayes won’t fall for that…” Computer fragments flew to my feet. This was my top-of-the-line custom-built computer, which I’d had made abroad for ten million. I stared at Dylan, who was dressed in cheap brands, and calmly said, “Smash my computer? Can you afford to pay for it?” Dylan sneered, “You’re just a regular employee, how expensive could your computer be? Go to the warehouse and get a spare one.” I turned to Lindsay. “Are you just going to let an intern be this arrogant? Not only stealing my deals but also casually smashing my computer?” Lindsay walked directly to Dylan’s side, looking down at me haughtily. “He didn’t make me fire you; letting you stay in the company to earn a living is already being more than fair.” “Dylan smashing your computer is for your own good. He wants you to be ambitious.” I shook my head, a cold smirk on my face. There was no reply from my game’s voice chat; my hot-tempered dad and grandpa, fiercely protective, were probably already chartering a private jet back. I had no desire to argue further. I crouched down to pick up the computer’s motherboard, but Dylan raised his foot and stepped directly on it. “Still want to pick it up and keep playing?” he said, grinding his foot back and forth on the motherboard. “Lindsay, you’re cutting him some slack, and he still doesn’t repent?” “You’re slacking off publicly, ruining the company’s hardworking atmosphere. You deserve only the oldest spare computer!” “Also…” He pulled out a stack of project reports. “This data you prepared earlier has such huge flaws! If I hadn’t discovered them in time, you would have caused the company massive losses!” At this, the surroundings gasped. “My god, Dylan really is our company’s good luck charm; he can even find flaws!” “Look at Aaron Miller, so thick-skinned. Without Dylan’s blessing, his project would have tanked. Now he’s even contradicting him and pulling faces!” “He’s doing it on purpose, trying to win back Manager Hayes’s heart. I wonder if he has the ability to.” I picked up the data, realizing it was a report Dylan himself had done recently, but he’d changed the name on it to mine. “This isn’t my work,” I shrugged, tossing the report onto the floor. “Even though I play games all day, my performance targets are always met. I wouldn’t make such a stupid mistake.” “Only an intern, I guess, would make such a basic error, wouldn’t they?” I looked at Dylan mockingly; his face fluctuated between green and pale. He pointed at me, angrily cursing, “Aaron Miller, you play games all day at work, how can you not make basic mistakes? Your name is on this, just admit it!” “Don’t make me bring out the evidence and embarrass you completely!” I stared at his guilty face, finding it utterly ridiculous. An intern who knew nothing back then was now a domineering ‘good luck charm’ in the company. “Evidence, huh?” I directly called a professional. “Please come over now, I need a handwriting analysis and a check of the surveillance footage.” “You want to conduct a private investigation in our company? Do you have the authority for that?” Lindsay frowned. “Don’t think we’ll believe your investigation results just because you hire some shady people from outside.” I ignored her, sat down, and continued playing my game. The Vice President’s face grew darker. “Aaron Miller, what do you mean? Wrong is wrong. Are you trying to cause a scene in the company? Security, prevent anyone unauthorized from entering the company!” “No need to trouble security, we’ve come up ourselves.” Everyone looked in the direction of the voice, and a collective gasp filled the room. Two people, seen on the news yesterday, stood at the conference room door—the Chief of the Capital City Criminal Investigation Bureau and the CEO of RonaTech Industries. The VP’s face turned white with fright at the sight of these two important figures. He quickly bent over, smiling obsequiously. “What brings you two distinguished gentlemen here? Is there something urgent?” The Chief and the CEO didn’t even glance at the VP, walking directly towards me. “Aaron, where’s the evidence?” “If anyone dares to falsely accuse you, we will definitely help clear your name!” I raised my chin, pointing to the documents on the floor. Dylan, trembling, picked up the documents in front of the two powerful figures, handing them over for immediate inspection. Lindsay, astonished that professionals were investigating for me, stared at me. “Who exactly are you? How did you manage to get them here?” I continued playing my game. “That’s none of your business, as long as someone can prove my innocence!” Dylan glared at me, his face filled with guilt, but he didn’t dare to react on the spot. He was Lindsay Hayes’s junior from university. Fresh out of graduation, Lindsay had arranged for him to join the company as her personal assistant. Dylan’s performance wasn’t great, but he always had a knack for flattery in his free time. For example, “You’re about to get a promotion!” or “You’re definitely going to succeed with this client collaboration.” Occasionally, he’d hit the mark by sheer coincidence, and Lindsay would promote him in various ways. Gradually, everyone in the company came to believe Dylan was a good luck charm, and he quickly became a company celebrity. Later, he publicly claimed my hard-earned achievements were due to his lucky aura. Lindsay knew I’d pulled all-nighters working on proposals, yet she still looked at Dylan with adoration: “I knew it was your good fortune that helped him secure the deal.” Seeing Dylan take away the bonus that should have been mine, becoming the top performer, all my efforts seemed like a joke. And now, he was publicly slandering me? Did he really think I was a pushover to be manipulated? The inspection concluded. The Chief held the report, looking at Dylan with a grim expression. “The handwriting on the error spots in this report matches yours. After checking the surveillance, I also found that you were the only one entering and leaving the office.” “The CEO also investigated the data source, and you were the only one involved from start to finish. Therefore, this erroneous data was caused solely by you!” At this, the conference hall fell silent for a moment, then erupted in heated discussion. “I can’t believe it was slander… My god, Aaron Miller is actually innocent.” “The ‘good luck charm’ is really going too far. You can’t steal someone else’s credit and then frame them, can you?” Dylan’s face turned completely white. He stammered, “That… that must have been a mistake on my part.” “Can a simple ‘mistake’ fix everything?” I leaned back in my chair, watching him leisurely. “When you make a mistake, don’t you need to apologize?” The Chief and the CEO stood behind me, staring at Dylan, putting immense pressure on him. He reluctantly lowered his head. “I… I’m sorry…” I stood up, shaking hands with the Chief and the CEO in thanks. After they left, I pulled out a bill. “Since the slander has been cleared up, let’s talk about my computer’s compensation.” Dylan reverted to his arrogant self, crossing his arms and scoffing, “I’d like to hear how much a broken computer is worth.” I held up one finger: “Ten…” “Tsk, just ten thousand?” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll scan it to you now.” I shook my head. “Ten million.”

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1 Sebastian had changed. The man who used to greet me with a boundless, golden-retriever warmth now sat in cold silence on the sofa, legs crossed, holding a magazine he’d never read. His gentle face was a stony mask; his eyes glared as if I were a stranger—or worse. Just as I began to speak, my vision glitched. Lines of text floated before my eyes: 【THE MALE LEAD IS REBORN! DON’T LOOK BACK AT THAT TOXIC WOMAN!】 【LAST LIFE HE DIED ALONE FOR HER—NOW MAKE HER PAY!】 【TIME FOR REVENGE!】 I glanced from the floating comments back to Sebastian, still posed like a brooding CEO on our couch. So he’d been reborn. And I was apparently the villainess in his revenge story. How… amusing. A past life? If my memory served me right, Sebastian had a full physical just last week. He was as healthy as a horse; he didn’t even have an ulcer, let alone stomach cancer. And me with my old flame, watching fireworks? My so-called “first love” was now a balding, pot-bellied man. Looking at him for too long was a genuine health hazard for my eyes. But clearly, Sebastian believed it all. As I approached, he didn’t leap up to take my purse like he usually did. Instead, he coldly turned a page, the paper crackling under the force of his grip. “Aurora. You’re back.” Listen to that tone. It used to be “sweetheart,” then “honey,” and now it was the formal, dismissive “Aurora.” I wasn’t annoyed. I casually tossed my limited-edition handbag aside and gave him a smirk. “What, no dinner tonight?” The old Sebastian would have been scrambling to the kitchen, nervously asking if the soup was seasoned to my liking. But this new Sebastian closed the magazine with the grace of someone signing a billion-dollar deal—a grace slightly undermined by the fact that he was still wearing his pink apron with a teddy bear print on it. “I didn’t cook,” he said, lifting his gaze. His eyes were simmering with a carefully contained rage and disgust. “Aurora, I am not your maid. And I’m certainly not some tool you use to blow off steam whenever you feel like it.” The comments above his head exploded. 【BADASS! THAT’S HOW YOU DO IT! SHUT HER DOWN!】 【HE’S FINALLY STANDING UP FOR HIMSELF! THAT DELIVERY, THAT PRESENCE! OSCAR-WORTHY!】 【ASK FOR A DIVORCE! NOW! LET THAT TOXIC WITCH REGRET IT!】 I raised an eyebrow and walked right up to him. Sebastian flinched instinctively, his body tensing like a cat about to hiss. This “rebirth” thing seemed to have some serious side effects, including a full-blown stress response. I reached out, my fingertips lightly tracing the hard line of his jaw. I felt a tremor run through him—a physical rejection—but deep in his eyes, there was a flicker of something else, something complicated and unreadable. “No dinner is no dinner. Why the attitude?” I pulled my hand back and turned towards the kitchen. “It’s fine. I’m not hungry anyway.” Sebastian froze. According to the script—or at least, according to the spoilers in the comments—I was supposed to fly into a rage. I was supposed to throw a cup of hot tea in his face and humiliate him for being a useless freeloader. But I didn’t. I opened the fridge, took out a bottle of ice-cold water, twisted the cap, and took a long sip, my eyes tracking his reflection in the polished steel. Sebastian was staring daggers at my back. The comments were just as baffled. 【What’s happening? Why isn’t she following the script?】 【Shouldn’t she be having a meltdown? This is way too calm.】 【Wait… did she get reborn too? No way, this is a solo-reborn plot!】 I smirked to myself. Who said I was the villain? This silly pup was the one who’d cooked up this whole tragic melodrama in his head. When we got married, it was he who had chased me relentlessly, standing in the pouring rain for three hours, begging me to give him a home. I might have a short fuse and be a bit of a workaholic, but I had never, ever mistreated him. His monthly allowance was seven figures. I supported whatever he wanted to do—except for trying to burn down the kitchen. I spoiled him rotten. And this was my reward? The ungrateful brat wakes up from a nap, slaps the “toxic woman” label on me, and plots my downfall? I carried my water back to the living room and sat in the armchair across from him, crossing my long legs in the perfect picture of a heartless capitalist. “Alright. What do you want?” Sebastian took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for battle. From the depths of the sofa cushions, he pulled out a crumpled piece of printer paper and slapped it onto the coffee table. The gesture was powerful, though the grease stains on the paper kind of ruined the effect. “Divorce papers.” Sebastian bit out the words, his voice trembling with either rage or excitement, I couldn’t tell which. “Aurora, I want a divorce. I’ll leave with nothing. I don’t want a single penny of your money. All I want is my freedom.” The comments erupted in celebration. 【FLOWERS! CONFETTI! THE DIVORCE IS HAPPENING!】 【THAT’S OUR GUY! HE’S GOT DIGNITY! NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE UNDERDOG!】 【FREED FROM THIS GILDED CAGE, OUR MALE LEAD IS ABOUT TO BUILD HIS BUSINESS EMPIRE!】 I glanced at the paper. The handwriting was a mess, like it had been scrawled in a hurry. The terms were brutally simple: he wanted nothing but a clean break, a quick escape from my clutches. I set down my water bottle, leaned forward, and looked him straight in the eye. He squirmed under my gaze but forced himself not to look away, the veins in his neck popping with the effort. “You’re sure about this?” I asked. “I’m sure!” he declared, his voice ringing with conviction. “For three years, I’ve endured your coldness, your neglect! I’m sick of being your accessory! I’m a man, Aurora! I have my pride!” He sounded so passionate, you’d think I spent the last three years whipping him daily. “Fine.” I pulled a pen from my purse, uncapped it, and signed my name on the document with a smooth, decisive flourish. “You want to leave? I’ll let you.” Now it was Sebastian’s turn to be stunned. He’d probably expected me to shred the paper, to mock him and tell him he couldn’t survive without me, maybe even lock him in the basement like the comments suggested. He never, ever imagined I would agree so easily. So quickly it was as if I were tossing out last season’s clothes. Sebastian stared at my signature, his face draining of all color. His lips moved, but no sound came out. The comments went silent for a beat, then exploded with even more fervor. 【WHOA? That easy?】 【Something’s wrong. This woman is definitely plotting something!】 【BE CAREFUL, SEB! IT’S A TRAP! SHE’S TRYING TO PLAY HARD TO GET!】 I capped my pen, stood up, and looked down at him. “Pack your things and be out by tonight. That work for you?” Sebastian’s head snapped up, and his eyes were suddenly red-rimmed. That abandoned puppy look was back, but he quickly masked it, forcing out a stiff reply. “No problem! I’m leaving right now!” He ripped off the apron, threw it violently onto the floor, and stormed into the bedroom. Two minutes later, a symphony of crashing and banging erupted from the room, sounding less like packing and more like demolition. Meanwhile, the comments scrolled past in a triumphant wave of 【CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR ESCAPE FROM HELL!】 The bedroom door flew open again. Sebastian emerged, dragging a massive suitcase, his spine ramrod straight as if he were marching off to war. As he passed me, he hesitated for a fraction of a second, almost as if he was waiting for me to say something, to ask him to stay. I didn’t move. I just glanced down at my phone and said coolly, “Don’t forget to close the door on your way out.” SLAM! The front door slammed shut with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling. I walked to the window and watched his lonely figure drag the heavy suitcase down the street. The comments were still celebrating his glorious liberation. 【HE’S FREE! THE WORLD IS HIS OYSTER!】 【NEXT STOP: THE LOTTERY OFFICE FOR THE WINNING TICKET, THEN A HOSTILE TAKEOVER OF REED CORP!】 【CAN’T WAIT TO SEE THAT WITCH CRYING AND BEGGING HIM TO COME BACK!】

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The night before the wedding, Mike called, slurring drunk. “Chloe’s planned a surprise, you’ll definitely love it.” The music was loud, and no matter how I called, Mike didn’t reply. Then I remembered, he was at a bachelor party thrown by his “girl-bestie,” Chloe. The next day at ten, when the wedding car pulled up to the Miller estate, a dozen banners fluttered in the wind. “I’ve slept with the groom; ask me anything.” The fluttering banners slapped me hard like open hands. Whispers erupted. I rolled up the window and told the driver to turn around. If he wanted to leave those banners up, I had no choice but to call off the wedding. 1. “Claire, what is wrong with you?” Mike had his groomsmen line up in front of the car. He furiously knocked on the back window. “Get out. What are you waiting for? Don’t miss the auspicious time.” I pointed at the fluttering banners. “You have those banners removed, and the wedding continues. Otherwise, I’m returning to the Dawson estate.” As if she had expected me to say this, Chloe’s face clouded over. “See? I told you she’s so old-fashioned; she can’t handle this kind of surprise.” “Take them down, take them down. For your son’s happiness, Dad doesn’t mind.” Her words contradicted her expression, which was clearly unwilling. “Take what down? I love them.” “Claire, why are you so rigid? Chloe didn’t even rest last night to prepare these banners.” I pointed at the words on the banners, questioning him. “Do you think the fact that you two ‘slept together’ is something to be proud of? Do you really need to announce it publicly on our wedding day?” Chloe’s tone was sweet and innocent. “Claire, Mike and I have been best friends since childhood. Is there any part of him I don’t know?” “The ‘slept together’ on the banner isn’t what you think it means.” Chloe’s explanation only intensified everyone’s suspicion. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Is this woman trying to declare ownership?” “How else can ‘slept together’ mean? Everyone here is an adult. What’s with this ‘best friends’ nonsense?” “Haven’t you heard? The groom still has to spend tonight with her. They’re definitely not innocent.” The murmurs, growing louder, reached my ears, and my face burned with shame. “Mike, I’m giving you one last chance. Take down the banners, and the wedding proceeds, or I’ll turn back to the Dawson estate, and we call off the engagement.” As if to back up Chloe, he blocked the staff trying to remove the banners. “This is the Miller family’s property. Who dares to move anything without my command?” “Get out of the car, Claire. If you keep this up, you’ll not only shame Chloe but also put the Miller family in a very difficult position.” Chloe stood behind Mike, a defiant glint in her eyes. “If you won’t remove them, then I absolutely won’t get out of the car.” A throng of people poured out of the hotel. “Claire, get out of the car quickly. My mom and dad have personally come to greet you. Don’t be ungracious.” Mike’s parents stood in front of the car. Chloe naturally linked arms with Mrs. Miller. “Aunt Eleanor, it’s all my fault. I just thought I’d liven up the wedding atmosphere and put up a few banners.” Mrs. Miller followed Chloe’s gaze to the banners, the words making her pause for a few seconds. “I didn’t realize Claire wouldn’t like them. It’s my mistake; I’ll have them taken down now.” Mike pulled Chloe back. “Take what down? I said, this is the Miller family’s property. You can hang whatever banners you want.” “She hasn’t married into the Miller family yet. She doesn’t get to decide.” Mike’s words were exactly what Mrs. Miller wanted to hear. Even though my marriage to Mike was an arranged family alliance, my father wasn’t from the main Dawson lineage. I hadn’t lived in the capital since childhood, and she was very displeased with the Dawson family’s decision to marry me to Mike. She smiled sweetly, had the driver roll down the window, and took my hand. “Claire, on such a joyous day, a commotion would not look good for either the Miller or Dawson families.” “Chloe grew up with Mike; I know her character. These banners are just a joke, harmless.” “Listen to Aunt Eleanor, get out of the car quickly. Don’t miss the auspicious time.” Mrs. Miller’s attitude emboldened Chloe. She tugged hard at the car door, trying to pull me out. In that moment, I became a clown for all to see. Gazing at Mike’s indifference and Mrs. Miller’s intention to assert her dominance, I smoothed out my creased dress and opened the door. I had intended to save the Miller family face by simply calling off the wedding. But they insisted on pushing. Whatever happened next, they couldn’t blame me. 2. I shoved the car door open fiercely, and Chloe was knocked backwards. “Ah! That hurt!” Mike helped her up, cradling her in his arms. “Oops, I was just joking with Chloe and accidentally used too much force. I didn’t mean it. She doesn’t mind, does she?” Chloe, who was about to erupt, instantly fell silent. She stood up straight. “Of course not. Claire is so generous; she even accepted my banners, so naturally, I won’t be angry.” She had fallen awkwardly, and the limited-edition wedding dress she had snatched from me was now stained. Mike naturally took off his suit jacket and draped it over her shoulders. “Mike, my foot hurts.” Mike, without a word, scooped Chloe up into his arms. “What are you standing around for? Follow along!” The red carpet, which he should have walked with me, was now trodden with him carrying Chloe. I followed behind alone, carrying my dress. Mrs. Miller smiled at me. “Claire, Aunt Eleanor knows you’re generous. Only with generosity can you be a good Mrs. Miller.” I smiled back at her. “Aunt Eleanor is right. Chloe is Mike’s good friend; she’s hurt, so it’s only proper.” Walking to the hotel entrance, the staff whispered behind their hands. “First time seeing a groom carrying someone else, with the bride trailing behind.” “Didn’t you see what the banner said? The groom and that woman ‘slept together’.” “This bride is such a pushover, walking into her wedding day with such a public betrayal.” Each word was like a needle piercing my heart. My chest tightened, and a surge of anger swelled within me. In the dressing room, the makeup artist wanted to change my look. “No need to bother. I’d like to rest alone for a bit.” Chloe was injured, so the wedding certainly wouldn’t proceed as scheduled. Instead of meticulously changing clothes and waiting on stage like a clown for Mike, I might as well use this opportunity to do something interesting. Chloe gave me a surprise; I should be grateful. Not only her, but Mrs. Miller also said that only with generosity could I be a good Mrs. Miller. So today, I wanted to see how generous she could truly be. I quietly slipped out. The door to Chloe’s dressing room was ajar. I didn’t need to get close to the dressing room to know what the two of them were doing. Marrying Mike was a task for me. My uncle promised me that as long as I helped the Dawson family secure this alliance, I would be admitted into the Dawson Group, and my father’s shares would legitimately be inherited by me. If not for that 25% stake, I wouldn’t even glance at someone like Mike. Since childhood, my father always told me, “Know yourself and your enemy, and you will win a hundred battles.” I had already thoroughly investigated Mike and Chloe’s backgrounds. Chloe, using the excuse of growing up with Mike, had overtly and covertly driven away five of Mike’s girlfriends. Mike enjoyed this ambiguous, unclear relationship with Chloe. After the news of my arranged marriage to him spread, Chloe hinted more than once that they were involved. Whether it was couple’s items flaunted on social media or accidental “bedside” photos, none of it angered me. But this time, she chose to humiliate me at the wedding, to shame the Dawson family. Well, I would let her know she had messed with the wrong person. 3. “So what if you’re the bride? Mike still protects me, doesn’t he?” I didn’t even need to open the app; I knew Chloe was desperately trying to provoke me. From the moment Mike and I started dating, her provocations were endless. At our engagement party, all the decorations in the hall were arranged according to her preferences. Simply because a few fewer daffodils were placed, she harshly reprimanded the florist in front of all the guests. When choosing a wedding dress, she tried on the limited-edition gown imported from Paris before me. “Mike, does this look good? I like this one.” The bridal consultant subtly reminded her that the dress was mine. Her face instantly darkened. “Claire, Chloe is a staunch single person; she doesn’t plan to get married in her life. It’s just a dress. If she likes it, why don’t you let her have it?” Before I decided to marry Mike, I never fantasized about having love with him. Therefore, I retreated again and again. It was just a wedding dress; I was willing to let her have it. But Chloe was still not satisfied. She deliberately chose the day Mike and I were taking our wedding photos. She went hiking alone on a wild trail in the wilderness. Before leaving, she posted a social media update visible only to Mike and me. The short essay was filled with talk of letting go, but the subtext hinted for Mike to go find her. At that moment, Mike, who was taking wedding photos with me, looked as if he had lost his soul. He took off his jacket, grabbed his car keys, and left without a word. He ignored me shouting after him. “Claire, I’m afraid something happened to Chloe. You can take solo wedding photos first. The rest can be composited later.” The photographer’s eyes widened at his unreasonable request. I understood Chloe’s nature; she was declaring war on me in this way. As the wedding date approached, whenever Mike squeezed in time for wedding photos, Chloe would always have various “accidents.” “Mike, I agree to the wedding photo composite, but you have to guarantee Chloe won’t cause trouble at the wedding.” When he heard my request, Mike looked at me dismissively. “Claire, I know what’s important. The wedding is a big day for you and me, for the Miller and Dawson families. Chloe will definitely behave.” But now, the wedding hadn’t even officially begun. Chloe was using a dozen banners to publicly shame me and the Dawson family. “Do you really think you’ve won? If he truly cared about you, why isn’t he marrying her?” “Chloe, no matter what stunts you pull, the only person Mike will marry is me. You will never sit in the position of Mrs. Miller.” Before, no matter what messages Chloe sent, I never replied to her. But today, I unleashed all the words I had kept bottled up. “Just you wait, I’ll let you know that Mike only loves me.” After reading Chloe’s utterly unaggressive reply, a pop-up on my phone showed that the camera had started operating. As the wedding time drew closer, I called the makeup artist in. While resting my eyes, my heart was filled with anticipation. I wondered what reaction Mike and the guests, who were waiting to see me humiliated, would have to what was about to unfold. 4. Sure enough, just as I expected. I stood alone on the stage in my wedding dress. No matter how the host called for the groom to enter, there was no sign of Mike. The groomsmen watched me like it was a show. Their expressions seemed to say: I dared to cross Chloe, so I deserved the lesson Mike was giving me. “Where is Mike? Send someone to look for him.” The guests below stirred, and Mrs. Miller told the groomsmen to scatter and search. “Claire, don’t worry, Mike will be here soon.” Mrs. Miller smiled as she comforted me. “Don’t worry, today is your wedding, he wouldn’t dare to mess around.” I pushed away Mrs. Miller’s hand, which was lightly patting mine. I said calmly, “No rush, Aunt Eleanor, I know where he is.” “If you don’t believe me, please look at the big screen.” The big screen lit up, showing a dimly lit room. Two figures were intertwined. “It sounds like someone is looking for you outside. The wedding seems to be starting.” The moment Chloe’s voice came out, the noisy guests stopped their movements. “Ignore them. If she dares to defy me in front of so many people, she deserves to be left out in the cold.” Mike’s displeasure towards me could be heard even through the screen. Mrs. Miller’s face immediately darkened. She kept dialing Mike’s number. “It’s Aunt Eleanor. Should I answer?” Chloe looked playfully at Mike, who was lying on the bed. Her white shoulder was half-exposed, covered in red marks. “Don’t answer. My mom has disliked Claire for a long time. This is a good opportunity to put her in her place.” Mrs. Miller’s face instantly changed from red to white. “Claire, don’t listen to his nonsense. Aunt Eleanor never meant that.” “Go find him quickly! Where is that beast?” Mrs. Miller was visibly furious. “Don’t worry about them. You’re being wronged today. If she dares to reject your good intentions, I’ll teach her a good lesson.” “But what if she finds out?” Chloe’s voice carried a hint of expectation. “What if she finds out? Although she’s a Dawson, the Dawson family doesn’t value her. Otherwise, if it were such a mess now, why wouldn’t anyone from the Dawson family stand up for her?” “Chloe, don’t be afraid. From now on, she’ll be Mrs. Miller, but you’re the only one I love.” Mike’s words seemed to reassure Chloe. She threw the incessantly ringing phone into a nearby humidifier. “Turn it off, quickly turn it off.” “Go find him! Make sure to control that little vixen separately.” Mrs. Miller furiously jumped onto the stage and pulled out the projector’s plug. More and more people went to look for Mike. “Mrs. Miller, young Mr. Hayes prepared a separate dressing room for Ms. Lane.” The staff I had arranged beforehand quickly stepped forward. Mrs. Miller, leading a group of people, marched towards the dressing room. Soon, the dressing room door was kicked open. Mrs. Miller stormed in furiously. Clearly, someone had tipped them off. Mike was unscrewing a bottle of pain relief oil, rubbing Chloe’s ankle, which wasn’t even swollen. “Mom, why are you here? Chloe sprained her ankle; I just went to get medicine for her.” A sharp slap rang out, and Chloe clutched her cheek in disbelief. “Aunt Eleanor, why did you hit me?” A layer of tears welled up in Chloe’s eyes. Mike protectively shielded her as if she were a treasure. “Mom, why did you hit Chloe? Claire pushed her and made her sprain her ankle, which is why I was delayed.” “You can only blame Claire.” Mrs. Miller fiercely grabbed Chloe’s hair and dragged her out. Mike tried hard to stop her. But the video that had just played had made Mrs. Miller lose face. How could she give up so easily? A sharp-eyed groomsman approached Mike and whispered in his ear. “Mike, there was a video just now. The content of the video was…” “What video? Where is it?” He became visibly flustered. The groomsman hesitantly played the recorded content. When he heard his own voice, he froze. Soon, he snatched the phone and slammed it heavily onto the ground. “Fake, this is Claire’s revenge. If you don’t believe me, look, there’s no bed in the dressing room at all.”

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Three months after my stepfather moved in, my monthly allowance went from four hundred and fifty dollars to thirty. He smiled over the kitchen island and told my mother, “You have to raise girls on a tight budget. Spoil them, and they’ll never learn to stand on their own two feet.” My mother nodded without looking up. “Whatever Dennis thinks is best.” Then came the deadline for the advanced studio art intensive: a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar materials fee. I emptied every pocket, unzipped every pouch in my backpack. Total: five dollars and forty cents. I sent my mother a text: “Mom, the school needs the fee for the art showcase by Friday.” She sent back a single word: “No.” I stood in the school hallway for ten minutes, watching the dust motes drift through the afternoon sunlight. Then I scrolled down to the very bottom of my contacts. A number I hadn’t dialed in three years. “Dad… I can’t stay here anymore.” The other end went dead silent for two seconds. Then came the sharp scrape of a chair pushing back against a hardwood floor. “I’m landing tomorrow. Wait for me.” The next afternoon at four o’clock, our doorbell rang. Dennis answered it. Four men in dark tailored suits stood in the hallway corridor. The man in the center took off his sunglasses. My father. “Hello. I’m here to pick up my daughter. And while I’m at it, we’re going to discuss this house.” … 1 Dennis moved in three months ago. Or rather, he slid in. The day my mother brought him through the front door, he was wearing a silk-blend floral shirt and polished leather loafers, smiling with the kind of saccharine warmth that felt rehearsed in a mirror. “Sylvie,” he purred, his voice dripping with easy charm. “Your mom and I are going to take such good care of you together, okay?” I didn’t answer. My mother gave the back of my head a sharp nudge. “Say hello.” “…Hi, Dennis.” He chuckled and patted my head like I was a stray dog he intended to train. “Good girl.” I stepped back half an inch. During that first week, his performance was flawless. He cooked dinner, vacuumed the living room rug until the pile stood in neat lines, brewed specialty herbal tea for my mother, and even swept the eraser shavings off my study desk with a little handheld brush. My mother wore an expression I hadn’t seen on her face in years—slack, unburdened, as if she had finally set down a heavy suitcase. For the first time since my father left three years ago, she stopped sitting on the living room sofa staring into the dark until two in the morning. By week two, the air shifted. First, my Greek yogurt disappeared from the fridge, replaced by cartons of expensive collagen wellness drinks he drank twice a day. Then the ceramic vase on the coffee table—an understated piece my father had bought years ago—was banished to the back of the hallway closet. “Too cluttered,” Dennis announced casually. “I brought in something more modern.” My mother didn’t say a word. Week three. Over dinner, Dennis set his fork down with a quiet clink. He used that exquisitely reasonable, concerned tone of his. “Brenda, don’t you think four hundred and fifty a month is a bit excessive for Sylvie’s allowance?” My mother’s fork paused in midair. He pressed on, smiling warmly. “It’s not about the money, obviously. It’s about boundaries. Girls who grow up with too much spending money never learn financial discipline. When I took in my niece that summer, the minute we curbed her spending, her grades shot right up.” I lowered my fork and looked at my mother. She chewed slowly, swallows caught in her throat. “He makes a good point.” Dennis turned to me, beaming with paternal benevolence. “Sylvie, thirty dollars a month will cover what you actually need. I’ll help you save the rest. When you get into a good college, you’ll get it all back in one lump sum.” Thirty dollars. Down from four hundred and fifty. My lips parted, a protest forming on my tongue. My mother didn’t even look up from her plate. “That’s settled, then. Don’t make a fuss.” That night, I lay awake in bed, tracing the ceiling cracks in the dim streetlamp glow. Four hundred and fifty dollars wasn’t an arbitrary number. It was the exact monthly stipend my father had stipulated before he left for Sydney—wired directly into an account meant exclusively for my living expenses. Dennis had to know that. Because that debit card was sitting in Dennis’s designer wallet right now. I rolled over and pressed my face into the pillow. It was fine. I could endure it. I had been enduring things since I was seven years old. When Dad wasn’t around, you just kept your head down, and time eventually passed. I had no idea this was only the opening move. 2 The first month, on thirty dollars, I scraped by. I skipped breakfast at the bakery down the block, bought the cheapest plain bagel and a small carton of milk at the school cafeteria for lunch, and ate dinner at home. When my art supplies ran dry, I rolled the old tubes of acrylic and gouache tight from the crimped bottoms, scraping out every last speck of pigment with a palette knife. Then the second month arrived, and our fine arts instructor announced the materials fee for the regional portfolio showcase. Two hundred and fifty dollars. Without paying the fee, you lost your spot in the city-wide youth exhibition. I explained my situation to my art teacher, but she sighed with genuine regret. The district required the deposit by Friday afternoon; otherwise, my slot went to the alternate. On Wednesday evening, I brought it up at the dinner table. “Mom, I need two hundred and fifty for the art intensive materials fee.” Dennis didn’t stop cutting his chicken breast, his eyes fixed on his plate. My mother frowned, her tone immediately defensive. “Art? Since when does drawing pay the bills?” “I was selected for the city exhibition,” I said, my chest tightening. “The teacher said—” “How much was it again?” Dennis dabbed his mouth with a linen napkin, looking up with mild concern. “Two-fifty?” “Yes.” He glanced at my mother, wearing that practiced look of strained helplessness. “Brenda, the building HOA dues just went up last month, and we still have my cousin’s wedding gift to cover this weekend… things are honestly tight right now.” He spent over two hundred dollars every two weeks on imported face creams. Tight? I swallowed the fire in my throat, keeping my eyes locked on my mother. She dropped her fork, rubbing the bridge of her nose in irritated exhaustion. “Let’s put it on hold. We’ll revisit it next month.” “Next month is too late,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. “I said we’ll wait!” she snapped, raising her voice. “Why do you have to be so difficult? Didn’t you hear Dennis say things are tight right now?” I bit down hard on my lower lip, silencing myself. Dennis let out a soft, understanding sigh and reached over to pat my mother’s hand. “Come on, Brenda, don’t be too hard on her. She’s young. Sylvie, why don’t you ask one of your classmates if you can borrow a little until things settle down?” I pushed my chair back, stood up, and walked into my bedroom. I closed the door, leaned my back against the wood, and clutched the cuffs of my hoodie until my knuckles turned bloodless. Late that night, I sent my mother a text. “Mom, is there really no way to make the materials fee work?” Forty minutes later, her response appeared on the screen. “No.” Not even a period at the end. I placed the phone face-down on my desk and took several slow, ragged breaths. I opened my contacts and scrolled all the way to the bottom. A contact saved simply as “Dad”. Three years without a single call. Not because I didn’t want to, but because when he left, he looked me in the eyes and said, “Sylvie, Dad has some serious business to sort out overseas. Two years, and I’ll be back. Be good for your mom.” Two years had stretched into three. He wired money every month, texted on holidays, and occasionally FaceTimed, but he had never come back to the States. I knew he was under immense pressure, and I didn’t want to be another burden on his shoulders. But tonight… My thumb pressed the call button. “Ring—” “Ring—” On the third ring, the line clicked open. The background was utterly quiet. Then, after a heartbeat, his voice came through the speaker. “Sylvie?” It sounded identical to my memories—deep, low, and laced with a steady warmth. My throat closed up instantly. “Dad.” “What’s wrong?” His tone shifted in a fraction of a second; in the background, I heard the sharp scrape of his chair against the floor. “Your voice sounds off. What happened?” I opened my mouth, tried to form words, but nothing coherent came out. Finally, a single sentence broke through: “Dad… I don’t want to stay here anymore.” The line fell dead silent for two long seconds. Then I heard him speak. His voice was soft, but every syllable hit like an iron nail driven into pine. “I’m landing tomorrow. Wait for me.” The call ended. I stared at the glowing screen. Call duration: one minute and seventeen seconds. That night, for the first time in three years, I pulled the comforter over my head and wept out loud. Not out of self-pity, but because of the sudden, overwhelming realization—someone was coming for me. 3 The next day at school was a blur. My mind was elsewhere, and whatever the teachers were writing on the whiteboard dissolved into meaningless shapes. During fifth period, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it out under the desk and checked the screen. Dad: “Wheels down. What time do you get out?” My fingers trembled slightly as I typed. Me: “4:30.” Dad: “Got it. I’ll be waiting out front.” I slid the phone back into my pocket, my heart hammering against my ribs. When the final bell rang, I shoved my notebooks into my bag and walked toward the school gates. Before I even cleared the courtyard, I saw it: a sleek black Lincoln Navigator parked along the curb. Standing beside it was a man in a charcoal wool overcoat. His hair was trimmed shorter than three years ago. He was leaner, sharper around the jawline. The moment his eyes caught mine, he took off his sunglasses. The rims of his eyes were raw and red. The strap of my backpack slipped off my shoulder, and I froze in my tracks. He crossed the sidewalk in long, rapid strides, the soles of his dress shoes clicking against the pavement. When he reached me, he pulled me straight into his chest and wrapped his arms around me, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. He smelled of faint cedar and cold air, exactly as he always had. “You’re so thin,” he murmured, his hand cradling the back of my head, his voice raspy. “Way too thin, Sylvie.” I buried my face into the wool of his coat and said nothing. After half a minute, he gently released me, cupping my face in his hands to look at me. His brow furrowed deeply. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat first. Tonight, I’m handling everything.” “Handling what?” He didn’t give a direct answer. He opened the passenger door for me. Inside the vehicle sat three other people—two women and a man, all in tailored dark suits with laptops open on their laps. The man in the front turned around and gave me a respectful nod. “Hello, Sylvie. I’m your father’s attorney, Thomas Fletcher.” An attorney. I looked over at my father. He buckled his seatbelt, his expression eerily calm. “We eat first. Then we go to the house and settle this once and for all.” I didn’t know what to say, so the fear inside me voiced itself: “Are you… going to leave again?” He turned his head toward me, and I saw something in his eyes I had never seen before. It wasn’t warmth. It was pure, unyielding resolve. “Not this time,” he said. “Nobody is making me leave again.” We ate at a quiet, wood-paneled bistro tucked away in the shopping district. He ordered the slow-roasted prime rib with whipped Yukon gold potatoes I used to love, along with a cup of rich French onion soup. After three bites, my fork slowed down. “Dad… Mom doesn’t know you’re back.” “I know.” “You’re going straight to the house?” “Yes.” “She’s going to be furious.” He cut a tender slice of roast beef and placed it gently onto my plate, without looking up. “Her temper is not my concern.” At the adjacent booth, Mr. Fletcher was speaking in hushed tones with his two associates, occasionally flipping through a thick manila folder. From the corner of my eye, I caught the bold header on the front cover: “PROPERTY TITLE MODIFICATION.” Beneath it was a smaller line: “Asset Breakdown: Real Estate under Brenda Jensen.” Brenda Jensen was my mother’s legal name. The food in my mouth suddenly lost all its flavor. “Dad… what are you doing?” He laid his fork and knife down and dabbed his lips with a linen napkin. “Sylvie, there are things I never told you.” He looked at me, his gaze as deep and still as winter water. “That house your mother is living in? I paid seventy percent of the purchase price in cash. When we divorced, I didn’t contest the title because you were living under that roof.” He picked up his glass of sparkling water and took a slow sip. “Now she can’t even manage your basic living expenses, and she’s letting an outsider walk all over you.” He set the glass down with a crisp click. “So I’m taking the house back.” 4 At 4:58 PM, I stood in front of our apartment door. My father stood beside me, the collar of his wool coat turned up, hands resting casually in his pockets. Behind him stood Mr. Fletcher and the two legal assistants. I pressed the doorbell. “Chime.” Ten seconds later, the lock turned from the inside. Dennis opened the door wearing an apron, his hands dusted with flour—he had probably been making fresh pasta or artisanal bread. He saw me and offered an easy, patronizing grin. “Sylvie, you’re back? Why are you so—” The words died in his throat. His gaze drifted past me to the people in the hallway. More specifically, his eyes locked onto my father. My father was half a head taller than him. He stood there without a word, slowly sliding his sunglasses off and hooking them into the lapel of his coat. Dennis’s smile froze into a grotesque mask. “You… who are…” “Right,” my father said, giving a single nod. His tone was as flat as checking the weather forecast. “I’m her father. It’s been a while.” Dennis’s face went chalk-white. He whipped around and shouted into the apartment, his voice straining. “Brenda! Brenda, get out here right now!” Footsteps echoed from the living room. My mother appeared in the entryway holding a mug of coffee. The second she laid eyes on my father, she didn’t drop the mug, but her hands seized up visibly. “…Patrick?” My father didn’t acknowledge her shock. He walked right past Dennis into the living room and cast a slow, deliberate glance around the space.

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My husband was sleeping around behind my back. When his latest mistress showed up on my front porch, she looked me up and down, offering a sweet, rehearsed smile: “You must be Julian’s daughter, right?” I froze for a heartbeat. Realizing she had mistaken me for his child, I decided to play along. Months later, at Julian’s lavish birthday gala, the city’s high-society elite gathered under the chandeliers. My husband, flushed with champagne and ego, walked into the VIP lounge—only to find me and his mistress sitting side-by-side, holding hands, live-streaming our conversation to hundreds of thousands of viewers. Naturally, the internet broke. 1 Julian and I had been married for two years, and lately, his calendar was suddenly packed with “mandatory client dinners” and “emergency out-of-town conferences.” At first, I didn’t dwell on it. After all, I hadn’t married him for some epic, sweeping romance. Then came a crisp Tuesday morning. Julian had kissed my forehead and left for the office, leaving me nestled on our plush sofa in the sunlit living room, savoring a freshly brewed cup of black coffee. A sharp, impatient knock on the heavy oak door shattered the morning quiet. I frowned, set down my mug, and smoothed out my silk loungewear as I walked toward the foyer. When I opened the door, a completely unfamiliar woman stood on the welcome mat. She wore an understated beige knit dress, two-inch nude heels, and loose, glossy waves that fell gently over her shoulders. Everything about her screamed curated innocence—soft, polished, and impeccably maintained. I had never seen her before in my life. I tilted my head, looking at her with genuine curiosity. “Can I help you?” Before I could finish the sentence, she reached out, taking my hand with an almost maternal tenderness. “You’re Julian’s daughter, aren’t you? I’m a friend of your dad’s. He left his coat at my place last night, so I figured I’d drop it off.” “My dad?” She genuinely thought I was his kid. I held back a smirk and gave her my most wide-eyed, innocent gaze. “Hi! Are you… my dad’s new girlfriend?” She held out Julian’s tailored charcoal jacket, a faint blush creeping up her pale cheeks. “Aren’t you a direct one? You’ll have to let your dad tell you all about it when he gets home.” I took the jacket, feeling the faint trace of unfamiliar floral perfume on the wool. Just last night, Julian had sworn over the phone that he was buried under quarterly financial reports until two in the morning. Turns out, he was simply working overtime in someone else’s bed. I let out a soft, bright laugh and gently pulled her inside by the wrist. “Please, come on in. Have a seat. I get so bored sitting around this big house all by myself.” Flustered, she followed me into the living room, glancing around the high-ceilinged space. “You know, you look just like him around the eyes.” I chuckled. “That’s funny. Nobody’s ever told me that before.” Flashing my trademark sweet, obedient smile, I settled onto the armchair across from her. “So, what’s your name? And how did you and my dad meet?” Her eyes swept over the curated modern art on the walls as she answered, “I’m Audrey. You can just call me Audrey, or Auntie Audrey if you prefer.” I leaned in, resting my chin in my hands, putting on an intensely earnest expression. “Audrey, how old are you? What made you fall for an older guy like my dad?” She ducked her head, waving a manicured hand in modest protest. “Oh, stop. He’s only six years older than me.” I nodded, keeping the grin plastered on my face. “What do you do for work?” “Just an ordinary coordinator at a design firm,” she said softly. Then, after a brief hesitation, she added, “Actually, we’ve crossed paths once before, though you probably don’t remember. Your dad brought you to a private dinner party a while back. That was the first time I realized he had such a gorgeous daughter.” A sudden wave of amusement washed over me. “Really? What does he usually say about me?” Audrey smiled warmly. “He says you’re sweet, well-behaved, and incredibly smart.” “That lecherous hypocrite.” The moment he spots a pretty girl, he erases his marriage and invents an estranged family dynamic. Still, standing at five-foot-three with a petite frame, looking a solid decade younger than Julian—and with the amount of money I spent at the dermatology clinic every month—it wasn’t a stretch for a gullible stranger to believe I was his twenty-something kid. “So,” I pressed gently, “how did the two of you actually cross paths?” Audrey’s lips twitched, her cheeks heating up again. “Well… I was delivering some project proposals to his firm and ended up dropping the files in the lobby. Your dad… he stepped in and helped me out.” A classic knight-in-shining-armor routine. Just as I opened my mouth to dig for more details, her phone buzzed in her designer handbag. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry, I have an appointment across town,” she said, quickly rising to her feet. “It’s almost noon—make sure you order something healthy for lunch, okay?” With that, she pulled two crisp hundred-dollar bills from her wallet and pressed them firmly into my palm. “Next time, we’ll hang out properly. If there’s anything you ever need, just let me know. I have to run!” I curled my fingers around the cash, beaming at her. “Thank you, Audrey! You have to come visit me again soon!” 2 By the time Julian unlocked the front door that evening, I was lounging on the sectional, wearing a sheet mask and scrolling through my tablet. He walked in with that practiced look of tender exhaustion he always put on. “Hey, babe. You seem in high spirits today. Find something fun to do?” I peered at him through the eyeholes of the mask, my smile razor-thin. “Met someone new today. Pretty interesting woman, actually.” Julian gave me an indulgent look, loosening his tie. “That’s good. If staying home gets lonely, feel free to invite your friends over whenever you want.” I held his gaze, my tone light as air. “Will do.” Right on cue, my phone chimed with a notification. Audrey had sent a friend request on Instagram. I accepted immediately. Within thirty seconds, my DMs were flooded with aesthetic photos of four-course home-cooked dinners: braised short ribs, truffle mashed potatoes, perfectly seasoned asparagus. “Look at that—she’s playing the devoted domestic partner.” I typed back a flurry of enthusiastic flattery: “Audrey, this looks incredible! My dad is going to be so lucky. He’s terrible at feeding himself.” Moments later, I posted a photo of the empty kitchen counter to my Story, setting the visibility to Audrey only: “Could anyone be luckier than me? Looks like takeout days are officially over!” One minute later, Audrey replied with a blushing emoji. Right before heading to bed, I tossed out another piece of bait on my Story: “My twenty-fifth birthday is coming up next week… I’m completely obsessed with the new Chanel Classic Flap bag.” Beneath the image, I added a tiny caption: “Whoever gets me this is officially the best human being on the planet.” Satisfied, I peeled off my mask, applied my night serum, and went to sleep with the quiet serenity of someone who holds all the cards. Two days later, a courier arrived carrying a black ribbon-tied box. Inside sat the exact black lambskin Chanel bag, gleaming with pristine gold hardware. Audrey was certainly putting her money where her heart was. All this just to win over the spoiled daughter of an older man she barely knew. That evening, when Julian came home, I purposely slung the bag over my shoulder and spun around the entryway. “How do you like it? Does it suit me?” Julian glanced at it, his forehead creasing with subtle irritation. “I honestly don’t get you women. You have a closet full of leather, and you still keep buying more.” “Can’t bear the price tag? Just say so.” I ignored him, stepped into the bedroom, and snapped a photo of me hugging the bag, posting it straight to my private story for Audrey. “Oh my god. How is it possible for someone to be this sweet and generous? I am completely in love with her.” Audrey replied instantly: “As long as you love it, sweetheart! Next time your dad has a free weekend, the three of us will go shopping together.” I stared at the screen, stifling a laugh. Julian’s birthday was right around the corner. When Audrey and I walked into the room together, his face was going to be a work of art. “Audrey, you really don’t have to spend this much on me,” I typed back, adopting a contrite tone. “If my dad finds out, he’ll lecture me for taking advantage of you.” Audrey: “It’s our little secret! If neither of us says anything, how will he ever know?” I hit back with simulated hesitation: “Could we keep the fact that we’ve already met between us for now? When you guys eventually get married, imagine how happy he’ll be to see that we already get along so well! It’ll be the ultimate surprise.” Audrey: “I love that idea. Deal—it’s our secret.” “Yes,” I thought, locking the screen. “A secret.” Julian was certainly in for a surprise. 3 The next evening, Julian walked in to find several luxury shopping bags piled neatly on the foyer bench. A shadow of annoyance flickered across his eyes. He took a heavy breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “More shopping? Look… it’s not that I mind you treating yourself, but we have to start thinking about our long-term investments, don’t we?” I nodded solemnly. “You’re totally right, babe. But these were all gifts from a friend. I didn’t spend a single dime.” Julian scoffed. “Right. Designer clothes and shoes? Who’s the idiot handing out thousands of dollars in luxury goods to a stranger?” I looked at him with an innocent, knowing smirk. “You’d be surprised. There really are people that generous out there. Remember that new friend I told you about? I’m thinking of bringing her over for dinner sometime soon.” Julian didn’t press further. He clearly assumed I had somehow networked my way into a circle of wealthy suburban heiresses, likely calculating how he could eventually leverage their family connections for his own business. Julian and I had met through a high-end matchmaking setup right after I finished my bachelor’s degree. To be blunt: he wanted a young, presentable trophy to host dinners, and I wanted financial stability. Immediately after the wedding, he urged me to settle into the role of a full-time socialite wife, depositing eight thousand dollars into my personal account every single month. His favorite speech was always the same: “Just relax at home, darling. With my current executive salary and equity, I make more than enough to take care of you. Once the market settles, we’ll start thinking about a baby.” I had hesitated at first, but ultimately played along. Compared to grinding sixty hours a week in corporate America, living comfortably on his dime wasn’t a terrible compromise. I treated Julian like a demanding CEO—my only real job was managing his ego and keeping his domestic life frictionless. Meanwhile, to keep from losing my mind, I quietly built a lifestyle social media presence, amassing a respectable following of over a hundred thousand subscribers. Whenever Julian felt guilty about his late nights, he’d bring home two dozen long-stemmed roses, dropping to one knee with rehearsed theatricality: “You sacrifice so much for our home, sweetheart. I promise, everything I do is for our future.” I would take the roses, smile, and let him play his part. Over time, our conversations dwindled to logistical updates about groceries, dry cleaning, and vacation bookings. His attention drifted, finding distractions elsewhere. I harbored no illusions about him; divorce was always a matter of “when”, not “if”. Audrey wasn’t the first side piece I’d discovered, but she was by far the most naive. So naive, in fact, that it almost broke my heart. A woman this hopelessly trusting didn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud by a predatory narcissist like Julian. If Julian wanted to play with fire, he was going to burn his own house down. 4 While Julian remained lost in his fantasy of keeping a docile wife at home and a fresh romance on the side, I spent my afternoons orchestrating his downfall. Ever since her initial visit, Audrey had thrown herself wholeheartedly into the role of a doting stepmother. “Don’t skip breakfast! Cut back on the iced coffee, okay?” “There’s an indie pop concert in the city this weekend—do you want to go together?” Every few days, another package would arrive at the door: limited-edition sneakers, cashmere scarves, rare skincare sets. I finally understood how Julian had hooked her. It wasn’t that his charms were irresistible; it was simply that Audrey was entirely defenseless against calculated affection. She treated me with genuine, uncalculated warmth, spending money on me like it was water. Eventually, curiosity got the better of me. “Audrey, how do you afford all this on a coordinator’s salary?” Audrey covered her mouth, letting out a soft laugh. “Oh, sweetie, don’t you worry about that. Your dad gave me an unlimited corporate card for our daily expenses.” She patted my hand affectionately, and I forced an appreciative nod. “How extraordinarily generous of my husband, using our marital assets to buy my cooperation.” “Audrey,” I said, tilting my head, “you and my dad have been together for a while now. Has he talked about popping the question?” A soft pink flush rose along her neckline. “He mentioned wanting to meet my parents, but they’re traveling in Europe until next month.” I breathed an internal sigh of relief. At least only one naive victim had fallen into his trap so far. “My parents told me that as long as I’m happy, they give their blessing,” Audrey continued, looking at me with gentle, empathetic eyes. “Honestly, my biggest concern was always you. I wanted to be sure you could accept me. Your dad told me that your biological mother walked out right after you were born, and that you grew up mostly with nannies… It must have been so lonely for you.” I nodded vigorously. “Oh, absolutely tragic.” I had been technically deceased in his fictional backstory for twenty-five years—how could I not feel wronged? That Saturday, Audrey texted me to go window shopping. “Your dad’s birthday is coming up. Want to help me pick out something special for him?” “Of course,” I texted back. “He’s worked so hard all these years. We definitely need to give him an unforgettable surprise.” Seeing that I was completely on her side, Audrey excitedly bought me three designer dresses during our trip. Three days later, on Julian’s actual birthday, he called me around noon to say he’d be stuck at the office until midnight. “Babe, is work really that chaotic today?” I asked in a sweet, concerned voice over the line. “Wait… why did you put on your bespoke navy suit this morning if you were just pulling an all-nighter at your desk?” Julian had spent fifteen minutes preening in front of the full-length mirror that morning, humming to himself while adjusting his silk tie. Over the phone, he cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, like you always say, dressing for the part commands respect from the board. It’s an important executive meeting.” “Of course, darling. Good luck with the presentation. I’ll have a late-night supper waiting when you get home.” “Thanks, babe. I knew you’d understand.” I hung up, looking at the silent screen. “Oh, I understand completely.” 5 That evening, using the location pin Audrey had casually shared with me, I arrived at “L’Auberge”, an upscale French restaurant downtown. I booked a private dining booth right next to theirs. The heavy mahogany partitions offered decent acoustic privacy, but through the decorative lattice near the ceiling, I could still hear Julian’s pompous voice floating over the ambient jazz. “Don’t worry, Audrey. In just a few months, once the company restructuring is finalized, I’m going to give you the wedding of your dreams.” “Pathetic.” “My position at the firm is rock solid. The managing partners rely on me for everything—I’m practically in line for Senior Partner.” “Keep digging that hole, Julian.” I took a slow sip of iced water, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat, before dialing Julian’s cell. “Ring… ring… ring…” “The subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable—” The coward didn’t dare answer in front of her. I immediately redialed. Through the wall, I heard Audrey say softly, “Julian, is that an urgent work call? You can take it.” “Right. Let me just step out to the corridor for a second, darling. Be right back.” Heavy footsteps echoed on the parquet floor outside my booth. He stopped right near my doorway. He answered, his tone clipped and hushed. “What is it?” “Julian? Why are you whispering?” Before he could fabricate an excuse, I cut in cheerfully, “I booked a private booth at “L’Auberge” with a few friends. I was just wondering what time you’d wrap up so we could celebrate your—” “What? You’re at “L’Auberge”?” His voice cracked with panic. “Yeah! Booth 205. We wanted 203, but someone had already reserved it.” Silence hung in the hallway. Booth 203 was his booth. I was sitting less than four feet away from where he was having his romantic rendezvous. “Uh… babe, the reception in this building is terrible. Hello? Can you hear me—” Through the gap in the partition, I watched Julian duck his head, scurrying back toward his booth like a cornered rat. Ten minutes later, I sent him a follow-up text: “Babe, don’t worry about driving back to pick me up. I’m right outside the restaurant lobby. Just come straight over when your meeting ends!” Julian, frantic and sweating through his bespoke shirt, apparently told Audrey he needed to use the restroom. Over the next ten minutes, my phone lit up with seven frantic missed calls from him. I left every single one on silent. If I was staging a production, the curtains weren’t coming down early. When he finally rushed into Booth 203 to grab his coat and make an exit, he froze. There I was, sitting comfortably beside Audrey, sharing a bread basket and laughing over a glass of Pinot Noir. Julian’s face drained of all color. “Audrey? What… what are you doing here?” I turned to him, beaming with pure, innocent delight. “Surprise, Dad! Audrey and I planned this whole thing together for your birthday. Aren’t you thrilled?” Julian stood paralyzed, his jaw slack, nodding like a malfunctioning animatronic. The rest of the dinner passed in excruciating, suffocating tension, with Julian barely able to swallow his steak. Late that night, after we returned home and Julian retreated to the guest bathroom, my phone vibrated with a message from Audrey. “Your dad seemed completely off tonight. At first he was talking about marriage, and then he barely said a word for two hours. Do you think he’s hiding something from me?” I typed back with measured calm: “I’m sure he was just stressed about work. He carries so much pressure on his shoulders.” Audrey replied with a sigh: “I suppose having an ambitious man has its downsides, but it’s still admirable.” I locked my phone, letting out a cold laugh in the dark. “Ambitious?” He had the appetite of a predator and the spine of a jellyfish. Over the past month, Audrey had genuinely believed every word of the daughter persona. And knowing her the way I did now, I was certain she had no idea she was the “other woman.” I wanted to tell her the truth, but I worried she was already too emotionally invested. Yet watching a decent, if naive, woman walk straight into Julian’s web felt wrong. Fortunately, the universe handed me the perfect opening.

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The night my husband’s childhood sweetheart returned from abroad, she insisted on playing a party game called “Snap Judgment.” The rules were simple: the host would read a personality trait, and on the count of three, everyone had to point to the person who embodied it best. No hesitations. Pure instinct. “First one,” the host announced with a grin. “A controlling, suffocating narcissist.” My younger brother, Cody—a boy I had raised with my own two hands after our mother died—didn’t hesitate for a fraction of a second. His finger pointed straight at my chest. My breath caught. In the sudden quiet of the dining room, the dull ache in my left shin flared, an echo of the winter I shattered my bone working double shifts on slick asphalt just to pay his college tuition. “Next,” the host called out. “A black hole of negative energy. Utterly exhausting to be around.” Tara, my best friend of over a decade, raised her hand and aimed her index finger directly at my face. A memory flashed behind my eyes: the night I dragged her out of her abusive uncle’s house, blood dripping down my collarbone, trembling in terror as the man’s fists pounded against the locked door of my beat-up sedan. I kept my mouth shut. “And finally,” the host cheered, “the absolute love of Travis’s life.” Every single hand at the table broke the rules and turned toward Whitney. My hand remained frozen in midair, suspended in the cold air between us. Travis, my husband—a man known for his icy, unflappable demeanor in boardrooms and private clubs alike—wore a soft, indulgent smile I had never seen before. “Wait,” Travis teased, nudging Whitney with his shoulder. “I thought the prompt was supposed to be ‘the most pathetic, jealous deadweight’? If you change it without telling me, I might’ve instinctively pointed at Bridget. You would’ve thrown a fit.” Whitney pouted, brushing her manicured hand over his arm in a practiced show of intimacy. “Subconscious reactions are the only ones that count! I just wanted to see if I was still number one in your heart.” A hollow numbness washed over me. Tara was still smiling warmly at them. Cody was happily pouring vintage Cabernet for the table, right next to a towering crystal bowl filled with fresh strawberries—a fruit I was severely, dangerously allergic to. In that quiet, crystalline moment, a profound exhaustion settled into my marrow. Under the edge of the mahogany table, my trembling fingers found the folded ultrasound in my pocket. I tore it into tiny, silent confetti. They were right about one thing: I had spent years trapped in a cage made of one-sided devotion. It was time I learned how to love myself. … Noticing my pale face, Whitney tilted her head, her wide eyes brimming with faux innocence. “Oh gosh… it was just a silly game, Bridget. You aren’t actually upset, are you?” Travis reached out, casually ruffling her glossy brown hair with familiar tenderness. “Whitney speaks before she thinks. It’s just a game, Bridget. Don’t be petty.” The silent warning in his gaze was unmistakable. I stayed quiet. Travis’s brow furrowed in annoyance. Cody and Tara’s expressions cooled instantly. The dining room plunged into that suffocating silence I knew all too well. It was a familiar script: no matter who started the fire, I was always the one blamed for the smoke. Like my last birthday. I had driven across town in a torrential downpour, arriving at the reserved lounge only to find an empty table. I stood in the freezing rain, dialing their numbers over and over. Past midnight, Travis finally called back to say Whitney had been craving authentic French cuisine, so they had moved the party across town. The only reason he remembered to call was to ask if I could pick up Whitney’s favorite matcha latte on my way over. I hadn’t gone. I went back to our empty townhouse and cried until morning. The next day, all three of them accused me of making a scene, claiming my oversensitivity had ruined Whitney’s night with unnecessary guilt. When I tried to defend myself, they treated me like a ghost for two weeks, stepping over me even when I was bedridden with a hundred-and-three-degree fever. In the end, I was the one who broke. I swallowed my pride, baked Whitney pastries, and bought her a bottle of expensive perfume just to end the cold war. For years, whenever they put on those icy, disapproving masks, I would instantly apologize out of sheer panic. Not tonight. “And what if I am petty?” I asked, my voice calm, cutting through the clinking silverware. “What if I choose to care?” Travis’s easy smirk froze. Whitney blinked, startled, then quickly slipped her phone out beneath the table. A second later, three distinct chimes sounded in unison. Their private group chat. A chat I had once begged Travis to add me to. He had only chuckled back then, his tone dripping with quiet condescension: “You dropped out of college, Bridget. You don’t have the background to follow our conversations. You’d just be a buzzkill. Don’t embarrass yourself.” I had never brought it up again. After a few frantic taps on her screen, Whitney produced an opulent velvet box from behind her chair. “It’s my fault! Please don’t be mad at the guys, Bridget! We really do love you!” She opened it with a flourish. “Look, we even picked out a homecoming gift for you!” Inside lay an exquisite, designer backless cocktail dress in an extra-small—a silhouette and size completely opposite to mine. Tucked into the silk lining was a handwritten card: “Welcome home to our princess, Whitney.” Cody reacted first, hastily snatching the box away. “Whitney, you grabbed the wrong one! That’s yours. Bridget could never fit into something like that.” Tara quickly dragged out a battered brown cardboard box from under the side table, offering a strained laugh. “Whitney just got back from Paris, so of course we got her something nice. Don’t overthink it, Bridget. Here, this is yours.” I opened the cardboard box without a word. Inside was a thin, scratchy polyester apron. Frayed seams, dollar-store fabric. Before I could even register the insult, Whitney’s eyes welled with tears. “I’m so sorry… I always mess everything up. I made Bridget unhappy again. Maybe I should just leave…” Cody grabbed her arm, glaring at me with genuine disgust. “Bridget, apologize to her right now! Whitney has a master’s degree, she’s gorgeous, and you didn’t even finish your sophomore year. How can you blame Travis for admiring her? You need to look in the mirror!” Tara guided Whitney gently toward Travis’s shoulder, chiming in, “Travis and Whitney make sense together on every level. You should just accept that, Bridget, instead of constantly competing with her.” My fingernails bit into the meat of my palms. A bitter, disbelieving laugh escaped my lips. “Did all of you conveniently forget,” I whispered, “why I never finished my degree?” The color drained from their faces. I didn’t wait for an answer. I pushed my chair back and walked up the stairs to the master bedroom. The moment the heavy door clicked shut, the tears I had held back for years spilled over. Memories flooded the dark room like dirty water. The year my mother died of cancer, Cody and I were left with nothing. Not long after, Tara showed up on my doorstep in the dead of night, bruised and sobbing, begging for sanctuary from an uncle who planned to traffic her off to clear his gambling debts. Our meager savings couldn’t cover living expenses, let alone tuition for three people. I worked three jobs—waitressing until 2 a.m., cleaning office buildings at dawn, stocking warehouse shelves in the afternoon. I poured every penny into their college funds while my own body deteriorated with chronic joint pain. When Whitney first appeared in Travis’s circle, Cody and Tara used to complain about how entitled and boundary-crossing she was. Then, slowly, the tide turned. Cody started raving about how cultured Whitney was, how she could debate global economics while I could only talk about grocery coupons. Tara began gushing over Whitney’s performative charity galas. Whenever I voiced my unease to Travis, he would look at me with weary disdain: “I gave you chances to go back to school, Bridget. You didn’t take them. Stop slandering Whitney out of jealousy.” They forgot. They chose to forget that Whitney had stolen my senior thesis, submitted it under her own name, and then used her family’s lawyers to frame me for academic fraud. I was expelled in disgrace. When I finally managed to secure the digital timestamps proving she stole my work, Travis had simply sighed, pulling me into a dismissive hug. “Whitney made a reckless mistake. As punishment, I’m sending her abroad for two years. Let it go, Bridget. For me.” I gave in. I sacrificed my name, my education, my entire future for him. And two years later, all it bought me was the label of a jealous, uneducated nag. Wiping my face dry, I pulled out a burner phone I had hidden away weeks ago. I dialed a number I had memorized long ago. “Micah,” I texted my former classmate, now a partner at a top family law firm. “I want a divorce. Help me take everything.” Before the screen faded, the bedroom door was shoved open. Travis walked in, his expression softening into that practiced, patronizing warmth. He reached out to stroke my hair. “Still brooding? Whitney is younger; we have to accommodate her a bit. Why let her get under your skin?” I said nothing. He poured a glass of warm water from the nightstand and brought it to my lips, his fingers moving to massage my temples with that gentle rhythm he always used whenever I was on the verge of a breakdown. “You’ve always wondered why I indulge Whitney so much,” he murmured softly. “The others told me not to tell you so you wouldn’t worry, but I don’t want secrets between us.” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “A few years ago, when I was caught in that catastrophic earthquake during my business trip in the mountains… it was Whitney who dragged me out of the collapsed hotel ruins with her bare hands. I owe her my life, Bridget.” He sighed, looking down at me with heavy tenderness. “Because of that debt, there are things I can never punish her for. Including your college thesis.” A chilling silence dropped over me. Travis had indeed survived that devastating earthquake. But the person who had pulled him from the rubble was me. The day the news broke, I had driven frantically toward the disaster zone, running red lights, abandoning my car when the roads cracked open, and hiking miles through mudslides. Even after search-and-rescue teams declared the collapsed concrete slab hopeless, I refused to stop. I clawed through pulverized cement and rebar for four agonizing hours until my fingernails were ripped raw and bleeding. When the secondary aftershock hit, the ceiling gave way. With zero time to escape, I used my own body to shove Travis’s unconscious frame into the rescue void. He made it out unscathed. My lumbar spine was crushed. The trauma surgeons told me there was a seventy percent chance I would never walk again. In my despair, and terrified that the guilt would destroy Travis’s ambitious career, I made Cody and Tara swear to keep it a secret until I completed my grueling, agonizing physical therapy abroad. How had that sacrifice ended up bearing Whitney’s name? I opened my mouth to confront him, but a wave of sudden, heavy drowsiness hit me like a physical blow. My limbs turned to lead. Travis leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. “Stop overthinking. Get some sleep. I’ll come back to tuck you in later.” The door clicked shut. Darkness dragged me under before I could fight it. I intended to wake up and demand answers. But what woke me hours later was the loud, celebratory pop of a party popper downstairs. Then came Tara’s nervous whisper through the vent: “We’re being so loud… what if Bridget wakes up?” Travis’s voice drifted up, cool and confident: “Don’t worry. I crushed enough sleeping pills into her water. If she woke up and threw another tantrum, the entire welcome party would be ruined.” My heart stopped. I dragged my numb, trembling body out of bed, crawling on hands and knees toward the door, peering through the slight crack. Downstairs, Whitney stood in the center of the living room, flanked by Cody and Tara, with Travis’s arm draped possessively around her waist. Cody sneered, tossing an empty confetti cannon aside. “Seriously. She’s pushing thirty and still acts like a delicate princess expecting the world to revolve around her. Always blabbering about ‘our home’—she’s so stupid she hasn’t even realized the deed to this penthouse is in Whitney’s name.” Travis chuckled, shaking his head. “She’s been with me a long time. Once her emotions stabilize, I’ll figure out a way to break it to her. Just don’t let it slip yet.” Tara and Cody gave him an easy thumbs-up. A wave of ice rushed through my veins. When Travis proposed, I had been insecure about my lack of family wealth and urged him to reconsider. He hadn’t answered right away. I thought he was having second thoughts. But the next morning, he showed up on my doorstep with a property contract, his eyes shining with pure devotion: “If your childhood never gave you a safe haven, Bridget, this house is our sanctuary. You will never be homeless again.” I had believed him. That promise was the anchor that kept me tied to him. And even that anchor was a lie. Using the wall for support, I dragged myself to the master closet safe. My shaking fingers typed in Whitney’s birthday. “Click.” The heavy door swung open. At the bottom lay the deed. On the surface, my name was printed clearly on the ownership certificate. But when I peeled the edge, the thin sticker came off. Beneath it, in bold, stamped ink: “Whitney Edward.” The very last ember of love in my chest burned to cold ash. I turned blindly to pack my suitcase, but my bare foot came down on something razor-sharp. A jagged, searing pain shot through my sole as warm blood pooled onto the hardwood. A sharp gasp escaped my throat. “Why are you awake?!” Travis’s voice cracked as he yanked the bedroom door open. Seeing the red stain spreading beneath my foot, he froze. “What happened? How are you bleeding?” Whitney rushed up behind him, covering her mouth in dramatic horror. “Oh no! I’m so sorry! When I was hanging the gallery wall earlier, I dropped a box of heavy brass tacks—one must have rolled inside!” I followed her gaze out toward the hallway. The entire corridor was lined with newly framed, professional portraits of Travis and Whitney holding each other, smiling against scenic backdrops. A sharp pang lanced through my ribs. When we got married, I had begged my brother Cody—a professional portrait photographer—to take a set of wedding photos for us. Travis had refused, claiming he hated cameras. Cody had flatly told me I wasn’t photogenic enough to waste his studio time on. Our only official photograph together was the grainy shot on our marriage certificate. Travis stepped forward, frantically attempting to smooth things over. “Whitney never got to take bridal portraits before going abroad. She just wanted to model the gowns for fun. Don’t take it the wrong way.” “And the dates?” My voice cracked, turning toward Tara. “You knew the whole time, didn’t you?” My gaze dropped to the timestamp on the lower corner of a beachside portrait. That was the week of our scheduled honeymoon. Travis had supposedly vanished on an urgent, top-secret corporate acquisition. During that lonely, miserable week, Tara had stayed by my side, taking me on drives to distract me. I had felt so grateful to have such a loyal best friend. It had all been an orchestrated cover. Meeting my shattered stare, Tara didn’t look remorseful. Instead, her chin jerked upward, her voice turning venomous: “So what if I knew? Do you have any idea that Whitney had a miscarriage because of your wedding?! If it weren’t for you playing the victim, Travis would have married her years ago!” Tara took a menacing step toward me. “A barren woman who can’t even carry a child has no right to stand in the way of their happiness! How dare you judge me?!” “Shut up, Tara!” Travis snapped, his face pale as he tried to grab my arm. “Bridget, it wasn’t what you think! It was one drunken mistake before we finalized our vows, nothing more! Whitney never held it against you—” I couldn’t hear him anymore. Tara’s words rang in my ears like a death knell. She knew better than anyone on this earth why I could never carry a pregnancy easily! When I threw myself between her and her drunken uncle, I tumbled down a rocky ravine during our escape. A jagged limestone rock pierced deep into my lower abdomen, rupturing my uterus. After the emergency surgery, the doctors told me it would be nearly impossible for me to conceive. Tara had wept on her knees by my hospital bed for days, swearing she would spend the rest of her life repaying me. And now, she threw that ruined womb in my face like a moral failing. Years of buried agony, silent suffering, and swallowed dignity erupted from my chest in a raw, blood-curdling scream: “WHAT IF I’M PREGNANT RIGHT NOW?!” Silence crashed over the room. No one rushed to check on me. Instead, the heavy crystal tumbler in Whitney’s hand slipped, shattering violently against the floor. “Enough!” Whitney shrieked. A flying shard of glass grazed my cheek, drawing a line of crimson. Travis didn’t even glance at my bleeding face; he lunged forward instantly to shield Whitney. Whitney violently shoved his hands away, pointing an accusatory finger at me while tears streamed down her face. “You know my baby died because of you, and you still make up disgusting lies just to stab me in the heart?! Do you hate me that much?!” “Fine! If I’m such an eyesore, I’ll just leave! You don’t have to fabricate such pathetic lies to push me out!” She turned and sprinted toward the front door. Cody and Tara scrambled after her in a panic, throwing venomous glares at me as they passed. Travis hesitated for a single second, his eyes turning arctic as he looked back at me. “You’ve crossed a line, Bridget. Using Whitney’s deepest trauma as a cheap prop. If you ever pull a stunt like this again, we’re getting a divorce.” He turned on his heel and rushed out into the night. The heavy front door slammed shut. I stood alone in the quiet penthouse. I didn’t cry. The numbness had finally set in. I packed my few personal belongings into a single duffel bag and walked out into the cool night air. The moment I checked into a discreet downtown boutique hotel, my phone buzzed with an encrypted PDF from Micah’s private investigator. Dozens of high-resolution photographs loaded onto the screen, carving my chest open. While I was slaving over hot stoves cooking dinners for my ungrateful family, Travis and Whitney were watching the Northern Lights in Iceland. While I was pulling all-nighters proofreading Travis’s corporate proposals, they were surfing together in Bali. Even during the week I spent in physical therapy for my damaged spine, they were caught on camera kissing under the Tokyo Tower. Tara and Cody had documented it all on private social media accounts, captioning the photos: “Hoping the one we love most stops sacrificing herself, so she and her soulmate can finally live freely in the light.” A wave of nausea hit me. My phone rang. Micah’s steady, reassuring voice came through the line: “Bridget, I’ve reviewed the files. The infidelity is indisputable and fully documented. In this state, we have more than enough grounds to enforce the prenuptial fault clauses and strip him of his marital assets. I’m filing the initial complaint in the morning.” He paused, his voice softening. “Also… I located the official search-and-rescue logs from the 2018 alpine earthquake. The original dispatch recordings and medical intake forms are attached to the file…” Before I could answer, the door of my hotel room was violently kicked open. Travis stood in the doorway, his face dark with fury. Behind him stood four bulky private security guards. With a flick of Travis’s wrist, the men lunged forward, pinning me face-down against the carpet before I could scream. “Travis! What the hell are you doing?!” He looked down at me from above, his eyes completely void of warmth. “The medical board has issued an involuntary psychiatric hold. As your legal husband, I am admitting you to a private facility for severe emotional instability and clinical psychosis.” I stared up at him in sheer horror. “Are you insane?! On what grounds?!” Travis let out a dry, chilling laugh and held up his tablet, hitting play on a video. On the screen sat my biological father—a violent alcoholic who had beaten my mother, neglected Cody, and tried to sell me off for cash before walking out on us a decade ago. The old man was weeping on camera, speaking to Tara in an official interview setup, tearfully accusing me of elder abuse, abandonment, and sociopathic behavior. Cody appeared next in the footage, looking somber as he nodded along: “My sister has severe personality disorders. She’s pathologically jealous, emotionally erratic, and constantly tries to destroy healthy relationships around her…” At the end of the video, Tara presented a forged psychiatric evaluation diagnosing me with severe antisocial personality disorder. Travis leaned down, his voice a low hiss in my ear: “Your little joke drove Whitney to the brink of suicide tonight. Until she forgives you, you’re going to stay locked up and learn some manners. When she lets you out, you will get on your knees and beg for her mercy.” He straightened up and gestured to the guards. “Take her to the transport van. Don’t let her see anyone.” Terror like I had never known gripped my throat. “No! Travis, stop! I didn’t lie to you! I am pregnant! Check the local clinic, call my doctor! Please, Travis, look at me!” Travis’s steps faltered for a microsecond. Then, his phone rang. Whitney’s frantic, hysterical weeping echoed from the speaker. Travis’s jaw tightened, and he walked out into the corridor without looking back. “Stop using pathetic lies to manipulate me. It disgusts me.” As soon as Travis’s footsteps faded down the hall, the guards locked the suite door behind him. Ugly, predatory grins spread across their faces. “Miss Edward told us to have a little fun with you first,” one sneered, grabbing my blouse. “Let’s see how crazy you really are, sweetheart.” Fabric ripped down the middle. I fought back with everything I had, kicking, biting, thrashing against their weight. In the violent struggle, my lower abdomen slammed hard against the sharp corner of the heavy wooden coffee table. A blinding, tearing agony ripped through my core. “Shit… blood! Look at the floor!” One of the men stumbled back in panic. As the guards scattered in fear, the world around me dissolved into a blur of gray shadows. My vision dimmed, but before my head hit the carpet, a pair of strong, familiar arms caught me in the dark.

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Shane was a man who lived by rigid, impenetrable boundaries. His world was a meticulously guarded perimeter, and nothing that belonged to him was open to casual touch. Whenever I reached for the front passenger door of his sedan, his brow would furrow with immediate irritation. “Sit in the back, Corinne,” he would say, his tone clipped. “I keep my briefcase and files up front.” Whenever I asked to borrow his gaming console on lazy Sunday afternoons, his refusal was equally swift and cold: “No. Your hands sweat. It ruins the silicone grips.” I had spent three years convincing myself that this was simply who he was—a man of order, a man who needed his space. Until the Tuesday of the torrential downpour. I was standing under the narrow awning outside our corporate headquarters, shivering as the rain sheeted off the glass canopy, waiting for him to pick me up. Through the blurred gray deluge, I watched his charcoal Audi pull smoothly up to the curb. Before I could take a single step forward, the passenger door swung open. Shelby—his childhood neighbor, who had arrived in the city that morning—slid effortlessly into the front seat. Her wet, mud-flecked sneakers planted themselves squarely onto his bespoke wool floor mats. Shane didn’t flinch. He didn’t scold her. Instead, a soft, indulgent smile touched the corners of his mouth as he handed her a steaming cup of brown sugar boba tea. It was from the boutique café across town—the one with the two-hour wait that I had begged him to visit with me for months. Every time, he had shot me down with the same dismissive excuse: “I don’t have time to waste on social media fads, Corinne.” I stood motionless in the rain, watching the steam curl against the car’s tinted glass. I didn’t knock on the window. I didn’t wave. I turned around, walked out into the storm, and hailed a cab to the women’s clinic. An hour later, sitting in the sterile, fluorescent-lit waiting room for my surgical termination, my phone buzzed with an Instagram notification. Shelby had just posted a story. In the photo, she was lounging back, holding his customized white controller, a brilliant diamond pendant catching the light against her collarbone. In the blurred background stood Shane, wearing an apron, stirring a simmering pot over the stove—the very same Shane who had once forbidden me from ever cooking bacon in our apartment because he couldn’t stand the smell of hot oil. My mind drifted back to our three-year anniversary dinner just the week before. Over a sparse, quiet meal, Shane had handed me a warranty booklet. He told me he despised wasting hard-earned money on frivolous, flashy trinkets, which was why his anniversary gift to me was a stainless-steel dishwasher. “It’s practical,” he had said with absolute conviction. “It actually adds value to our daily life.” A nurse in blue scrubs opened the consultation door, holding an ultrasound printout. “Corinne? The doctor looked over your scans. The fetal development is textbook. Are you entirely certain you want to proceed with the termination?” I looked at the black-and-white image—the tiny, flickering pulse of life I had carried in secret for five weeks. I had bought a tiny pair of knit booties last Friday, planning to hide them in his glove compartment as a surprise. I swallowed the dry lump in my throat, took the clipboard, and pressed my pen against the release form. “Yes,” I said softly, signing my name across the dotted line. “I’m certain.” There was no point anymore. … When I finally pushed open the apartment door, Shelby was curled up on our sectional, her thumbs dancing furiously over Shane’s controller. A trail of peanut shells littered the hardwood, and opened bags of sour cream chips were scattered across the glass coffee table. Shane had always maintained a near-militant diet. He banned takeout and strictly forbade me from stocking the pantry with processed snacks, citing artificial additives and clean living. Yet whenever Shelby visited from Minneapolis, the kitchen counters magically overflowed with junk food he had personally purchased from the supermarket. As I bent down to untie my soaked sneakers, a sharp, tearing cramp lanced through my lower abdomen. I clutched the entryway console, breathing through the pain. Shane stepped out of the kitchen carrying a ceramic bowl of soup. He glanced at the sofa and called out with fond exasperation, “Go easy on the chips, Shelby. Dinner’s almost ready.” Then, noticing me in the hallway, he set a mug of hot ginger tea on the console table. “If something comes up after work, text me beforehand,” he said, his voice flat. “Don’t leave me idling at the curb for nothing.” He didn’t ask why I hadn’t gotten in the car. He didn’t ask where I had spent the last three hours in the middle of a thunderstorm. For years, I had told myself that his lack of questions was a sign of mature trust. But whenever Shelby traveled into town, Shane turned into an anxious broken record—texting her every twenty minutes to check her highway coordinates, calling repeatedly to warn her never to talk to strangers at rest stops. I picked up the mug and took a small sip. Shelby immediately bounded over, leaning against the hallway wall with an exaggerated groan. “Corinne, you have to talk some sense into Shane,” she pouted, rolling her eyes playfully. “I stood in the drizzle for literally thirty seconds, and he forced an entire bowl of spicy broth down my throat. I’m not twelve anymore! I have an immune system.” She paused, grinning as she pulled a handful of fruit chews from her hoodie pocket and dropped them into my palm. “Good thing he had the decency to bribe me with candy afterward. Otherwise, next time he gets stuck on a boss fight, he can beat it himself.” I looked down at the colorful wrappers in my palm. Without a word, I tipped the mug back and swallowed the ginger tea in one long, scalding gulp. The sharp heat burned down my throat, but it helped drown out the acrid bile rising in my chest. My gaze drifted downward, catching the subtle sparkle of the diamond necklace nestled at Shelby’s throat. No woman truly hates beautiful things. Yet on my birthdays and our anniversaries, Shane’s gifts were always appliances—a robotic vacuum, a dual-door refrigerator, an air purifier. I had spent three years rationalizing his choices, convincing myself that he was simply an analytical, unromantic engineer who didn’t understand women’s vanity. Yet every gift he bought for Shelby was chosen with a breathtaking, deliberate tenderness I had never once received. At the dinner table, I reached with my fork toward the roast chicken. Shane’s hand shot out, lightly batting mine away. “Wait,” he instructed. “Shelby wants to take a picture for her story first.” Shelby flashed a wide, victorious smile. “Shane always knows what’s important.” Throughout our three years together, Shane and I had eaten at countless nice restaurants. In the beginning, I too liked snapping photos of our meals—even if I only ever posted them to private albums. But Shane had always sneered at the habit, complaining that I was letting the food get cold and lecturing me that real life was meant to be lived, not broadcasted for cheap validation. He wasn’t incapable of patience. He simply didn’t care to spend it on me. After taking a dozen angles, Shelby frowned at her screen. She handed the phone across the table to Shane, pressing her palms together in a mock plea. “Shane, be a hero? Your lighting is always better.” Shane’s lips curved into a faint, willing smile. He took the phone, adjusted the angle, and snapped several shots. Shelby peered over his shoulder and gasped. “God, you can totally tell you did photography in college. So much better than my amateur junk.” My fingers tightened around my fork until my knuckles went white. On our vacation to Maine last fall, I had asked Shane to take a picture of me by the lighthouse. Every photo he took was disastrous—eyes closed, chin cut off, framed in the harshest shadows. When I gently asked if he could try taking just one more, he had tucked the phone into his pocket with an indifferent shrug. “That’s just what your face looks like, Corinne. I can’t change reality.” Halfway through the meal, Shelby tapped her glass with her spoon. “Okay, big news. I have a surprise.” Shane chuckled, refilling her water glass. “I don’t trust your surprises. In eleventh grade, you swore you had a life-changing surprise, dragged me over the campus fence, and it turned out you just wanted me to buy you street tacos. And then in senior year—” “Shane!” Shelby flushed, swatting his arm. “Stop airing my dirty laundry in front of your girlfriend!” The seamless, private cadence of their banter hung between them like a bulletproof glass wall, sealing me out in the cold. The food on my plate tasted like damp paper. In my pocket, my phone vibrated. It was an email notification from HR at corporate headquarters: my request for a lateral transfer to the Denver branch had been officially approved. Two weeks ago, my VP had privately asked if I wanted to lead the operations team in the newly established mountain territory. I had initially turned it down, terrified of what long-distance would do to my relationship with Shane. Now, with the pregnancy terminated and the illusion shattered, there was nothing left tying me to this city. After a few more minutes of teasing, Shelby cleared her throat, suddenly serious. “Actually, the real news is… I resigned from my firm in Minneapolis.” She turned her eyes toward me, wide and pleading. “Corinne, do you mind if I crash on your couch for a little while until I figure things out?” Before I could even part my lips to speak, Shane answered for me. “Why are you asking her? The guest room has always been yours.” He reached across the table and dropped a glazed sweet-and-sour rib onto my plate. “Besides, Corinne isn’t petty like that.” He was always like this. He remembered the dishes I liked, yet had no qualms about standing over a hot stove cooking them for another woman. The doctor’s discharge instructions specifically warned against heavy, greasy foods for the next forty-eight hours. I left the rib untouched. Later that evening, Shelby called out from the hallway linen closet, holding up a soft pastel baby blanket and a small plush rattle I had bought weeks ago. “Shane! Am I missing something? Are you guys hiding a baby announcement from me?” Shane’s expression instantly shuttered. “Not even close,” he said coldly. He grabbed the items from her hands, tossed them into the closet, and walked straight into the master bedroom, shutting the door behind him with a sharp click. “Corinne, what the hell is this?” he demanded, keeping his voice in a harsh whisper. “Haven’t I told you a hundred times that we aren’t discussing kids until after we’re married?” I stared at him, my voice hollow. “Shane… the baby…” “The baby is already gone.” Before I could finish the sentence, Shane walked past me to his nightstand, opened the drawer, and tore open a box of protection, quickly counting the foil wrappers inside. Finding none missing, he let out an audible breath of relief. He had no idea I had been pregnant. He had no idea I had spent the afternoon under general anesthesia on an operating table. In his mind, he had already convicted me of plotting an underhanded scheme to trap him into marriage. Noticing the absolute silence in the room, Shane seemed to realize his reaction had been excessively harsh. He rubbed the back of his neck, offering a stiff, rehearsed apology. “Look, I’m sorry. I just don’t think our careers are in a place for a child right now. And besides… getting pregnant out of wedlock wouldn’t look good for your professional reputation.” Every word was wrapped in the guise of protecting me. Yet on the subject of marriage, he had stonewalled me for three solid years. Whenever I brought up our future, he brushed it off with the same tired excuse: “We work at the same company, Corinne. If people find out about us before the timing is right, it’ll harm our standing.” I was too exhausted to argue. I turned off the bedside lamp, pulled the duvet over my shoulder, and faced the wall. In the past, there was a pathetic, shameful part of me that actually looked forward to Shelby’s monthly weekend visits. Because our condo only had two bedrooms, Shane would finally waive his strict personal boundaries and allow me to share his mattress for two nights. As sleep began to drag me under, a heavy, warm arm slipped around my waist from behind. Shane was never an affectionate man in bed. Once a month was our unspoken, mechanical routine, and after every encounter, he would immediately retreat to sleep on the sofa or the guest bed, claiming he couldn’t fall into a deep REM cycle with another body near him. Once, his rare advances would have made my heart race with desperate gratitude. Tonight, his touch made my stomach twist with violent nausea. I reached down, seized his wrist, and shoved his arm off me. “Don’t touch me. I’m not in the mood.” Shane froze. After a long, tense pause in the dark, he sighed, his voice taking on the tone of an exasperated parent. “Shelby just lost her job, Corinne. I’m giving her a place to land. Stop looking for reasons to be insecure. If there were anything between Shelby and me, I wouldn’t be dating you.” I pulled the pillow over my ear, refusing to give him another syllable. … When the alarm went off the next morning, a dull, thumping ache radiated through my pelvis. As I walked out of the bedroom, I caught Shane lifting Shelby into his arms, carrying her bridal-style out of the guest room. “Shelby’s having terrible menstrual cramps,” Shane said briskly, not even looking at me as he headed for the front door. “I’m driving her to the urgent care clinic. You’ll need to call an Uber to work.” Just hours ago, he had sworn on his honor that their bond was entirely platonic. Yet here he was, carrying a grown woman in his arms without a shred of hesitation, discarding me on the sidewalk like an inconvenient piece of luggage. My voice was dead calm. “I need to go to the clinic as well. Drop me off on your way.” Shane stopped, his eyebrows pulling together in deep irritation. “Can you stop being so childish? I’m taking Shelby because she’s in acute pain, Corinne, not taking her on a joyride!” I swallowed the bitter burn behind my eyes. “I have a follow-up appointment for my own health, Shane. We’re going to the same medical center. There’s no reason to waste money on a rideshare.” At the hospital, Shane practically sprinted through the sliding doors, carrying Shelby straight to the triage nurse. Watching his desperate, panicked strides, a memory flashed unbidden in my mind: two years ago, when a sleazy regional client had tried to corner me in a hotel lounge during a business trip, Shane had arrived with that exact same fierce urgency. The only difference was that the woman he was protecting had changed. The physician examined my post-op recovery, writing out prescriptions for oral antibiotics and tranexamic acid to control the lingering bleeding. As I walked toward the outpatient pharmacy, I passed the curtained observation bays. Through the fabric, I could clearly hear the triage nurse chatting amiably with Shelby. “Your boyfriend is incredible,” the nurse remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a young man who knows his partner’s exact cycle dates and pain thresholds by heart.” I stood frozen in the hallway. Whenever my own period arrived, the cramps left me curled in a cold sweat. Once, when the pain was unbearable, I had submitted a half-day medical leave request through the internal portal, only for it to be summarily rejected by human resources. I later found out it was Shane—as the regional director—who had flagged it. He had pulled me aside in the stairwell that afternoon, saying coldly: “It’s just cramps, Corinne. Everyone deals with them. Don’t use your relationship with me to expect special privileges at work.” Footsteps approached. Shane rounded the corridor carrying a paper cup of hot water. His eyes flicked down to the brown pharmacy bag in my hand. “Where have you been?” he chided, his voice laced with annoyance. “Shelby was in tears earlier. If you were done with your appointment, the least you could have done was sit with her and help out.” I pressed my fingernails into the palms of my hands until the skin nearly broke. “I am a patient here too, Shane.” Shane blinked, caught off guard. Before he could respond, a weak whimper echoed from behind the curtain: “Shane… it hurts…” His face transformed instantly. Without another glance in my direction, he pushed past the curtain and rushed to her side. … When I arrived at the office, my desk mate slipped a warm carton of almond milk onto my desk. “You got lucky,” she whispered, leaning over her partition. “Director Jeffrey took personal leave this morning. Otherwise, with you coming in thirty minutes late, he definitely would’ve used you as a negative example in the all-hands meeting.” She gave me a look of genuine sympathy. “Seriously, Corinne, what did you ever do to get on his bad side? He treats you like public enemy number one.” A heavy weight settled in my chest. No one in the entire company knew that Shane and I had been living together for three years. Under the banner of “strict workplace professionalism,” he refused to sit at the same table as me during team lunches or holiday retreats. When promotion cycles came around, he repeatedly passed me over, awarding the senior managerial spots to colleagues with far lower KPIs because they were “settled with families and needed the stability.” And at last winter’s corporate gala, when I made the mistake of wearing an emerald silk gown that subtly matched his tie, he had publicly rebuked me during the opening remarks: “I expect our team to focus on their deliverables, rather than using personal theatrics to seek attention.” He had bought that dress for me himself. That night, I had become the laughingstock of the entire department. I had wept until my ribs ached, but every single time, I allowed myself to be pacified by his quiet, whispered promises of “next time, I swear.” My phone chimed with an incoming Slack message from Shane. [Shelby wants that slow-braised beef with tomatoes you make. Take the afternoon off and head home to prep it. I already cleared your PTO with HR.] I stared at the screen. His rigid, unyielding professionalism, it turned out, was entirely conditional. I typed back a two-word reply: [I’m busy.] His response was instantaneous and furious. [What is your problem today, Corinne?] [You used to complain constantly about wanting time off. Now that I’m approving it for you, you’re throwing a tantrum?] Looking at the stream of indignant texts, a profound, numbing exhaustion washed over me. I tapped the screen and switched the phone to Airplane Mode. I spent the next three days in complete silence, finalizing my project handovers and organizing my files. Soon, I would be on a flight to Denver, building an entire department from the ground up. The cold war at home deepened. Shane moved his pillows into the study. Whenever he cooked, he strictly prepared two portions—one for himself, one for Shelby. In the evenings, he escorted Shelby to the cinema, to escape rooms, to arcades. When they returned home, they would sit shoulder-to-shoulder on the rug, laughing over cooperative video games. Shelby stopped greeting me altogether, though her social media was a non-stop parade of photos documenting every dinner and excursion Shane took her on. On Friday morning, my desk mate tapped my shoulder, her eyes wide with gossip. “Did you hear? Management parachuted in a brand-new operations manager today. Word is, Director Jeffrey personally wrote a glowing recommendation to the board. Do you think she’s his secret girlfriend or something?” “No,” I answered immediately, my tone completely deadpan. “That’s impossible.” Two years ago, my younger sister was looking for a summer marketing internship during her junior year of college. When I casually mentioned it to Shane over dinner, he immediately flagged her application in the portal, ensuring her resume was the very first one thrown into the reject pile. “Nepotism rots an organization from the inside, Corinne,” he had lectured me with moral superiority. “I hold myself and my team to the highest ethical standard.” I had believed him. Until five minutes later, when the departmental Slack channel pinged with an announcement from Shane. [Please join me in welcoming Shelby to our team as our new Operations Project Manager. Afternoon coffee and pastries are on me.] Attached was a screenshot of an order receipt from the artisanal French patisserie downtown—totaling over four hundred dollars. Yesterday afternoon, I had brought home a small box of tarts from that exact shop. Shane had carried the box into our bedroom, looking at the logo with mild curiosity: “Do all women actually like this place?” At the time, I foolishly thought he was trying to build a bridge, trying to find a gentle way to break our silent standoff. I had nodded and said yes. Now I knew the truth. His rare moment of curiosity was merely market research to help Shelby win over her new subordinates. I didn’t attend the welcome happy hour after work. My handover documentation was complete. My signature on the transfer contract was dry. It was time to walk away. I was in the bedroom zipping my large hard-shell suitcase when the door was kicked open. Shane stormed in, his jaw clenched with fury. Shelby trailed right behind him, her eyes glistening with well-rehearsed tears. “Corinne, what is your deal today?” Shane snapped. Shelby sniffled softly, clutching her designer bag. “Corinne, if you have an issue with me being here, you could have just told me to my face. You didn’t have to humiliate me by boycotting my welcome party.” I stood up, crossing my arms. “And what exactly did I do wrong?” Shane let out a harsh, mocking scoff. “It was Shelby’s first official day with the company, and you deliberately skipped her celebration. How does that make our team look? Or are you deliberately trying to ostracize her because of your petty personal jealousy?” A cold, humorless laugh escaped my lips. “Didn’t you tell me for three straight years that our off-hours belong strictly to our personal lives, and that you despise useless social posturing?” Shane’s expression flickered, caught on his own rhetoric. He pressed two fingers against his temples, struggling to rein in his temper. “You are intentionally twisting my words. Look, I know you’re upset. You feel neglected lately. But Shelby is new to this city, and she doesn’t know anyone in corporate. As her future sister-in-law, shouldn’t you show some basic decency and look out for her?” “Her future sister-in-law.” When I graduated college and moved across the country to this unfamiliar city just to be with him, he had never once worried about whether I was lonely, whether I was struggling, or whether I had anyone to look out for me. “Corinne… if my being here makes you this unhappy, I’ll hand in my resignation tomorrow morning…” Shelby’s voice broke into a delicate sob. She reached out, her fingers catching the sleeve of Shane’s tailored dress shirt. Shane’s gaze softened instantly. He turned and patted the back of her hand with practiced tenderness. “Don’t talk nonsense,” he said, his voice dropping into a gentle murmur. “You earned this position through your own merit. Nobody is forcing you out.” He turned back toward me, the gentleness vanishing, replaced by cold authority. “Corinne, if you continue this childish defiance, I’m going to have to seriously re-evaluate whether you have the emotional maturity to remain a team lead in this department.” Always the same tactic. Every single disagreement over the past three years ended with him threatening to end our relationship or using his corporate rank to put me in my place. Without a word, I slipped my apartment key off my ring and tossed it onto the glass vanity. It landed with a sharp “clink”. Shane’s eyes finally dropped to the packed suitcase resting beside the bed. A wave of disbelief crossed his face. “What is this, Corinne? You’re threatening to run away from home now?” Tears only hold value when they fall before someone who loves you. Walking away works the exact same way. I looked directly into his eyes, my voice devoid of tremor. “If that’s how you want to interpret it, Shane, go right ahead.” Shane sneered, crossing his arms. “Fine. Do whatever you want. Throw your little fit. But let me make one thing crystal clear: when you come back to the office on Monday, drop the attitude. Shelby is your direct superior now, and you will treat her with respect.” “Slam.” He yanked the bedroom door shut, marching down the hall with Shelby. Not a single word of hesitation. Not a single question about where I was going. I stood in the quiet room for a few seconds. I had originally intended to leave quietly, granting us a clean, civilized end. I reached into my handbag, pulled out the folded surgical discharge paper from the clinic, and slid it neatly through the gap beneath the front entryway door. Then I took my suitcase, stepped into the corridor, and didn’t look back.

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In the three years of our secret marriage, my wife, Maeve, never once used a gentle tone with me. Then came the afternoon I walked past her home office and heard her speaking into the receiver, her voice dipped in a honeyed, aching tenderness: “Just wait for me. It’ll all be over soon.” When she hung up and caught me standing in the doorway, that warmth evaporated so fast it felt like a hallucination. “Lurking in the hallway now?” She crossed the room, caught my jaw between her thumb and forefinger, and pinched hard. Her gaze pinned me like I was something crawling out from beneath the baseboards. The man on the other end of the line was the sacred phantom of her youth. He had left the country three years ago, leaving an immaculate, untouchable vacuum in her life. I happened to share seventy percent of his features—a walking placebo her mother had practically shoved into Maeve’s hands to keep her from unraveling. Whenever she drank too much, she would pull me into bed, burying her face against my skin and crying his name. And whenever she sobered up, she despised me with double the fury. She had forced me to buzz off the long, messy curls I had grown for years. “He never wore his hair long.” She purged my wardrobe, replacing every shirt with stark variations of black, white, and slate gray. “He hates loud colors.” Now, she took a glossy brochure from a plastic surgery clinic and tossed it onto the desk in front of me. “A slight shave on the jawline. A subtle incision to widen the corners of your eyes.” Her voice was razor-thin. “Maybe then, looking at you won’t make my stomach turn.” The brochure trembled in my grip. A second later, my phone vibrated in my pocket. A breaking news alert popped up on my screen. “Acclaimed prodigy Alan Langley returns home.” I stared at the headline. My three-year sentence was up. I had saved enough money; it was finally time to go. 1 “Forget what I just said, Jonah.” Maeve snatched the clinic brochure back from my fingers, tore it clean down the middle, and dropped the halves into the wastebasket. Her face had already settled back into its usual frigid detachment, as if the woman who had just bruised my jaw in disgust had vanished into thin air. “I just wired you some money. Go buy yourself whatever you want.” My phone buzzed. A deposit notification: seventy-five thousand dollars. Her signature move. Every time she carved a piece out of my pride, she stuffed my mouth with cash to keep me quiet. Three years of this, and she genuinely believed currency could patch any fracture. I didn’t say thank you. I didn’t push it back. I simply locked the screen. The entertainment alert was still trending. “Alan.” A candid airport shot caught him stepping out of terminal arrivals in a tailored black wool coat, his dark hair cropped short, his right hand buried deep in his pocket. That hand had been crushed in an accident three years ago while pulling Maeve out of a wreckage. They said he would never hold a paintbrush again. Maeve glanced sideways at me, hovering, as though waiting for me to ask questions. I asked nothing. I turned on my heel, went upstairs, dragged my suitcase out from the top of the closet, and began throwing clothes inside. Black, white, slate gray. Every single piece curated by her cold hands. I figured she would present the divorce papers before midnight. Now that the real thing was back, the stand-in had reached his expiration date. I stayed awake until one in the morning, but no paperwork arrived. Instead, she brought Alan home. Muffled voices drifted up from the front foyer. Alan’s tone was modest, polite, carefully restrained. “Maeve, really, a boutique hotel downtown is fine. You don’t need to go through the trouble…” “There’s a guest suite ready. Don’t be dramatic.” Maeve’s voice possessed a softness I had never once earned—the kind of tone you used when trying not to startle an injured bird. Leaning against the second-floor banister in the dim light, I heard her ask, “Your hand… does it still ache?” “Only on rainy days. A dull ache in the joints.” “You’re back now. That’s all that matters.” Four words, delivered with more raw, unshielded sincerity than anything she had spoken to me in over a thousand days. I slipped back into my bedroom, shut the door, and went back to packing. Two hours later, the door clicked open. A heavy wall of scotch and cedar slipped under the sheets. Maeve wrapped her arms around my waist from behind, gripping me with a desperate, crushing strength, like someone clutching flotsam in a storm. “Alan…” she mumbled, pressing her hot face into the hollow of my neck, her breath ragged. Always the same routine. Whenever she drank, she came looking for me. Not for who I was, but for the silhouette of my cheekbones in the dark. I didn’t pull away. I lay rigid, letting her arms tighten around me, letting her whisper another man’s name as she rolled me over onto my back. It didn’t matter anymore. I was leaving anyway. She had paid me excessively well over the years; the savings accumulated in my private account, paired with today’s deposit, were more than enough to fund a quiet, dignified fresh start anywhere I chose. Fighting her was pointless. The last time I had shoved her away, she woke up the following morning and accused me of baiting her, sneering that I had intentionally left my shirt unbuttoned. Yet one detail felt off. Shouldn’t she be downstairs keeping vigil by her muse? Why come up here? I turned my head slightly. In the shadows, I caught the sheen of cold sweat across her forehead and the feverish flush painting the tips of her ears. She looked like someone caught in the grip of an agonizing, internal restraint. I was too drained to analyze it. When I woke the next morning, purple fingermarks circled my wrists. Faint bruises mottled my ribs and collarbones. Maeve was already dressed, buttoning a crisp white silk shirt by the tall windows, backlit by the gray morning glare. Her expression was instantly familiar: contempt, spiked with a defensive, misplaced irritation. “Jonah, since when do you burn gardenia incense in this room?” On the nightstand sat a ceramic jar of gardenia wax. A clean, creamy white floral. I had burned it for as long as I could remember. “It’s been there since the day I moved in.” “Alan burns the exact same scent.” She stepped toward the bed, her fingers clamping around my chin with the exact same bruising pressure as yesterday. “You knew what that fragrance did to my head. You did it on purpose.” I met her gaze, offering no defense. My monthly allowance from her family trust was scheduled to clear in fifteen days. Under our prenuptial agreement, that final disbursement was legally mine. Fifteen days of silence, and I would be free of her orbit forever. “I didn’t do it on purpose, Maeve,” I said quietly. Her grip faltered. She stepped back, the crisp cuff of her sleeve brushing cold against my bare skin. “Don’t light it again.” She turned and walked out. I sat up on the edge of the mattress, my thumb grazing the fresh ache along my jawline, tracing where the bruises overlapped on my wrist. My phone screen lit up on the nightstand. A text from an unsaved contact that had already assigned itself a display name: “Alan.” “Jonah, I hope I didn’t wake you last night. Maeve insisted I take the guest wing, though I tried to decline… Let’s make sure we get along well, okay? :)” I stared at that little smiley face for a long time. Then I closed the message, opened my notes app, and added a line to my checklist: “Call Travis. Confirm the one-way ticket.” Travis had been my only real friend since our college days, back before his family built their commercial real estate firm. Three years ago, when I married into the Charlotte family, he told me I was out of my mind. Turns out, he was right. Downstairs, Alan’s light, cultured laugh drifted up through the floorboards, followed by the effusive voice of Maeve’s mother: “Alan, darling! Let me look at you—you’ve lost far too much weight!” I locked the phone and walked into the bathroom. The man in the mirror had a military buzz cut, a pale, hollowed face, and an oversized gray cotton tee. Three years ago, I used to let my dark hair curl around my ears. I used to wear navy linen shirts and laugh easily. I leaned in closer, studying the reflection. Seventy percent of a resemblance still wasn’t enough. No wonder she wanted a surgeon to shave away the rest of me. I turned the tap, letting ice-cold water wash over my fingers. Fifteen days. All I had to do was survive fifteen more days.

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My parents suffered from severe, chronic anxiety. The only catch was that their anxiety was reserved exclusively for my younger sister, Cathy. Whenever I brought home a test score higher than hers, the house would sink into a suffocating gloom. My parents would stay up all night, pacing the hallway and sighing into the dark, terrified that my success would crush Cathy’s fragile self-esteem. To let them sleep, I learned how to deliberately miscalculate math problems and erase correct answers—orchestrating my grades with surgical precision just so Cathy could stay perched above me. When I hit a growth spurt in middle school and shot up half a head taller than her, my mother broke out in stress hives. She spent thousands of dollars on boutique nutritional regimens and endocrinologist consultations, desperate to give Cathy growth hormone therapy. For years, I told myself they were just overprotective. That worrying was simply how they loved. Then came the afternoon my acceptance letter arrived from the country’s top medical school. There was no celebratory dinner waiting on the stove. No uncorked bottle of wine. No proud smile. It was the biggest milestone of my life, yet my mother sat at the kitchen table, clutching Cathy’s hands with a face full of sorrow. “Your sister is going to be a surgeon,” Mom lamented, her voice trembling as if mourning a tragedy. “Her future is set. But Cathy, with your mediocre grades… what are you going to do? How will you ever survive in this economy?” Dad’s brow was furrowed into deep, brooding trenches. Without looking at me, he made the executive decision: “Tomorrow morning, I’m transferring the deed to the downtown condo entirely into Cathy’s name. At least that way, she’ll have a roof over her head and some leverage in life.” I sat across from them, my fingers frozen around my fork, as a slow, icy ache bloomed behind my ribs. In that quiet moment, the veil dropped. All those years of frantic “anxiety” weren’t a mental health struggle—they were just a convenient disguise for blatant favoritism. They loved Cathy so fiercely, so desperately, that the mere thought of me outshining her, even by an inch, felt to them like an injustice. I stood up, walked calmly back to my bedroom, and pulled out the residency application I had spent months preparing for the premier metropolitan hospital in our city. Without hesitation, I tore it in half. I opened my laptop, navigated to the application portal for the international frontline humanitarian surgical corps—a program deploying trauma doctors straight into active conflict zones—and firmly hit “Enter”. If they planned to spend the rest of their lives building a safety net exclusively for her, then I would rather throw myself into the crossfire of the world, never to return. … Over the next few days, Mom began waking up before dawn to simmer herbal restorative broths. I stood in the kitchen doorway one morning, watching the steam curl against the cabinets. I didn’t have to ask; I already knew the soup wasn’t meant for me. Sure enough, Mom poured it into a porcelain bowl, carried it over to Cathy, and then pulled me into the hallway, whispering under her breath, “We’re going to the Andersons’ graduation party next door tonight. Cathy didn’t get into her target college, and she’s in a terrible mood. You need to come along.” She wrung her hands. “Your sister is so emotionally fragile. Being around other kids celebrating is going to break her heart. Please, Megan, just be mindful…” I looked at the distress etched across her forehead. I said nothing. At the restaurant, the private dining room was packed with neighbors and family friends. Cathy sat right in the center, dressed in a designer pastel sundress, her makeup immaculate, holding court like a pampered princess. The moment I sat down, someone across the table smiled warmly. “Megan! We heard you got into Johns Hopkins for med school! That’s incredible, honey. You’ve worked so hard.” Before I could even murmur a thank-you, Mom cut in with a self-deprecating laugh. “Oh, Megan has always been a bookworm. Doing well on tests comes easy to her,” Mom said, waving a dismissive hand before turning the spotlight back where she wanted it. “It’s our poor Cathy I lose sleep over. Being born after such an academically gifted older sister has been so hard on her self-worth. We worry ourselves sick about her every single day.” Dad chimed in, nodding solemnly. “Exactly. Seeing her sister succeed so effortlessly… Cathy carries that pain inside, even when she doesn’t say a word.” A sudden, uncomfortable silence settled over the table. The neighbors exchanged awkward glances, clearly unsure how to respond to parents actively belittling their high-achieving daughter to comfort the younger one. Yet my parents were entirely blind to their own cruelty. They just kept broadcasting their neurotic worry, expecting everyone else to validate it. Sitting there, an overwhelming exhaustion washed over me. For as long as I could remember, whenever I accomplished something remarkable, the atmosphere at home never turned joyful. It turned anxious. As if my competence were a personal attack on my sister. As if my only duty in this family was to stay small, stay quiet, and stay beneath her so everyone else could remain comfortable. Halfway through the meal, Cathy sighed and announced she wanted an iced matcha latte from the artisanal café down the street. There were a dozen adults at the table, but Mom’s eyes immediately locked onto me. “Megan, run down and grab that for your sister.” I pushed back my chair and stepped out into the humid evening air. The line at the café wrapped around the block. By the time I carried the drinks back up to the private room, the lights were dimmed, and the entire room was singing “Happy Birthday”. I froze in the doorway, the condensation from the plastic cups dripping onto my shoes. It wasn’t Cathy’s birthday. And it certainly wasn’t mine. Dad had simply slipped out and paid the waitstaff to bring in a lavish slice of velvet cake with a sparkler on top—a spur-of-the-moment gesture because Cathy looked downcast and needed cheering up. Mom was holding up her phone, recording Cathy with a doting smile. Dad stood beside her, urging the table, “Come on, everyone, say something sweet to make the girl smile!” I stood by the entrance holding the drink carrier until a neighbor noticed me and said politely, “Megan’s back! Why don’t you two blow out the sparkler together? A double celebration for both sisters.” Dad waved his hand dismissively. “No, no, don’t make a fuss. Megan, hand the drinks out, would you?” In that split second, I didn’t even feel the sharp sting of betrayal. I just felt numb. When we got home that night, I went into our shared room to organize my medical prep binders. Under the corner of the study desk, wedged beneath the heavy wooden leg to keep it from wobbling, were several sheets of crumpled paper. I knelt down and pulled them out. They were my handwritten clinical anatomy notes. The edges were crushed and stained with grime, and the top sheet had a jagged tear straight through my surgical diagrams. I turned toward Cathy. She was lying across her bed, scrolling through her phone, not even bothering to look up. “It’s just paper,” she muttered flippantly. “You’re a genius, aren’t you? Just write it again.” I tightened my grip on the torn pages. “What is wrong with your attitude?” She finally lifted her chin, offering a smug, mocking little grin. “What attitude? You’re leaving for med school anyway. This room is going to be mine soon. I can do whatever I want in here.” I looked down at the ruined ink, and a memory from childhood surfaced unbidden: the first illustrated human anatomy book I had ever saved up to buy. Cathy had dumped it into a sink full of soapy water until the pages turned to mush. When I ran crying to my parents, Mom had only scolded me: “She’s younger than you, Megan. She didn’t mean it. Why can’t you just be the bigger person?” Over the years, the demands only grew. Whenever I tried to stand my ground, my parents would weaponize their sacrifices: “We gave you life, we put food on your table, how can you be so selfish toward your own sister?” Their love was like a soaked wool coat in winter—suffocating when you wore it, freezing when you tried to take it off. I smoothed out the torn sheets one by one, placed them carefully on my desk, and turned back to face her. “Starting today, Cathy,” I said, my voice eerily quiet, “I am never letting you have your way again.” She rolled her eyes, convinced it was an empty threat. A moment later, our parents walked into the room. Dad was carrying a manila folder with the city registry seal visible on the corner—the freshly minted deed to the downtown property. The second he caught me looking, his instinct was to pull the folder behind his back. I looked away, pretending I hadn’t noticed the guilt in his posture, though the bitterness settled deep in my gut. The front doorbell rang. It was Patrick. Patrick and I had grown up together on the same suburban block. For years, our connection had been an open secret—an unspoken, tender understanding that we were waiting until we both finished our degrees before officially defining our relationship. He had always been careful, telling me he didn’t want to distract me while I studied for the MCAT. He walked through the door holding a gift bag, his eyes finding mine with an easy, affectionate smile. “Congratulations, Megan. You did it.” For a fleeting second, a warm flutter bloomed in my chest. Even my parents’ demeanor shifted. Mom rushed to usher Patrick to the sofa, while Dad casually told Cathy to scoot over—effectively clearing the cushion next to Patrick that should have been mine. Cathy was wearing an innocent, docile expression now. She slid right beside him, pushing a plate of sliced fruit toward his hands. “Have some melon, Patrick.” Dad began asking about Patrick’s new design firm. When Patrick mentioned that his startup had just landed a lucrative corporate contract, Mom’s eyes practically lit up. “Young men with your drive and stability are so rare these days,” Mom gushed, leaning forward. “Successful, polite, and so caring…” She paused, letting out a heavy, deliberate sigh. “Our Cathy has always been so vulnerable. If she could only find someone steady like you to take care of her, I could finally sleep at night.” The faint smile on my lips froze solid. Dad jumped in seamlessly. “Megan will always land on her feet. It’s Cathy we have to look out for. But thankfully, we’re setting her up with the downtown condo so she’ll always have leverage, no matter who she marries.” Cathy lowered her head with a shy, coquettish laugh, her hand lightly brushing Patrick’s forearm. “If you have any single business partners, Patrick, you should introduce me. A guy like you must have great friends.” Patrick stiffened slightly. He pulled his arm back, his eyes darting toward me with a flicker of unease. I didn’t touch a single bite of food for the rest of the evening. Every fiber of my being wanted to scream at my parents. I wanted to demand why Cathy was handed the world on a silver platter without ever lifting a finger. Why even my romantic life had to be re-engineered around their anxiety for her. Did I truly have to surrender every piece of my happiness just so Cathy would never feel lacking? In the end, I swallowed every word. After dinner, Patrick offered to walk me downstairs. Out by the curb, under the amber glow of the streetlights, I looked down at my sneakers, the hurt finally cracking through my composure. “Patrick,” I murmured hesitantly, “what if I move out early? What if we find an apartment together near the hospital district?” He stopped dead in his tracks, blinking at me as if I had spoken in another language. “Megan… that’s a bit fast, don’t you think?” he said after an uncomfortable pause. “I mean, we’re just good friends.” The words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. My voice came out raspy, stripped of warmth. “Just friends? Is that what this is?” He took a step back, widening the physical space between us. “Look, your parents might have phrased things clumsily tonight. But they’re just worried about Cathy. She’s never had your drive or your intelligence. It’s natural for the family to look out for her a bit more. Don’t be so petty about it. You’re her older sister—you’re supposed to protect her.” Seeing the look on my face, he softened his tone, though it only made the condescension worse. “You’ve always been the strong one, Megan. You don’t need to keep score over every little thing.” I stared at him. The boy I had spent years caring for. The boy who had promised to stand by me. And in that single moment, I realized his spine was made of the exact same twisted logic as my parents’. “I see,” I said, a hollow laugh escaping my lips. I unclasped the silver pendant necklace he had given me for my twenty-first birthday, reached out, and dropped it into his open palm. His lips parted to say something, but he swallowed it down, turning on his heel and walking away into the night. A strange, quiet clarity settled over me. No matter how hard I ran, no matter how much I accomplished, I could never hold onto anything in this house. The game was rigged. When I walked back inside, I told my parents plainly that Patrick and I were nothing more than casual acquaintances. Mom let out a visible, unvarnished sigh of relief. “Oh, good. That’s for the best.” I didn’t reply. I went straight to my room, shut the door, and dragged my duffel bag from the closet. Halfway through packing, my laptop chimed on the desk. I had an incoming email from the international humanitarian surgical division: “Preliminary Screening Approved.” I scrolled down to the mandatory disclosure section, staring at the bolded liability waiver: “High Risk of Hostile Engagement, Shrapnel, and Mortality.” My heart rate didn’t even spike. In fact, a profound peace settled over my chest. What was a life worth, anyway, when no one in your corner valued it? If my existence meant nothing here, I might as well spend it pulling strangers out of rubble. … A few days before my final deployment briefing, Patrick showed up at my doorstep again. He claimed he wanted to take me out for lunch to clear the air. I initially refused, but eventually agreed, foolishly wondering if he had come to offer a genuine apology. Instead, over our salads at the downtown shopping pavilion, he brought up the same old defense. “Your mom and dad have been stressed about Cathy for twenty years, Megan. It’s just a habit for them at this point,” he reasoned, cutting his steak. “She’s fragile. You’ve always been resilient. You of all people should understand why they cater to her.” He looked at me across the table, his voice low and placating. “You’re better than her in every way. Why can’t you just let her have this?” With those words, the last lingering trace of affection I held for him withered into ash. He didn’t lack understanding; he had simply chosen his side. The pavilion was crowded that afternoon. As we sat in the tense silence, a sudden commotion erupted from the concourse. People were screaming, sprinting toward the exits. A shrill fire alarm began blaring through the ceiling speakers as thick, acrid black smoke poured out from the kitchen vents of a nearby steakhouse. Panic swept through the corridor like a wave. And then my blood ran cold: through the rushing crowd, I saw my parents and Cathy on the very same floor. They had come to the mall to buy Cathy a new phone. Cathy spotted us first. “Patrick! Dad! Mom!” she shrieked, sprinting toward us. Mom was crying out from behind, and Dad was elbowing his way through the surging mob. Right at that second, a heavy commercial display board suspended from the ceiling tore loose under the heat, crashing down with a deafening thud and blocking the main walkway between us. Patrick was shoved forward by the fleeing crowd, landing squarely in the narrow gap between Cathy and me. “Patrick, help me!” Cathy wailed, tears streaming down her cheeks. I didn’t scream. I didn’t shout his name. I just stood there amidst the smoke, looking him straight in the eyes. In that split second, I already knew what was coming. Without a shred of hesitation, Patrick reached out, seized Cathy by the wrist, wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and bolted toward the illuminated emergency exit. He didn’t look back. Not once. I stood anchored in the choking gray fog, my eyes burning from the smoke, watching their figures disappear through the fire doors. The last tether holding me to that boy snapped, clean and absolute. The fire was contained by the sprinkler systems minutes later, and I walked out of the mall completely unscathed. When Patrick finally found me standing near the ambulances outside, his face was pale, immediately launching into frantic rationalizations. “Megan, it was absolute chaos in there! Cathy was right next to me—” “I’m always the last choice, aren’t I?” I interrupted quietly. He flinched. “No, that’s not what happened! You’re level-headed, Megan. I knew you could find a way out on your own—” “Patrick,” I said, my voice dead and steady, “I thank God every day that I never ended up with you.” He froze as if struck. I brushed past his shoulder and kept walking. When I got home, what truly made my stomach churn was Cathy. She stepped out of the bathroom with a wet towel over her shoulders, deliberately sweeping her damp hair to one side to reveal a faint reddish bruise on her collarbone from the crowd. She leaned against the doorframe and smirked. “You’re so smart and accomplished, Megan. How come you couldn’t even hold onto your own man?” A high-pitched ringing filled my ears. Before she could blink, I stepped forward and cracked my palm across her face. “Slap.” The sound was sharp and violent. Cathy gasped in shock, then let out a bloodcurdling shriek. My parents burst out of the living room, immediately lunging forward to shield her. “Megan! Have you lost your mind?!” Mom shrieked, her lower lip quivering with rage. I stood there, my hand still trembling with adrenaline. Neither of them asked what Cathy had said. Neither of them asked why I had hit her. Their only concern was inspecting Cathy’s reddened cheek, cooing over her like an injured bird. Mom held her tight, glaring at me with venom. “We know you feel neglected sometimes, Megan, but how could you be so cruel to your own sister?” Dad added, his voice heavy with condemnation, “You have a bright future ahead of you. You can find another boyfriend anytime! Why do you have to be so venomous toward Cathy?” Looking at them, the final puzzle piece fell into place. To them, I was entirely expendable. Anything I lost—my pride, my boyfriend, my home, my peace of mind—was irrelevant, because in their eyes, I was strong enough to absorb the damage. Cathy was the only one who mattered. I sat on the edge of my bed that night, watching the moonlight slowly cross the floorboards until dawn broke. I finally accepted the truth: This family would never choose me. Patrick would never choose me. Whenever life forced them into a binary choice, I would always be the one discarded. So I was done waiting for their validation. I was going to choose myself. … The atmosphere in the house remained subzero for days. Mom spent every waking second catering to Cathy. Dad refused to look me in the eye. Patrick never showed his face again. On the third evening, disaster struck. Cathy had been in a foul mood and insisted on taking the car out alone to blow off steam. Mom had begged Dad to go with her, but Cathy threw a tantrum, slammed the door, and sped off. Twenty minutes later, the hospital called. She had run a red light and broadsided a utility truck. By the time I arrived at the trauma center, the ER bay was in utter pandemonium. The attending surgeon announced that Cathy was suffering from massive internal bleeding and needed immediate transfusions. The problem was her blood type: AB negative. The regional blood bank was critically low on donor units. I was her only direct match. In an instant, every desperate, frantic eye in the hallway swiveled to lock onto me. Mom grabbed my arms, her fingernails digging through my jacket, her eyes bloodshot. “Megan, please… Mom is begging you. Save your sister!” Dad stood beside her, his voice dark and demanding. “Go in there right now! She only went driving because you upset her. You owe her this!” Even Patrick, who had rushed to the hospital, stood at the end of the corridor, calling out in a low, pleading tone: “Megan, if you do this… I swear I’ll make things right between us. We can be together.” A bitter chill seeped into my bones. I didn’t answer any of them. I simply turned and walked into the blood donor bay, lying down on the vinyl recliner. “One last time,” I thought. “After this, I owe this family nothing.” At first, the phlebotomist set the collection for a standard single unit. But as the bags filled, the surgical nurse kept rushing out of the OR, frantic. The hemorrhaging wasn’t fully stabilized; they needed more whole blood. Could they draw another unit? My parents didn’t hesitate for a single second. “Take it!” Dad shouted through the doorway. “Take whatever she has!” They drew eight hundred milliliters. Lying on that vinyl bed, my fingers and toes gradually lost all sensation. A cold prickle spread through my limbs, and my vision began to narrow into a dark, tunneling blur. Outside the glass partition, my parents weren’t looking at me. Their eyes were glued to the red light above the operating suite where Cathy lay. When the nurse finally pulled the thick needle from my vein, I tried to push myself up on one elbow. The world tilted, and I blacked out. … When I opened my eyes again, I was lying in a dimly lit observation ward. Night had fallen. An IV line was taped to the bruised back of my hand. I turned my head toward the plastic chair beside my bed. It was completely empty. A passing nurse checked my vitals and told me gently, “Your sister’s surgery was successful. She’s in the recovery unit. Your family is all over there with her.” I stared at the acoustic tiles on the ceiling for a very long time. I remembered a time, back when I was eight years old, when I had caught a severe case of pneumonia. In my foggy memory, that was the only time my mother had ever looked at me with pure tenderness—spoon-feeding me broth, coming straight from work every evening to hold my hand. It turned out that version of her had died a long time ago. It wasn’t until late the following afternoon that Mom finally stepped into my room for five minutes. She placed a plastic container of lukewarm oatmeal on my bedside table, an awkward flicker of guilt in her eyes. “Thank you for saving your sister,” she murmured softly. “You worked hard.” My heart felt entirely hollow. Not a single ripple of emotion stirred within me. The moment she walked out to return to Cathy, I called the floor nurse and signed my own discharge papers against medical advice. My parents were so consumed by Cathy’s postoperative care that they didn’t even notice I was gone. I took a cab straight to the federal building downtown, using my expedited humanitarian clearance papers to fast-track my passport and visa processing. During my final days in the city, the house was a ghost town. My parents spent every hour at the hospital, leaving me entirely alone in the quiet rooms. I went into the storage closet and pulled out our old family photo albums, flipping through the glossy pages. In every single portrait, Cathy was planted dead center. Held in someone’s arms, holding someone’s hand, bathed in adoration. I was always relegated to the far edge of the frame. Every tiny milestone of hers was preserved in crystal-clear focus. Meanwhile, my valedictorian certificates, my science fair trophies, my moments on stage were captured only in a handful of blurry, distant snapshots. On the seventh night, I packed everything I owned into two standard-issue deployment duffel bags. Then, I sat down at my desk and wrote a letter. My penmanship was steady and neat. I told them that moving forward, I would no longer accept any decisions they made on my behalf. I would no longer carry the crushing weight of their expectations under the guise of being “the older sister” or “family.” At the very bottom, I penned one final sentence: “I am never coming back. If word of me ever reaches this house again, assume it is my casualty notification.” I left the envelope propped up against the salt shaker in the center of the kitchen table. Then, I picked up my bags, walked out into the cool midnight air, and closed the door behind me. I didn’t look back. … It was well past midnight when my parents finally returned from the hospital. Mom called out my name twice into the dark hallway. There was no answer. Dad walked into the kitchen, his eyes catching the white envelope on the table. He picked it up and began to read. Halfway through the page, his body went entirely rigid. When they finished reading and threw open the door to my bedroom, finding the closet bare, the shelves cleared, and the space completely hollowed out— Mom collapsed onto the hardwood floor, her face buried in her hands, her breath catching in a dry, agonizing sob.

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