Category: English

At the altar, the wedding officiant turned his microphone toward Wesley. “Does the groom have any words he’d like to share with his beautiful bride?” A ripple of teasing laughter cascaded through the ballroom. I felt a sudden heat rise to my cheeks, my fingers tightening around my bouquet. I looked at Wesley, expecting the soft, reassuring smile he always gave me when I got nervous. Instead, Wesley took the microphone, his expression flat and unreadable. “Cassidy,” he began, his voice echoing through the expensive sound system. “That night I saw you wrapped in your CEO’s arms in the lobby… you explained it away. You said you were just overwhelmed with excitement because you’d closed your first major commercial account.” The room went dead silent. “At the time, I let myself believe I was just being paranoid,” Wesley continued, his tone chillingly conversational. “But after discussing it with Camille, I realized how incredibly wrong it felt. It made me sick. So, with everyone we love here today, would you mind explaining what really happened?” It felt like a physical blow. The air rushed out of my lungs, leaving a cold, hollow ache in my chest. Beneath the stage, a wave of whispers erupted. Hundreds of eyes turned on me, sharp as glass. In the third row, I caught sight of Camille—Wesley’s star teaching assistant—wearing a smug, triumphant smirk. Slowly, the tension drained from my hands. My grip on the rose stems loosened. Explain? What was I supposed to say? That the billionaire CEO of Calloway Enterprises was actually my biological father? That he had spent the last twenty years searching for his stolen daughter, and upon finding me weeks before my wedding, had handed me a black card as a fraction of his guilt and love? I stepped forward and took the microphone from the officiant’s trembling hand. “You didn’t get home until two in the morning last night, Wesley,” I said, my voice steady, cutting through the murmurs of the crowd. “You told me you were grabbing a casual beer with your childhood buddy. But you were actually in a hotel room with Camille, weren’t you?” I stared directly into his startled eyes. “I didn’t like that either, Wesley. But you know what? I don’t care anymore. This wedding is officially over.” … Wesley’s usually composed face tightened, a rare flicker of ugly anger breaking through his calm facade. “Cassidy, I simply asked you to address your own actions,” he whispered, though the microphone still caught his sharp tone. “There’s no need to deflect by throwing wild accusations at me. My relationship with Camille is strictly professional. She is my student.” He straightened his shoulders, looking down at me with academic condescension. “Don’t say things you’ll regret in the heat of the moment. If you just explain what happened with your boss, we can still go through with the ceremony.” In the audience, Camille stood up from her seat, pointing a manicured finger at me. “Professor Wesley took two full weeks of leave for this wedding!” she shouted, her voice trembling with manufactured outrage. “He practically walked away from his tenure-track review just to make sure everything was perfect for you. And you’re just going to throw his hard work back in his face? How can you do this to him and his family?” Her outburst acted as a catalyst. The guests began to murmur loudly, their judgments hanging heavy in the air. “I always wondered why a PhD and a university professor from a good family would settle for a girl with a basic state-college degree,” a woman in the back whispered loudly to her neighbor. “Turns out she’s just a climber. Keeping her fiancé on the hook while sleeping with her boss. Unbelievable.” “Who knows how many men she’s used to get ahead?” another chimed in. “The family must be devastated to be associated with someone like that.” My adoptive parents sat in the front row, their faces pale and strained. My mother’s knuckles were white as she clutched her glass of water, her eyes darting nervously toward Wesley’s parents. Wesley’s mother, a woman who wore her old-money pedigree like a shield, looked back at my parents with naked disgust. “What is the meaning of this?” Wesley’s mother hissed. My parents were quiet, simple people who had spent their lives working a small farm in Indiana. Panic etched itself into their weathered faces. When I was three years old, I had been snatched by human traffickers. But I had fallen gravely ill with pneumonia on the road, and the traffickers, deciding I was too much trouble to keep alive, abandoned me on a gravel roadside. It was my adoptive parents who had found me. They had sold their farm equipment and gone into debt to pay for the antibiotics that saved my life. They had loved me as their own, fiercely and unconditionally. When my biological father, Franklin, finally tracked me down a couple of weeks ago, he had wanted to throw me a wedding that would make the society pages. But I couldn’t bear to overshadow the quiet, humble life my parents had built for me. I had begged him to keep his identity a secret until after the wedding, not wanting Wesley’s family to feel intimidated or to think I was using my newfound status. Franklin had reluctantly agreed, leaving me with a black card as a quiet safety net. Wesley’s father let out a harsh, dry laugh. “Looking at the two of you, it’s obvious you knew about her indiscretions all along.” My father waved his hands in frantic denial, but he caught my eye. He remembered his promise to me—that he wouldn’t tell a soul about Franklin being my biological father. The explanation died on his tongue, leaving him looking guilty. My mother tried to offer a placating smile. “Please, let’s just calm down. Let’s get the children through the vows, and we can discuss whatever misunderstandings there are afterward. Please?” Wesley’s mother scoffed, her gaze cutting. “Our family has a reputation to uphold. We do not welcome women of questionable virtue into our home. Her CEO is what, fifty? He’s old enough to be her father. It’s disgusting.” My father, usually the mildest man in our county, turned a deep, furious red. He stood up, his voice shaking. “Don’t you dare speak about Cassidy like that! She didn’t do anything wrong! She was only—” Wesley’s father stood up to meet him. “Only what?” My father clamped his mouth shut, looking at me with helpless agony. Seeing them subjected to this cruelty broke something inside me. I stepped away from the altar and walked toward them. “Mom, Dad, stop. Don’t waste your breath on them.” I turned back to Wesley, my voice ringing clear. “I’m not marrying him.” Wesley lunged forward, grabbing my wrist with a tight, desperate grip. “Cassidy, stop this childish behavior. If your conscience is clean, why are you so terrified of a simple question?” I ripped my arm out of his grasp. “You didn’t ask me this in private, Wesley. You chose our wedding day, in front of everyone we know, to humiliate me. You wanted me small, compliant, and deeply grateful that you’d ‘forgive’ me. You wanted to break me so I’d be easy to handle. Well, it’s not going to work. We are done.” Wesley’s composure fractured. He stepped closer, lowering his voice to a frantic whisper. “It was a joke, Cassidy. A lapse in judgment. Don’t ruin our lives over a misunderstanding. Think of how this looks. Let’s just get through the ceremony.” I stared at him, feeling a sudden, chilling clarity. “You didn’t care about how things looked when you were accusing me of sleeping with my boss in front of my parents.” Wesley stared at me, momentarily speechless. Camille seized the silence, stepping onto the altar with a look of mock sympathy. “Cassidy, Professor Wesley is only asking for a simple explanation. Even if something did happen with your boss, he loves you. He would forgive you if you just apologized. But instead, you’re throwing a tantrum. Anyone would think you’re some pampered heiress the way you’re acting.” Camille’s words rippled through the crowd, reframing the narrative in an instant. “He’s such a good man,” someone whispered. “To be willing to forgive her after all of this.” “She’s marrying a brilliant academic. She should be counting her blessings instead of acting like a spoiled brat.” I looked at Camille, my gaze steady and cold. “You must be Camille. You’re the one who whispered this story in his ear, aren’t you?” Wesley immediately stepped between us, shielding her. “Cassidy, leave her out of this. She’s just a student. She doesn’t understand any of this. Don’t threaten her.” I clenched my fists. Wesley had no idea that his “innocent student” had posted an incredibly suggestive photo of him sleeping off a drunken night on her social media. If the university dean ever saw it, Wesley’s academic career would be over in an instant. From the front row, Wesley’s mother stood up, her face twisted in disgust. “Son, we’re leaving. This wedding is over. Let her go back to her old man.” But Wesley didn’t move. He kept his eyes locked on me. Camille bit her lip, gently tugging at the sleeve of his tuxedo jacket. “Professor, let’s go. She isn’t worth it.” Wesley brushed her hand off impatiently, his eyes still pleading with me. Looking at the man I had loved for three years, I felt a profound sense of grief. I realized I had never really known him at all. “What do you want from me, Wesley?” I asked quietly. His eyes grew red at the rims. “I want you to be honest with me. I wanted to build a life with you. Why did you have to go and ruin it? Is it really just because he has more money than I do?” “I am telling you for the last time,” I said, my voice dropping to a whisper. “Nothing happened.” Wesley was silent for a long moment. Then, as if making a monumental sacrifice, he closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. “Fine, Cassidy. If you swear right now that you will resign from Calloway Enterprises today, stay home, and focus on being a supportive wife, I will never speak of this night again. The wedding can continue.” “Absolutely not!” his mother shrieked from the aisle. I let out a soft, bitter laugh. “You really think you’re the hero of this story, don’t you? You’ve already decided I’m guilty. No matter what I say, you’ll never believe me. You just want a hostage.” Wesley looked momentarily lost. “Cassidy, I—” I slid the engagement ring off my finger and dropped it into his palm. “Take it. We’re done. Have a nice life.” As I turned to walk away, Wesley’s voice hardened. “We are not done.” I paused, looking back over my shoulder. “Excuse me?” “I lost my shot at tenure because I took two weeks off for this wedding,” Wesley said, his voice flat and demanding. “I spent my savings on this venue, on the caterers, on your dress. You don’t get to just walk away and call us even.” “So what do you want?” “Your family owes me for my losses,” Wesley said, holding up a finger. “One hundred thousand dollars.” The grand ballroom fell into a stunned silence. “What?” I frowned, barely believing my ears. “If you don’t want to pay, then put the ring back on and finish the wedding.” Before today, I had told Wesley that my parents were putting their entire life savings—thirty thousand dollars—toward our wedding as my dowry. He knew exactly how much money we had. He was using this astronomical figure to force me into submission. Camille looked at him in disbelief. “Professor, are you insane? You still want this woman?” Wesley ignored her, his eyes fixed on me. My mother’s voice trembled from behind me. “Wesley… you’re trying to destroy us.” Wesley looked at her, his jaw set. “I gave Cassidy a choice. If anyone is destroying you, it’s her.” The last lingering thread of affection I had for Wesley snapped. Any fear of regret, any sorrow for the loss of our future, vanished. Looking at the cold, calculating stranger in front of me, I knew I was making the right choice. Wesley saw my silence and took it for hesitation. A small, victorious smile touched his lips as he stepped forward, grabbing my hand to slide the ring back onto my finger. I slapped his hand away. “You think you can trap me with a hundred thousand dollars?” I said, my voice echoing through the silent room. “You are incredibly naive.” The room erupted into whispers again. “She’s actually going to pay it?” “How is a girl from the country making forty grand a year going to find a hundred thousand dollars? Her sugar daddy, obviously.” “Must be nice to have someone pay off your debts like that.” Wesley’s face darkened to a deep purple. “You’d rather pay me off than marry me? I know your family’s finances, Cassidy. Where is that money coming from? Are you going to beg your boss for it? I did some research on him. He’s married. He has a family. You’d rather be an old man’s dirty secret than my wife? Have you no shame?” His words washed over me without leaving a mark. “That’s none of your concern. Just make sure you never contact me again.” I reached up, untangled the delicate white veil from my hair, and let it drop to the floor. “Cassidy!” Wesley’s eyes were bloodshot. “You will regret this!” “I don’t regret things,” I said. I unbuttoned my lace gloves, threw them onto the floor, and kicked off my high heels. “Mom, Dad, let’s go.” My parents immediately moved to my side, shielding me from the glaring eyes of the guests. But as we reached the heavy double doors of the ballroom, a loud pop echoed from the ceiling. A massive shower of metallic gold confetti rained down over the crowd, glittering in the chandelier light. Everyone froze. “What is going on?” “Is this a joke? The wedding is off, why are they celebrating?” “Wait… is that gold leaf? This is real gold! A single blast of this must cost thousands!” People began to scramble, catching the glittering foil in their hands. As the gold drifted to the floor, the heavy oak doors swung open. Franklin Calloway stepped into the room. He wore a perfectly tailored charcoal suit, his silver hair neatly brushed back, his presence instantly commanding the entire space. He walked past the whispering guests, his eyes fixed entirely on me, a warm, proud smile on his face. The room held its breath. “Is that Franklin Calloway? The real estate tycoon?” “Oh my god, is he the ‘boss’?” “He’s fifty? He looks incredible. He’s like a movie star.” “Is he here to stop the wedding? This is insane!” Franklin reached me, offering a gentle, conspiratorial smile. He murmured softly, “How was it, sweetheart? Did you like the surprise?” But as he looked closer, his smile faded. He saw my bare feet, my pale face, and the discarded veil on the floor. “Wait. What’s going on? Why aren’t you wearing your shoes?” My parents stood by, looking deeply uncomfortable, unsure of how to explain the disaster. Wesley stormed over, shoving his way past the guests. He grabbed my arm, pulling me behind him, and glared at Franklin with raw fury. “What the hell are you doing here?” Wesley’s parents rushed forward, their faces pale. Their logistics company relied almost entirely on shipping contracts from Calloway Enterprises. If Wesley insulted Franklin, their business would be wiped out overnight. Wesley’s father forced a trembling, sycophantic smile, all his academic pride vanishing in an instant. “Mr. Calloway! What an unexpected honor. Please, excuse my son, he’s just—” Franklin looked at him, his face cooling into a mask of polite indifference. “I came to attend my daughter’s wedding. Is there a problem?” Before anyone could process his words, Wesley, blinded by jealousy and humiliation, swung his fist. The punch caught Franklin square in the jaw. Franklin, unprepared for the assault, stumbled backward and hit the marble floor, blood immediately trickling from his nose. I gasped, my heart leaping into my throat. “Dad!” My adoptive parents rushed forward with me, helping Franklin sit up. Wesley pointed a trembling, furious finger at us. “Cassidy, what kind of sick game is this? Your parents are standing right there! You’re calling this old man ‘Dad’ to cover up your lies?” Camille sneered from the crowd. “Maybe it’s just a bedroom habit. Some girls love calling their sugar daddies ‘Papa’ after all.” Wesley’s face twisted with rage, and he raised his fist again, stepping toward Franklin. I threw myself in front of my father, glaring at Wesley. “Wesley, stop! You’ve lost your mind! Assault is a crime!” Wesley’s father looked as though he had seen a ghost. “We’re ruined… our family is ruined…” Wesley’s mother was sobbing, hitting her son’s arm repeatedly. “Put your hands down! Put them down right now!” Wesley finally lowered his fists, though his chest heaved. “He came to my wedding to mock me. If I didn’t hit him, would I even be a man?” I looked at him, feeling nothing but a profound, exhausting pity. “You really have no idea, do you? You refuse to believe anything that doesn’t fit your little victim narrative. Fine. I’ll tell you the truth. He is my biological father.”

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I had forty million followers. At the absolute peak of my engagement, during the prime-time hours when the algorithm was buzzing, I finally hard-launched Caroline. A single, stunning portrait of her looking directly into the lens brought in over eight million likes. The comment section was a flood of excitement, with everyone asking if she was my girlfriend. I didn’t play coy. I proudly claimed her. But within twelve hours, the tide completely turned. My comment section became a toxic wasteland of mockery and rage. [She’s live-streaming with her actual boyfriend right now, saying she doesn’t even know you. Talk about an embarrassing self-own.] [Go look at @Chase’s account. See what a real couple looks like. Posting another guy’s girl and claiming she’s yours? Stop bullying smaller creators.] I sat frozen, staring at my phone. I clicked the handle tagged in the comments. It was a modest account, maybe three hundred thousand followers, belonging to Chase—Caroline’s “guy best friend.” I screenshotted it and sent it to her, demanding an explanation. She brushed it off with a casual shrug. “Chase’s growth has been dead. He’s barely pulling views,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “We’re just playing up a couple dynamic to help his engagement. It’s shipping bait, Austin. It’s not a big deal. Don’t overthink it.” She’d always told me she hated being on camera. She claimed she didn’t want the spotlight. Yet, here she was, filming a dozen couple-themed TikToks with Chase, doing joint live streams, behaving like newlyweds. Even getting her to agree to that single photo had taken me two weeks of begging. She’d made it feel like a chore. I stared at the screen, my chest tight. I quietly hung up the phone and deleted the post. Fine. If this was the game she wanted to play, I’d let them have each other. … Due to Caroline’s public “debunking” of our relationship, my follower count plummeted by nearly a hundred and fifty thousand in a single hour. Meanwhile, Chase’s account gained over a hundred thousand new followers. With a heavy heart, I clicked back into his profile. He had uploaded a new photo just ten minutes ago. It was a candid shot of him and Caroline. They weren’t looking at the camera; they were looking at each other, laughing, eyes locked in what looked like pure intimacy. A simple, unadorned picture. Yet, in just ten minutes, the comment count was in the thousands, and the likes had already crossed twenty thousand, climbing by the second. I tapped the comments. The top pinned comment was from a verified account. I didn’t need to guess. It was Caroline. The comment section was a chorus of swooning fans, screaming that they were “endgame” and a “real couple.” And then, someone brought up my name. [Honestly can’t believe a massive creator like @Austin would try to claim someone else’s girlfriend. Right, man? @Austin] That comment was rapidly climbing to the top, fueled by hundreds of likes. I didn’t ignore it. I typed out a reply: [If that’s what you want to believe, go ahead.] That single sentence was like throwing gasoline on a fire. My direct messages exploded with vitriol. This time, it wasn’t just mockery; it was straight-up harassment, venomous insults, and threats. People started digging through my old videos, analyzing every single caption, tearing apart every word I’d ever written to find “clues” of my supposed delusion or toxicity. By evening, several major brands I partnered with had sent urgent emails. They wanted to terminate our contracts immediately. They claimed my “damaged reputation” was hurting their brand image. They were demanding compensation for breach of contract. When Caroline came home that night, she brought a blueberry ice cream cake—my favorite. She walked over, sliding the cake onto the dining table. “Are you still sulking?” she asked, her voice carrying that familiar, patronizing sigh. “It’s just a couple dynamic for the algorithm, Austin. It’s not like I’m actually dating him.” Just a couple dynamic. When I wanted to go public, she told me it was too much drama. She said she hated the internet and didn’t want her face associated with my content. That one photo was the absolute limit of her compromise. She didn’t even have her own social media accounts, or so she’d told me. She certainly hadn’t claimed the photo I posted. “Don’t be like this,” Caroline said, resting a hand on my shoulder. “Chase’s channel has been stagnant for a year. He was desperate. It was the only way he could think of to break through. You know what he is to me. We’re just playing a part.” I knew what he was to her, all right. They were childhood friends. They had grown up together, scraping their knees on the same asphalt. Chase called himself her “platonic bestie,” always claiming she wasn’t his type. When he first found out Caroline and I were dating, he’d laughed right in my face. “Man, how do you deal with her?” he’d chuckled, shaking his head. “Caroline used to wet the bed until she was six! And during puberty, she was a walking disaster.” “You should’ve seen her the first time I dressed up for prom. This girl’s face turned as red as a tomato. It was hilarious.” He only stopped when Caroline got genuinely annoyed and snapped at him to shut up. That was their dynamic. And I had tolerated it because I trusted her. I looked up at her now, feeling a cold weight in my chest. “Do you have any idea what they’re saying about me online, Caroline?” “The brands I work with are dropping me. Every single contract is being terminated.” “My reputation is in the gutter, and they’re demanding breach-of-contract penalties.” Caroline barely blinked. Money had never been a real obstacle for her family. She let out a soft click of her tongue. “How much is it? Just wire me the bill, I’ll transfer you the cash.” “Caroline, it’s not about the money.” I closed my eyes, the air in my lungs feeling heavy, suffocating. When I opened them, the frustration was still there, a hard knot in my throat. Seeing my expression, Caroline’s patience evaporated. “Then what do you want me to do?” she snapped, her tone sharp. “Chase is finally getting some real traction. If we back out now and say it was a lie, his career is over before it even starts.” “I promise you, once his channel stabilizes and he gets a solid base, we’ll clear things up.” I stared at her, the words dying in my throat like wet cotton. She was terrified of hurting Chase’s career, but she hadn’t given a single thought to mine. Especially after I had risked my platform to hard-launch her. My mouth opened to speak, but before a sound could escape, her phone began to buzz with a FaceTime request. It was Chase. Caroline raised a finger, silencing me. She answered it immediately. Chase’s face popped up on the screen, his grin wide and easy. “Hey, Caroline, you free? The chat is begging for a live stream, and I’m actually just pulling up to your place right now.” Caroline instinctively glanced at me. Chase noticed, raising an eyebrow. “Oh, is Austin there? It’s just a casual stream, buddy. Surely Austin doesn’t mind, right?” “He doesn’t mind,” Caroline answered for me, her eyes locking onto mine with a warning gaze. “You know the keypad code. Just head on up.” Once she hung up, the silence stretched between us. I finally spoke, my voice quiet. “How does he know the code to our apartment?” Caroline sighed. “Last week he was too tired to drive back to his place, so he crashed on the couch. I gave it to him so he wouldn’t have to wake me up.” She paused, adjusting her hair in the mirror. “When Chase gets here, please don’t pull that face. It’ll ruin the vibe of the stream.” I looked at her, and the last urge to argue withered away. There was nothing left to say. When Chase arrived, they set up their stream downstairs in the living room. I retreated to our bedroom, closed the door, and logged into a burner account to watch. The viewer count was already pushing a hundred thousand and climbing fast. Caroline was sitting close to him on the sofa, casually eating a slice of the blueberry cake she’d bought for me. Someone in the live chat asked if they were actually dating. Chase smirked, nudging Caroline with his elbow. “The chat wants to know, Care. Are we the real deal?” It was an effortlessly intimate gesture. Chase had always told me they’d spent so much time together growing up that physical boundaries didn’t exist for them. He’d told me to “just think of him as one of the girls.” Caroline laughed, leaning into his side. “Of course we are,” she said, looking right into the lens. “No fake relationships here.” She smiled, a warm, soft look I hadn’t seen directed at me in months. “The real deal.” As soon as she said it, Chase scooped up a forkful of the cake and fed it to her. Caroline didn’t hesitate. She opened her mouth and ate it. But I knew she hated sweets. Every time I brought home a dessert, she refused to even try a bite. If I asked more than once, she would get annoyed. Eventually, I just stopped buying them for her. It turned out she didn’t hate sweets. She just hated sharing them with me. The chat was moving at lightning speed. Dozens of comments were bringing up my name. [What’s the deal with @Austin then? Is he some kind of delusional stalker or a homewrecker?] Caroline’s eyes lingered on the screen. She saw it. “Oh, him…” she murmured. My breathing slowed. My heart hammered against my ribs. We had been together for seven years. I wanted to know, more than anything, what those seven years meant to her in front of a hundred thousand strangers. After a long, agonizing pause, she laughed it off. “It’s nothing. I don’t even know who that is.” I sat in the dark bedroom, staring at the screen. A dry, humorless laugh escaped my lips. Seven years. Reduced to “I don’t even know who that is.” [Lmao, he literally posted a photo claiming you were his girlfriend and said you didn’t have social media. That guy is a pathological liar.] When I’d posted that photo, I’d told my followers she didn’t have accounts because she wanted privacy. It was the truth. But now, my defense of her privacy had become the evidence of my “delusion.” A hollow ache opened up in my chest. Caroline made no move to defend me or set the record straight. Instead, Chase grinned at the camera. “Let’s keep the vibe positive, guys. No need to talk about random internet drama. Let’s talk about us.” Caroline gave him a fond, indulgent smile, reaching up to ruffle his hair. “Sure. What do you want to talk about?” Chase flashed a mischievous grin. “How about how we finally got together?” “Sure,” she agreed softly. I closed the app. The bedroom was dead silent, save for the muffled, happy chatter drifting up from the living room floor. Two hours later, the stream ended. Caroline knocked on the bedroom door. She didn’t ask for my input; she simply stated her decision. “It’s getting late. I told Chase he could sleep in the guest room tonight.” It wasn’t a conversation. It was a notification. Chase peeked over her shoulder, his arm casually slung around her neck. He smiled at me. “Hey, Austin. You don’t mind, do you? If it’s really an issue, I can drive back in the dark.” Caroline’s brow furrowed. “It’s past midnight, Chase. It’s not safe for you to drive tired.” Chase shot me a look. A knowing, subtle smirk. “Yeah, but if Austin’s uncomfortable, I should probably go.” “You’re not going anywhere,” Caroline said, her voice leaving no room for argument. “You’re staying here.” “Well, if Austin says so…” Chase trailed off, leaving the implication hanging in the air. Caroline looked at me, waiting. “Austin, come on…” I cut her off. “Whatever. I don’t care.” Caroline let out a sigh of relief. “See? I told you he wouldn’t mind.” “Thanks, Austin,” Chase said, his eyes glittering. “Don’t worry, man. She’s like a sister to me. Nothing to worry about.” I said nothing. Caroline walked past me to grab some clean clothes for a shower. I didn’t stop her. Instead, I opened my laptop and contacted a real estate agent. This apartment—the place we were supposed to build a life in—was no longer home. I wanted out. The agent got back to me quickly with an estimate. “If you want a quick sale, we’ll have to list it slightly below market value. Are you comfortable with that?” I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Sell it. As fast as possible.” After finalizing the email, I saw that Chase had posted a new video. I clicked it. This time, the camera was focused entirely on Caroline. “Look who’s making lunch today, guys! The beautiful Caroline herself.” “Let’s see if she can actually cook.” Chase narrated as the camera followed her around the kitchen, capturing every soft laugh, every close-up of her face. Caroline had always detested being recorded. She hated cooking even more. Because of that, I had never pointed a lens at her. If we didn’t have time to cook, we ordered takeout. For seven years, that was our unspoken rule. But with Chase, those rules didn’t apply. Leveraging the controversy of their “relationship,” Chase’s follower count skyrocketed to four million in mere days. Watching his feed transition from silly skits to intimate, beautifully shot videos of Caroline, the contrast was glaring. The double standard was undeniable. I closed the app before the video finished. I switched over to my professional account. The screen lagged for a second under the sheer volume of notifications. The messages were a relentless stream of abuse. Even without opening them, I could see the vitriol. In just three days, I had lost over three million followers. Originally, this account had been created to document my life with Caroline. But she had hated the idea of public exposure, so I pivoted. I became a travel and culture creator, documenting hidden historical gems and scenic towns across the country. It had taken years of hard work to build that audience. Our relationship had suffered because of it; she always complained that I was away too much, that my work took me out of the house. So, I had planned this massive hard-launch. I wanted to take a break at the peak of my career to focus entirely on her. And in return, she had handed herself over to Chase for views. My phone buzzed. It was a text from Caroline. [Austin, I’m heading to L.A. with Chase to shoot some content. We’ll be gone for about a week. I’ll bring you back something nice.] Before I could reply, an audio message arrived. It wasn’t her voice. It was Chase’s. He laughed, his tone dripping with fake friendliness. “Don’t worry, Austin. I’ll keep a close eye on her for you. No other guys are getting near her.” “We might have to share a room for the couple’s vlog aesthetic, though. Hope you don’t mind! But seriously, we’re just platonic. Don’t worry.” I let out a cold, bitter laugh and ignored the message. A minute later, Caroline called. The moment I answered, her voice was laced with irritation. “Didn’t you see my text? Why aren’t you replying?” No inquiry about how I was doing. No check-in. Just immediate accusation. I opened my mouth, but the loud overhead announcement of an airport boarding call cut me off. She was already at the gate. The message had been a last-minute afterthought. “Look, we’re boarding,” she said quickly. “Chase and I are going to L.A. Don’t worry, I know my boundaries. I’ll get you a gift. I have to go.” “Caroline,” I said, my voice flat. “We’re done. I want a—” The call disconnected. Only the dial tone echoed in my ear. Because the apartment was priced competitively, a young couple toured it the next day and bought it almost immediately. It was perfect for their budget. Once the paperwork was signed, I spent the next three days packing up my life. We had lived there for five years. The sheer volume of memories and belongings was overwhelming, but by the third day, the place was completely empty. I moved my essentials back into the small studio apartment I’d kept in the city. During those three days, Caroline never called. She only uploaded another video of her and Chase in an L.A. hotel room, looking every bit the happy, devoted couple. If I weren’t her boyfriend, I probably would have thought they were perfect for each other, too. That night, I uploaded my latest travel documentary video. The next morning, I woke up and instinctively checked the engagement. The comment section was a bloodbath. [Are you serious, dude? Have some self-respect. First you claim another man’s girl, and now you copy his content word-for-word?] [I used to respect your work, but this is pathetic.] [Did you really think nobody would notice you copied Chase’s latest script?] Copied? I had spent weeks drafting every single line of that script. I had written it myself. How could I have copied it? I clicked on Chase’s latest upload. My stomach dropped. The air rushed out of my lungs. Every sentence, every word, even the background music choice—it was identical to mine. But I had only ever shared that script with one person. Caroline. A cold, numbing sensation washed over me. I remembered showing it to her on the couch, debating which ambient track would fit the narration best. I had spent sleepless nights perfecting it. And she had simply handed it to Chase like it was scrap paper. I dialed her number, my hands shaking so violently I nearly dropped the phone. When she picked up, I fought to keep my voice steady. “Why did you give my script to Chase?” “Do you have any idea how long I stayed up writing that…?” There was a long pause on the other end. “Chase was short on content this week,” Caroline said, her voice incredibly casual, as if she were talking about a cup of sugar. “So I gave it to him.” “Austin, it’s just a script. You can write another one.” Just write another one. Like it was nothing. Like my creative labor was an infinite, cheap resource she could harvest for her best friend. I laughed, though it sounded more like a choke. “Caroline, do you have any idea what they are saying about me online right now?” Silence. She knew. Of course she knew. “I’ll make it up to you when I get back,” she said quietly. “Just… don’t make a scene, Austin. Delete your video for now.” “Otherwise, it’s going to look bad for both you and Chase.” She was still protecting him. Even now, her primary concern was making sure Chase didn’t face backlash. It was almost funny. I hung up without another word. I walked over to my desk, opened my old laptop, and began gathering the files I needed. … The moment Caroline landed back in Seattle, she went straight to the apartment to find Austin. Chase, walking beside her, rolled his eyes. “Only a week apart and you’re practically running back to him? God, Caroline, have some dignity.” After that phone call, she had avoided texting Austin, afraid of escalating things. Between that and the hectic shooting schedule Chase had set up, she had pushed the guilt to the back of her mind. “I bought him a watch,” Caroline said, her fingers tightening around the luxury shopping bag. “I’m going to apologize.” But when she reached the door, the keypad code didn’t work. She tried it three times, each beep sounding like a rejection. Suddenly, the door swung open from the inside. A strange woman stood there, looking at Caroline with a frown. “Who are you? What are you doing at my door? Where’s Austin?” The woman let out a dry, irritated laugh. “Your door? Honey, I bought this place last week.”

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I’d been helping my sister at her private security firm for three years. Then the mute man she kept locked in the underground safe house escaped. The very next day, a breaking news alert tore through every social media feed in the country: [HEIR TO GRAYSON EMPIRE FOUND ALIVE AFTER THREE-YEAR DISAPPEARANCE] In the video, a man stood before a crowd of flashing cameras. When he spoke, his voice was low, rich, and deeply resonant, sending a collective shockwave through the room. “I’m not dead,” he said. “And I’m not mute.” He stared straight into the lens. “The woman who kept me captive locked my wrists in steel chains. She fed me once a day. If I so much as resisted, she used a taser. For three years, I never saw the sun. I was kept like a dog.” Slowly, he pulled back his cuff to reveal a faint, pink ring of scarred flesh around his wrist. His smile was cold. Cruel. “I will be settling this debt with her personally.” The comment section erupted instantly. “Three years of pretending to be mute? The sheer patience of this man is terrifying.” “How many years in prison is that psycho woman going to get?” The chip I was holding slipped through my fingers, clattering onto the floor. Our quiet, mute boy… could talk? I turned my head. My sister, Debby, slammed a hard right hook into the hanging heavy bag. She spun around, her eyes bloodshot—but she was laughing. “Hahaha! Finally! I’m finally done being a glorified babysitter!” She wiped the sweat from her forehead, her laughter ringing with pure, unadulterated relief. “That giant toddler who wailed in the middle of the night, who wouldn’t sleep unless I was holding him—he’s finally gone!” I quietly set the rest of the chips down on the table. “Debby, I don’t think you realize just how deep of a hole we’ve dug ourselves into.” … The truth was, this whole thing had been bizarre from the very beginning. When Debby took the job three years ago, I was sixteen, a high school dropout with nowhere else to go, tagging along to earn my keep. She never told me who the client was or why we had to keep this man locked up. She only gave me simple instructions: deliver his meals, change his water, and leave immediately. “Don’t linger,” she had warned me. “And don’t reply to anything he writes.” The first time I saw him was the day he was brought into the basement safe house. He was tall, lean, and pale to the point of looking translucent. When the heavy steel cuffs were snapped around his wrists, he didn’t struggle. He only cast a brief glance downward. Then he looked up, caught me watching, tilted his head, and smiled. His eyes crinkled at the corners. He looked so incredibly gentle, so harmless, that my heart immediately softened. For the next three years, he remained “mute.” All of our communication took place through a small spiral notebook. His handwriting was elegant, so neat it looked like a printed font. “Is it raining outside today?” “Thank you for your hard work, kiddo.” Sometimes, he would fold tiny origami cranes out of the margins of his paper. Once he had filled a small ceramic bowl with them, he would slide it across the table, just close enough for me to reach. He’d write: “For you.” For a long time, I actually thought the job was easy. Cozy, even. Until I realized he was only docile when I was the one in the room. One afternoon, I delivered his lunch and left. Ten minutes later, I realized I’d forgotten to collect his empty bowl from the previous meal and went back. The heavy metal door was slightly ajar. Suddenly, there was a deafening crash from inside. Porcelain shattering. The sound of something heavy being violently overturned. I peered through the narrow gap. His back was to me. Everything on the small kitchenette counter had been swept onto the floor in one ruthless motion. His shoulders rose and fell in heavy, ragged breaths, as if he were trying to suppress an animalistic rage. Three seconds later, he turned around. The violent tension evaporated from his face, replaced instantly by his usual gentle expression. He picked up his notebook, his eyes crinkling into that familiar smile. “I accidentally knocked it over. Could you bring me a broom?” The smile was identical to the one he had given me ten minutes earlier. As if nothing had happened. I told Debby about it that night. She only gave me a cold look. “When you leave, you don’t go back. Ever.” But things got even stranger. For a stretch of time, whenever Debby emerged from the safe house in the mornings, I noticed dark red bruises on the insides of her wrists. They weren’t from the chains. The chains were on his wrists, not hers. When I asked her about it once, she quickly pulled her sleeves down. “Just some friction from training,” she muttered. But those marks didn’t look like rope burn or training scrapes. They looked like finger-shaped handprints, as if someone had grabbed her, squeezing her wrists with terrifying force. And they only appeared on the mornings after she spent the night in the safe house. Normally, staying overnight was strictly against her own rules. But during that period, she made an exception. For days on end, she would come up from the basement with heavy dark circles under her eyes, her voice raspy, looking entirely drained of life. I asked her what was going on. She just shrugged. “He’s going through a rough patch. I need to keep an eye on him.” How bad could a locked-up mute’s “rough patch” really be? Bad enough that she had to watch him all night long? I didn’t press her. But I did notice that on the mornings after Debby stayed over, the writing in his notebook was exceptionally neat. Exceptionally sweet. Like a man who was deeply, thoroughly satisfied. Looking back now, I realize. It wasn’t that he was having a breakdown and needed supervision. It was that he had found a way to force Debby to stay. In the news clip, Chester Grayson had pulled back his sleeve and said so casually: “If I so much as resisted, she used a taser.” I thought of those bruises on Debby’s wrists. Who was really resisting whom? And there was one more thing. For three years, that chain never once broke. It never even slipped. But could a man strong enough to tear a bolted wooden counter off its frame really not break a single chain if he wanted to? Not unless he had no intention of leaving. So why did he escape yesterday? He was never a pathetic, docile mute. He was a wolf, lying perfectly still with his eyes closed, pretending to sleep. And we had been living right beside him for three years. By the third day after Chester’s escape, Debby finally slept through the night. A solid twelve hours. When she woke up, she changed the digital lock on the safe house, threw out all the groceries she’d bought for him, and went downstairs to run three miles. When she came back, she was actually smiling. “Do you know how long it’s been since I went for a run?” she asked, guzzling a bottle of cold water. “Three years. If that man realized I was gone for more than two hours, he would smash his head against the wall, slit his wrists, or go on a hunger strike. I had to time my trips to the grocery store down to the second.” She tossed the empty bottle into the bin. “But now? Freedom.” I stayed quiet. Debby felt lighter, but to me, the air felt thick. It was that suffocating stillness right before a thunderstorm hits, when the birds suddenly stop singing. That afternoon, the Grayson Group held a press conference. Charles Grayson stood at the podium, his expression grim. “I hope this woman understands her situation. Turning herself in is her only way out.” I clicked my phone screen off. In the kitchen, Debby was eating white bread. It was overcooked and mushy when she set the bowl down in front of me. I chewed on a mouthful of bread, and my mind drifted back. In the beginning, I was the one who brought him pre-made meals. But later, he wrote in his notebook: “Can I cook for myself? I’m so bored.” Debby had agreed, and we started bringing him raw ingredients instead. He made incredible food. Chicken parmesan, roasted short ribs, slow-cooked stews on weekends. On my seventeenth birthday, he had baked a fresh batch of lemon bars. In his notebook, he’d drawn a crude little birthday candle: “Happy birthday, kiddo. I hope you get to walk in the sun every single day.” I swallowed the tasteless white bread. There would be no one to cook for us anymore. …And then I remembered his accusation on the news: “She fed me once a day.” Seriously? He was slow-cooking beef bone broth in that kitchenette just last week. He didn’t even blink when he lied to the entire world. Later that afternoon, Debby brought Hank back to the office. He was an old family guard who had worked for the Graysons for six years before getting laid off. The moment he walked through the door, he lit a cigarette. His hands were trembling. “Chester Grayson,” Hank said, his voice tense. “Around here, they call him the Smiling Reaper. The moment he starts smiling at you, that’s when you run.” He inhaled deeply. “When he was eighteen, a rival company bought off his personal driver to stage an accident. The next day, the driver vanished. Within a month, that rival company was bankrupt and liquidated. And through it all, Chester just kept smiling.” Hank stubbed out his cigarette, looking directly at Debby. “You kept a man like that locked up for three years. Did it ever occur to you that there might be another explanation?” “Like what?” Debby asked. “He is brilliant. The Grayson family put every resource they had into finding him, and they came up empty. Do you really think they couldn’t find him? Or was he the one who didn’t want to be found?” The room went dead silent. Debby let out a humorless laugh. “The contract was signed anonymously. He never saw my face. He has nothing to go on.” After Hank left, I couldn’t hold back. “Debby, he said in the video that he remembers your voice. He remembers your scent. He spent three years with you. He doesn’t need paper trails.” She stood by the window, her back to me. It was a long time before she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. “Then I’ll just have to bet he won’t come looking himself.” But I could see her hands shaking against her sides. That night, while cleaning out the back storage room, I found a cardboard box. It contained the notebooks we had cleared out from the safe house. Debby had told me to throw them away, but I hadn’t gotten around to it. I picked up the topmost notebook and opened it. “Day 1: Debby’s hair is black. It’s very long.” “Day 47: Debby smiled today. Beautiful.” “Day 289: Debby came back very late today.” “Day 290: Debby came back very late today.” For seven straight days, he wrote the exact same sentence. The strokes grew heavier, pressing deeper into the paper day by day. “Day 297: Did she abandon me?” And then, the very last notebook. The final page, dated the day before he escaped. “Day 1096: I’m sorry, Debby. I can’t take this anymore.” What couldn’t he take? Being locked up? Or was it something else? A sudden lump formed in my throat. I thought of the paper cranes. I thought of his message: “I hope you get to walk in the sun every single day.” A man who hadn’t seen daylight in three years, wishing the sun on someone else. He had been kind to me. Truly kind. But the ruthless man on the news had promised to settle his debt. Did that debt include me? I closed the notebook and placed it back in the box. It didn’t matter. Whether he was acting or not, we had to move on. Tomorrow, I had to help Debby pack up the office. I had to protect her. I clicked off the lights. But as I lay in bed, those words kept repeating in my head like a broken record. “I can’t take this anymore.” I knew, with absolute certainty, that this wasn’t over. On our fifth day of moving, the doorbell rang. Debby peered through the peephole, and her face went completely pale. She shoved me toward the bedroom. “Stay inside. Don’t come out.” I pressed my eye to the crack in the door. The man who stepped inside was in his early fifties, wearing an impeccably tailored charcoal suit. He shared a striking resemblance with Chester. Charles Grayson. Chester’s father. He didn’t sit down. He simply stood in our tiny, four-hundred-square-foot apartment, his eyes sweeping over the worn furniture. A subtle, condescending twitch touched the corner of his mouth. He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a thick envelope, and tossed it onto the coffee table. “The NDA and a bank card. Sign it, take the money, and disappear. Three million dollars.” His tone was as dry as if he were reading off a grocery list. “It’s enough for a family like yours to live comfortably for the rest of your lives. It’s barely a month’s allowance for my son.” Debby didn’t touch the envelope. “If I sign this, will he stop looking for me?” Charles fell silent for a long moment. “I will do my best to keep him on a leash,” he said quietly. “But since he returned… he hasn’t been the same. He is volatile. Obsessive. Uncontrollable.” A hairline fracture seemed to appear in his polished composure. “Right now, he only does one thing. He looks for you.” Debby swallowed hard. “I’ll sign.” At the door, Charles paused. “Do not actively put yourself in his path. Chicago is a big city. Live your own life.” The door clicked shut. “Live your own life.” He had found our brand-new apartment in five days. Who was he trying to fool? For a few days after signing the papers, life seemed to return to normal. Debby picked up a couple of quick private security shifts. One night, she even bought a bottle of wine, curled up on the sofa, and laughed out loud at a reality show. I almost allowed myself to believe we were safe. Until a week later. I was downstairs at our old office, packing up the very last box of files. Debby’s firm had officially suspended operations. A woman was leaning against the wall by the elevators. She looked to be in her late forties, impeccably preserved, with a silk scarf wrapped around her neck that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “You must be Debby’s little sister,” she said. She stepped closer, reaching out to smooth down the collar of my jacket. Her touch was intimate, maternal, but her manicured nail scraped lightly against my collarbone, leaving a sharp sting. “Your sister moved into a new place? Six flights of stairs with no elevator. That must be exhausting.” She knew our exact floor. “I’m Chester’s mother.” She tilted her head. It was the exact same gesture I had seen Chester make a hundred times. “Since my son came back, he hasn’t eaten or slept. He tore our house apart. He does only one thing, day in and day out—he looks for your sister.” She sighed, as if discussing a minor inconvenience. “The agreement with his father is useless. Chester has never listened to anyone.” She looked at me with cold, calculating eyes. “Tell your sister to come forward and apologize. Maybe he’ll let it go once his temper cools.” She paused. “But if he has to find her himself…” A chilling smile touched her lips. “Three years. You know his temper better than I do.” She turned and walked toward a sleek black town car waiting at the curb. Just before sliding into the back seat, she looked back at me. “Tell your sister that paying three million dollars for her life was an act of mercy. If my son finds her, he won’t spend three hundred dollars.” She gave a soft shrug. “And at that point, even I won’t be able to protect her.” The car door snapped shut. I stood in the cold wind, the faint scratch on my collarbone burning. I told Debby everything that night. She sat in silence for a very long time. Finally, I asked the question that had been eating at me. “Debby, who actually placed that anonymous contract three years ago?” She looked at me, her eyes dark. “Charles Grayson said he couldn’t find Chester, but he found us in five days,” I pressed on. “Hank said Chester is too smart to get caught unless he wanted to be. And in the notebook, he wrote “I’m sorry, Debby.” Why did he say sorry?” Outside, headlights from a passing car swept across the living room ceiling. Debby’s voice was barely a whisper. “…It was him.” “What?” “The anonymous client who hired me three years ago. It was Chester himself.” She let out a shaky breath. “He called me. He signed the contract. He walked into that basement safe house with his own two feet, held out his wrists, and let me lock them.” Her voice cracked. “And then he looked at me and said, “Keep me locked up, Debby. Don’t let me out. I’m afraid I’ll hurt someone.” I sat frozen. He had asked to be locked away. For three years, by his own choice. But now, he was on television, claiming he wanted revenge. “Then why did he—” “I don’t know,” Debby cut me off, turning her back to me as she lay down on the sofa. “Maybe he forgot. Maybe he’s playing a game. Maybe the moment he went back to that family, he became someone else.” She pulled the blanket over her shoulders. “It has nothing to do with us anymore. Go to sleep.” She curled into a tight ball, her entire posture defensive, as if shielding herself from an invisible blow. I stared up at the ceiling. He had walked in on his own. He had asked to be chained. He had begged her not to let him out. Yet he had escaped, and now he wanted blood. Did he genuinely forget? Or had this been a trap from the very beginning? Three months passed. The Graysons didn’t show up again. Debby picked up freelance security gigs under the radar, and I found a part-time job at a local tea shop. Our lives settled into a quiet, boring routine, as if the past three years had been nothing but a fever dream. Occasionally, Chester would pop up on my feed—attending galas, charity dinners, always with a young girl in a pink dress trailing by his side. He looked polished, wealthy, and completely unrecognizable from the man who used to fold paper cranes in a dark basement. Whenever Debby saw his face on screen, she would swipe past it instantly. I tried to do the same. One day, while dusting the desk, I found a crumpled piece of paper wedged deep inside a drawer. It must have slipped out of the box during the move. It was in Chester’s handwriting. A single sentence: “I missed you again today, Debby. Goodnight.” The date on it was from two days before he escaped. I shoved the paper deep into the back of the drawer. Chicago was a massive city. There was no way we would run into him. But on Saturday, Debby took me to a department store downtown. We were standing near the escalators when my heart suddenly stopped. Chester. He was barely three steps away. Up close, he looked even taller and leaner than he did on television. He was holding the hand of the young girl in the pink dress, leaning down to listen to her chatter. I grabbed Debby’s sleeve. She had already seen him. Her body went rigid for a split second before she grabbed my hand, pulling me in the opposite direction. “Go. Fast.” My mind was screaming a single command: “Don’t let him see us.” In our rush, my shoulder clipped a display shelf. My elbow smashed hard against a sharp metal edge. A sharp gasp of pain escaped my throat. A perfume bottle clattered to the floor, rolling loudly across the polished tiles. Debby spun around. I shook my head frantically at her. “Keep moving.” But it was too late. “Are you alright?” The low, smooth voice fell from directly above me. I froze, slowly lifting my gaze. Chester was leaning over, his hand gently steadying my arm. He frowned as he looked at my scraped, reddening elbow. His eyes were inches from mine. Suddenly, memories flooded back. I remembered every time I had tripped or bumped into something in the safe house, and how he would immediately write three frantic questions in his notebook: “Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?” I remembered his hand-drawn sketch of me with my hair in a messy ponytail, carrying his tray, with the caption: “Kiddo is getting taller.” I remembered the winter I got a fever, and how he had shoved his only heavy jacket through the bars to keep me warm. My lips parted. I almost called his name. But then, his gaze shifted away from my face. He looked over my shoulder, locking onto someone standing directly behind me. I watched his pupils contract. The warmth on his face evaporated, leaving a blank slate. And then, that blankness twisted into something dark, incredibly deep, and cold. Like an abyss. My body reacted before my brain did. I took an instinctive step back, pulling away from him. It wasn’t that his grip was tight, but the sudden, predatory look in his eyes screamed at me to run. He straightened up. The little girl ran over, tugging on his coat. “Chester, do you know her?” He didn’t answer. She looked at him, then at me, and made her own deduction. “Oh, you don’t. Let’s go then. Mom says we shouldn’t talk to strangers.” She pulled his hand, guiding him away. He followed her, never looking back. But I saw his left hand—the hand that had been bound by steel chains for three long years. It hung at his side, clenched into a tight, trembling fist. His knuckles were so white it looked like the bone might pierce through the skin. The girl kept chattering beside him, but he didn’t utter a single word. It was as if his entire mind had been left behind with us. I turned to look at Debby. She was standing perfectly still, her face completely blank, but her hands were trembling violently. And so were mine. When he had bent down to help me, his gaze had lingered on my face for a fraction of a second. In that brief second, I saw recognition. He knew exactly who I was. For three years, I was the one who brought his food. I changed his water. I checked his chains. I was an accomplice, too. The other end of that chain had been wrapped around me all along. I had only realized it today. He knew where we were. What would happen next? I was too terrified to imagine.

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I have always lived my life a beat behind. My childhood friend, Piper, and my best friend, Chase, were the opposite—always operating in fast-forward, breathless and impatient. When we ate out, I’d barely be halfway through my meal before they’d already finished, clamoring to head to the arcade next door, leaving me alone at the table. When we went swimming, my leg cramped up halfway across the lake. I cried out for help, only to look up and realize they had already dried off, packed up, and vanished. Even when it came to submitting our college decisions, I hadn’t even logged into the portal yet when they finalized theirs, clicked submit, and stood up in unison. “Theo, you’re moving like molasses,” Piper said, her eyes already glued to her phone. “I have to help Chase grab Taylor Swift tickets, so we can’t wait. We committed to Columbia. Make sure you don’t mess up your application.” Before her words could even settle, Chase grabbed her hand and they bolted out the door. They were running so fast she never heard my quiet reply. “I’m not going to Columbia.” “And you don’t ever have to wait for me again.” … It is true; I really do take longer than most. By the time I finally hit submit on my college portal and glanced at the clock, it was the very last minute before the deadline. There was no turning back. The realization hit me like a physical ache: for the next four years, Piper and I would be separated by nearly two thousand miles. My chest tightened, a bitter sting rising in my throat. Right in the middle of my grief, my phone buzzed. “Theo, what is taking you so long?” Piper’s voice crackled through the speaker, sharp with impatience. “The graduation party started at six. Everyone is waiting on us. Can you please just hurry up for once?” Listening to her familiar, irritated sigh, I scrambled to my feet and rushed out the door. I moved so frantically that the sharp edge of the kitchen chair gouged a line down my calf, but I didn’t even stop to look down. But even with all that rushing, by the time I reached the school gates, all that was left for me was the red glow of taillights fading into the evening traffic. I stood there, frozen on the curb, as my phone rang again. It was Piper’s contact photo flashing, but when I answered, Chase’s voice came through. “Hey, sorry, Theo. Our Uber got here, and the driver said he’d charge us an extra waiting fee if we lingered. We had to jump in. Just grab yourself another ride, alright? See you there.” My heart sank, heavy as a stone. It was always like this. They promised they would wait, yet they always managed to leave exactly two minutes before I arrived. When we went to the amusement park, they did this. When we went hiking, they did this. Did those two minutes really matter that much to them? I didn’t know. All I knew was the lump forming in my throat, tasting of old, bitter disappointment. “Hey, kid. You friends with that couple who just left?” I blinked, turning to face the school’s security guard walking over. He reached into his pocket and handed me a glossy photo booth strip. The date stamped on the bottom was today. The faces grinning back at me were Piper and Chase, their heads tilted together, laughing, intimately close. Staring at it, Piper’s voice from yesterday echoed in my mind. “Theo, I know you’ve been dying to get those cheesy photo booth pictures. Tomorrow, after we submit our decisions, I’ll go with you.” In all three years of high school, she had never once been the one to initiate a plan with me. I had stayed up late, giddy with excitement, and even spent thirty minutes this morning watching a tutorial just to do my hair and look nice. But she hadn’t waited for me to submit my application. And she had gone and done the very thing she promised me—with someone else. A hollow ache bloomed in my chest. I couldn’t find the words to speak. I just stood there, rooted to the pavement, listening to the guard ramble on. “Smart kids, those two,” the guard said, shaking his head in admiration. “Heard them talking about going to Columbia. Good for them, not letting a relationship get in the way of their grades. They make a handsome couple, don’t they?” He paused, his eyes drifting down to my oversized t-shirt and slightly flushed, ordinary face. “Funny, though. You look so… average. Wouldn’t have guessed you ran in the same circle.” A sudden, sharp humiliation burned through me. I forced a tight, empty smile. “Yeah. Honestly, neither did I.” Leaving him behind, I hailed a cab, my mind drifting. When I finally walked into the restaurant’s private dining room, I realized Piper had lied. The room was barely half full; most of our classmates hadn’t even arrived yet. But Piper and Chase were already there, tucked into a booth in the corner, their shoulders pressed together as they huddled over a phone, whispering and laughing. “Theo, don’t just stand there by the door. Find a seat!” someone called out. Hearing my name, Piper finally looked up. She waved me over, entirely unfazed, as if nothing had happened. “Come here! Look at this meme Chase found. It’s hilarious.” Out of sheer habit, my feet carried me toward her. But just as I slid into the booth, the class president grinned and teased, “So, Piper, you three have been joined at the hip all through high school. Are you going to keep being a package deal in college, too?” My mind flashed to my submission to CU Boulder. I opened my mouth to say “not anymore”, but before I could, Piper threw her arms out, draping one over my shoulder and the other over Chase’s. “Of course,” she declared brightly. “Theo is so slow at everything, and he’s way too soft-spoken. If he doesn’t have Chase and me looking out for him at the same school, he’ll get eaten alive.” Chase laughed, chiming in, “Seriously. Theo spent a fortune on private tutors all senior year just to keep up with our grades.” Beside me, I felt Piper’s arm stiffen slightly. Around the room, quiet whispers broke out. I caught muffled words like “third wheel” and “hanger-on”. I pretended not to hear. I just sat there, thinking of the past year. I had survived on fewer than four hours of sleep a night, wearing out my eyesight and needing a stronger prescription, all so I wouldn’t be left behind by her. And in the end, I had chosen a school nearly two thousand miles away. My chest felt tight and heavy. Suddenly, a voice cut through the chatter. “Hey, Piper! We’re graduated now. You can finally tell us—who’s actually dating who? And who’s the odd man out?” Piper froze. Her eyes darted instinctively to me. That single, hesitant glance was all the room needed. The class erupted into laughter. “I knew it! Theo’s the ultimate third wheel!” “Classic case of the childhood friend losing to the new guy!” “So when did you and Chase actually make it official, Piper?” A hot, suffocating wave of embarrassment rushed to my face. Beneath the table, my hands clenched into tight fists. Maybe she sensed my distress, because Piper suddenly slammed her glass onto the table with a sharp clink. “Shut up, guys. There’s nothing going on. The three of us are just a trio. That’s it.” “Oh, sure… ‘just friends,’” the class president drawled. Chase quickly waved his hands, a sheepish smile on his face. “Come on, guys, don’t start rumors. My mom had a strict rule about no dating until college. High school was strictly off-limits.” His attempt at a denial only fueled the fire. “Oh, so it’s just because of Chase’s family rules! Well, high school is over now. Perfect time to confess!” “Yeah, the chemistry is right there! Don’t be a coward, Piper!” The chanting grew louder, but Piper remained silent, staring at her lap. “Hey, Theo, why the long face? Afraid she’s going to say yes?” one of Chase’s close friends teased. My mind went completely blank. Before I could scramble for a response, another boy chimed in: “Come on, Piper. A real best friend is happy when you find love, right, Theo? You wouldn’t mind, would you?” They had backed me into a corner, holding me up to the light of public expectation. I managed a tight, fragile nod. “Right. I wouldn’t mind.” Almost the second the words left my mouth, Piper’s face darkened. “I don’t do public confessions,” she said coldly. Chase looked visibly deflated, but he quickly forced a bright, casual grin. “Exactly. Pure friendship, guys. Stop teasing and let’s order some food.” With the main subjects deflecting, the crowd let it drop, settling down to look at the menus. When the menu finally made its way toward my side of the table, I reached out my hand. But Chase snatched it right before I could touch it, offering me a helpful wink. “Theo, you take forever to decide. Piper and I will just order for you. We already know what you like anyway.” Without giving me a chance to protest, the two of them bent their heads together, murmuring. “Spicy crawfish, chili-boiled pork, and the hot-and-sour fish soup,” Chase read off. Piper glanced up at me. “One favorite dish for each of us,” she said softly, before passing the menu along. I looked down at the angry, itchy red eczema flaring up across my knuckles and nodded bitterly. Yes, I loved the sour fish soup. But the doctor had explicitly told me yesterday that with this flare-up, I had to avoid seafood and spicy food completely. Yesterday, I had asked Piper to go to the clinic with me. But because I took one minute too long putting on my shoes, she left to play pool with Chase instead. When I asked her later why she couldn’t have just waited, she had been entirely dismissive. “If it were a real emergency, you wouldn’t be moving like a snail. If you can afford to linger, it’s clearly not that urgent.” So, I had gone to the clinic alone. Registered alone. Sat in the waiting room alone. “Oh my god, Piper! You and Chase actually got tickets to Taylor Swift?!” A classmate’s excited shriek snapped me back to the present. I pulled out my phone and opened Instagram. When I saw the feed, my breath caught. Two identical photos of concert tickets, posted minutes apart. The person who had promised me since middle school that we would go to our very first concert together hadn’t even grasped a third ticket. Noticing me staring at my screen, Piper nudged my elbow. Her voice sounded slightly strained. “The reception near the school gates was terrible. The site kept crashing; we could only buy them one by one. If you really want to go, I can look for a reseller ticket. It just… probably won’t be in our section.” Chase quickly chimed in with an apologetic look. “Man, don’t be mad, Theo. Honestly, if you want to go that bad, you can have my ticket. I don’t mind.” “No way!” Piper cut him off immediately, shooting me an annoyed glance. “Chase, you’ve wanted to see this tour forever. Why should you give up your seat? Theo, don’t be selfish.” I hadn’t said a single word, yet here I was, branded as the selfish one. A rare spark of anger flared in my chest. “I don’t even want to go,” I said, my voice flat. It was the truth. Even though I had loved Taylor Swift for a decade, the concert was scheduled for the night before move-in day, all the way in New York. With Boulder being nearly two thousand miles away in the opposite direction, there was no logical way I could make it. I meant what I said, but Piper just rolled her eyes, reading it as a tantrum. “I already told you I’d find you a ticket. Stop acting like a child. Honestly, without Chase and me, with how slow you are and how easily you get lost, you’d probably manage to miss the opening act anyway.” We had known each other for over ten years. Hearing her say those words out loud, in front of everyone, brought a sudden, stinging burn to the backs of my eyes. “Theo…” she started, her expression softening slightly, but the waiter arrived, balancing heavy plates. “Excuse me, coming through…” Piper looked at me, looking a little lost, and quietly slid the sour fish soup closer to my side of the table. But because of my flare-up, I didn’t touch it. I sat through the entire dinner without eating a single bite. Even when Piper secretly picked out the bones from a piece of fish and slid it onto my plate when no one was looking, I ignored it completely, leaving the fish to go cold. “Hey, Piper, if you don’t have plans before college starts, we should all plan a road trip!” the class president suggested as we gathered our coats at the end of the night. Piper froze, biting her lip. Chase offered an awkward scratch of his neck. “Actually, sorry, man. Piper and I already booked tickets to Miami for tomorrow morning…” Beside me, Piper’s voice rushed in, thick with guilt. “Theo, don’t get the wrong idea. We only didn’t tell you because we know how much you hate the ocean. It wasn’t to exclude you. Besides, we’re both going to Columbia. Once winter break rolls around, I’ll go anywhere you want. Just the two of us. We don’t even have to invite Chase.” I looked up at her. Her eyes were bright, filled with a sweet, naive expectation of our future together. The truth I had held back all night finally burned its way to my lips. “Piper, I’m not going—” “Piper! Have you seen our photo booth strip?” Chase’s frantic voice cut me off as he patted down his pockets. “Did we leave it with the security guard when we showed him earlier?” I reached into my bag, my fingers brushing against the smooth, glossy paper of the strip the guard had given me. But before I could pull it out, Chase grabbed Piper’s hand and pulled her out into the street. A minute later, my phone vibrated. [Those pictures… Chase made me take them while we were waiting for you. I’ll take better ones with you later, okay?] [It’s getting late. I ordered you an Uber. Here’s the plate number. Text me when you get in.] I stared at the screen for a long time. Then, I handed the photo booth strip to the class president. “Can you make sure Piper gets this?” I asked quietly. Then, I pulled up her contact and tapped “Block”. On the quiet cab ride home, staring out at the passing streetlights, I bought a train ticket to Mount Elbert. Back in sophomore year of high school, Piper and I had made a pact: if we both got into our dream schools, we would spend our final summer hiking the Five Great Summits of the Rockies. She had forgotten. But I hadn’t. If she was going to break her promise, I would keep it alone. I tried to convince myself I was being strong, independent. But as I packed my duffel bag and my eyes fell on the faded plush rabbit keychain dangling from the zipper, the tears came, hot and silent. The keychain had been a gift from Piper in the first grade. That summer, our families had gone to the beach together. Piper had chased a wave out too far and swept into an undertow. The adults had been too far away to hear. I had jumped in after her. I dragged her to the shallow water, but I swallowed so much saltwater and suffered such severe oxygen deprivation that I spent three days in the ICU fighting for my life. I survived, but the doctors told my parents that I would develop a little slower than other kids from then on. My brain had paid the price for saving her. Back then, neither of us understood what “slower” really meant. We thought it just meant I walked slowly. I remember little Piper holding my hand, her eyes wide with tears, promising me: “Don’t worry, Theo. If you’re slow, I’ll just wait for you. Always.” And to her credit, she hadn’t lied. She had waited for me for twelve years. From the first grade all the way to our freshman year of high school. But on our first day of high school, I had arrived early for the first time in my life. She was five minutes late. When she finally rode up on her bike, Chase was sitting on the back rack, laughing. She explained that she had run into Chase, who had missed his bus, and figured since they were going to the same school, she’d give him a lift. From that day on, she stopped waiting for me. Instead, I spent the next three years exhausting myself trying to keep up with her. She had almost drowned once, yet she still loved the ocean. So, swallowing my trauma, I forced myself to learn how to swim just to be near her. But when my leg seized up in the water and I was genuinely drowning, she had already walked away with Chase. That was the day I decided I was done running. I didn’t sleep at all. When I dragged my suitcase out the front door the next morning, I was shocked to find Piper waiting on the porch. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her voice heavy with hurt. “Theo, you blocked me. I stayed up all night and bought you a ticket to Miami. I know you hate the beach, but there are tons of other things we can do there.” I stood there, momentarily frozen. With a quiet sigh, I raised my phone and showed her the confirmation screen of my train ticket to Colorado. Piper’s face went completely pale. I saw the exact moment she remembered our sophomore pact. She bit her lip, her shoulders trembling. “I’ll go with you,” she blurted out. “Unblock me. I’ll meet you at the station in an hour.” Before I could say a word, she spun on her heel and bolted down the driveway. Maybe it was the desperate conviction in her eyes. I let myself believe her one last time. I unblocked her number and waited by the security gates at the station for an hour and a half. I didn’t get a text from her. Instead, I saw Chase’s newly uploaded Instagram story. A video of him and Piper, boarding a flight to Miami, laughing as they held up their boarding passes. The very last thread of affection I held for her snapped, silent and clean. I turned around, handed my ticket to the gate agent, and walked toward the train. From now on, I would climb my mountains. And she could have her ocean.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “540685”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

The night my family’s company collapsed and the loan sharks cornered us with nowhere left to run, I quietly signed the marriage contract with Naomi Albright, the eldest daughter of the Albright empire. I didn’t say a single word. Outside the Albright estate, Cynthia stood in the pouring rain, her eyes glued to the breaking news on her phone—headlines flashing pictures of Naomi and me together, side by side. Years later, Cynthia tore down every obstacle in her path, built her own corporate empire from the ashes, and used the most ruthless leverage imaginable to force me to become her husband. Everyone in our circle mocked me. They whispered that Jesse Edmund was nothing but a spineless gold-digger riding on his good looks, that Cynthia’s desperate obsession with claiming me was merely a craving for my pretty face. But I knew the truth better than anyone. She hated me. She hated me for choosing wealth over her, for what she saw as a cold, calculating betrayal. From the moment I moved into her cavernous, freezing mansion, she surrounded herself with a revolving door of young, beautiful boys. I never reacted. In fact, every morning before dawn, I would slip out to run my humble breakfast cart on the corner of the old district, simply to give her and those boys their space. Yet, my indifference only made Cynthia more volatile. Once, she pinned me hard against the narrow kitchen sink, her eyes bloodshot, her teeth gritted as she hissed, “Jesse, is that heart of yours made of stone?” I only managed a numb, hollow smile. Cynthia didn’t know that my time was running out. While she spent every day plotting new ways to watch me break, I was using every ounce of my remaining strength just to see another sunrise. … I met Tyler for the first time at the gala celebrating the third anniversary of Cynthia’s conglomerate going public. He was wearing an ill-fitting, cheap suit, clumsily balancing a champagne flute, looking entirely out of place in a room packed with the city’s elite. I noticed him instantly. Not because he looked ridiculous, but because of the stubborn pride and raw innocence radiating from him—a look I recognized too well. It was the exact quality Cynthia had fallen in love with when we were young. I let out a dry laugh, adjusting my tie. No wonder Cynthia had demanded my presence tonight. I wasn’t the guest of honor; I was just the spectator. I watched Tyler “accidentally” spill champagne onto Cynthia’s custom Dior coat. They locked eyes, a charged, teasing gaze passing between them. Claiming a sudden stomach ache, I took it as my cue to slip away, leaving them to their quiet, simmering space. But Cynthia’s secretary blocked me in the hallway, her expression icy. “Mr. Edmund, I should warn you. Tyler has been with Ms. Shaw for over six months now. She never brought the other boys to public events. This time, she might actually be serious.” “Mr. Edmund! You… you’re bleeding! Your nose…” Her strictly professional facade crumbled in an instant, her hands shaking as she fumbled in her purse for a tissue. I slowly touched my upper lip. My hand came away smeared with dark crimson. A bitter wave washed over me; the body of a dying man is a ruin that refuses to be hidden. I took the tissue, pressing it hard against my nose, and offered her a reassuring, weary smile. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about me.” “Honestly, I hope Cynthia finds a few more boys like him. Maybe if she’s in a good mood, she’ll throw some extra allowance my way.” I tilted my head back, letting the metallic taste of blood seep into my throat. Severely anemic as I was, I couldn’t afford to lose this much blood. Ignoring the secretary’s mix of disgust and bewilderment, I turned toward the VIP lounge. Tonight was a rare opportunity to ask for money. Cynthia was pleased, softened by her new favorite. Maybe to get rid of me, she’d blindly sign a check without a second thought. Compared to Cynthia’s ghost of an affection, money was the only thing that mattered to me now. Only money could afford the imported pain pump—the only thing that could offer a shred of relief when the agony clawed at my bones in the dead of night, leaving me writhing on the floor. I wasn’t afraid of dying, but I was terrified of the pain. The feeling of my bones being slowly chiseled open, piece by piece, haunted my very nightmares. My oncologist had already delivered the final verdict: even with the most expensive targeted therapies, I wouldn’t survive past winter. I wanted to leave this world with some dignity, but I couldn’t even afford the medication to keep the pain at bay. So, tonight, I had to swallow what little pride I had left and beg Cynthia. … Standing outside the slightly ajar door of the private lounge, I heard Tyler’s bright, unrestrained laughter. I could easily picture the smug expression on his face. Just as I raised my hand to knock, Tyler’s voice carried through the gap, talking to someone inside. “Honestly, why does Jesse always look so miserable and washed out? He dresses like a cheap street vendor. What does Cynthia even see in him?” “When I first joined the company, people told me my profile looked like Mr. Edmund’s. I thought he’d be some legendary figure. Seeing him today? What a joke. If I ever ended up that pathetic and useless, I’d throw myself off a bridge. No wonder Cynthia only has eyes for me now.” A male assistant lowered his voice, cautioning him, “Tyler, shut up. Mr. Edmund is still her legal husband. Besides, back in the day, Cynthia almost died for him. Don’t let this go to your head.” “So what if they’re married?” Tyler scoffed. “Just watch. Cynthia’s going to kick him to the curb sooner or later.” Listening to the chatter, I realized I’d come to the wrong room. It was only Tyler changing clothes with his assistant; Cynthia wasn’t even there. “What are you doing lurking outside my door?” An icy voice sliced through the air behind me. I turned around and met Cynthia’s eyes, cold and thick with disgust. Swallowing the bitter taste rising in my throat, I spoke calmly. “I need some money.” Before the words could fully settle, Tyler stepped out of the lounge and let out a sharp sneer. “How direct, Mr. Edmund. Begging for scraps right outside the dressing room? Anyone would think Cynthia was starving you.” Tyler looked at me defiantly, leaning familiarly into Cynthia’s space, his eyes alight with the smug confidence of a favorite toy. Sensing the shift in the air, the young assistant kept his head down and quickly slipped away. I kept my eyes lowered, ignoring Tyler’s performance entirely. “You really have grown spineless over the years,” Cynthia said, her words dripping with malice, her gaze cutting into me like glass. “Years ago, you crawled like a dog to lick Naomi Albright’s boots for a check. Now you’ve learned to play the begging husband with me? Tell me, how much is your dignity worth this time?” I met her gaze, a self-deprecating smile gracing my lips. “As much as you can spare, of course. With a net worth in the billions, surely Ms. Shaw won’t miss a few crumbs.” The temperature in Cynthia’s eyes plummeted to absolute zero. She lunged forward, grabbing the collar of my faded, worn shirt, her voice vibrating with quiet fury. “When you sold yourself to the Albrights, did they not toss you enough bones? Or are you just born this pathetic?” A sudden spasm gripped my chest. My vision blurred into blackness, and my knees buckled slightly. I took a ragged breath, my face draining of what little color it had, and spoke the quiet truth: “She never gave me a single dime.” Cynthia let out a harsh laugh, her disgust deepening. “Then what makes you think I would waste a single cent on an absolute piece of trash like you? Jesse, you’re lower than dirt.” As if looking at me made her physically ill, she released my collar with a shove and turned to leave. I dug my fingernails hard into my thigh to keep from collapsing, the image of the empty pill bottles in my dingy apartment flashing before my eyes. Digging deep for any shred of humility, I whispered, “Cynthia… please.” My voice was so faint it barely carried through the hallway. She didn’t even slow down. But Tyler heard it. He stepped up to me, his face glowing with a victor’s smugness. “Save your breath, Mr. Edmund. Look in a mirror. Look at what a wreck you are. How do you expect to compete with me?” “The senior staff at the office told me how Cynthia used to worship the ground you walked on, holding you like you were made of glass. I thought you were some kind of god. Turns out, you’re just a desperate street beggar.” “You know, Cynthia is incredibly generous.” Tyler raised his wrist, angling a blinding Patek Philippe toward me. “See this? She gave it to me tonight.” “A guy who slings cheap breakfast sandwiches on a street corner couldn’t afford this in ten lifetimes. The money you beg for on your knees? I get it just by asking nicely.” “To think people actually compare my looks to yours. It’s an insult.” Tyler turned his wrist again, the polished gold catching the light and stinging my eyes. I genuinely envied him. The value of that single watch was enough to secure my remaining days, to save me from curling up like a dying dog in the dark, shivering in agony. Cynthia was indeed generous with him. The other boys before him had been mere distractions, but Tyler was different. She brought him to high-profile events and stood by, allowing him to mock me to my face. But what did any of that matter to a man with one foot in the grave? “You’re right, it is an insult,” I said, a faint, tired smile on my lips. “You only care about how much she spends on you. But tell me—if she actually valued you, why hasn’t she ever taken you home? You’re a passing distraction, Tyler. Nothing more. Do you really think you have the right to look down on me?” “My dear boy, instead of barking at me, why don’t you beg her to divorce me first? Once you have a marriage certificate with your name on it, then you can talk to me about status.” My voice was weak, but I watched as Tyler’s face flushed red, then drained into an angry, bruised purple. “What do you know, you half-dead relic!” Tyler spat. “Cynthia loves me! You think a line on a marriage certificate makes you special? If you hadn’t gotten lucky and met her first, she wouldn’t even look at a pathetic wreck like you!” I gave him a hollow, pitying look. “Why do you think she chose you? When you throw a tantrum, the way the corner of your eyes flares up is identical to mine when I was twenty. Without me, you wouldn’t even be worth a second glance. Learn your place.” I had said enough. I didn’t want to waste another ounce of energy on him, so I turned to walk away. The truth tore right through Tyler’s fragile ego. He snapped, lunging at me like a wild animal. “I’m nobody’s replacement! I’ll tear that dead-eyed look right off your face!” He shoved me with all his weight. I stepped aside, and with no traction on the polished floor, he tripped over the thick edge of the rug, crashing headfirst into a heavy marble display pedestal. With a dull thud, Tyler hit the floor, clutching his forehead. Dark red blood began to ooze between his fingers. Cynthia, who hadn’t walked far, rushed back at the sound of the impact. She shoved me out of the way, dropping to her knees, cradling Tyler’s face. She pressed an expensive silk handkerchief to his wound, her eyes wide with frantic worry. She never once looked at me, completely ignoring how my body swayed on the verge of collapsing. Only when she was sure Tyler wasn’t severely injured did she slowly rise, her eyes fixing on me with absolute, murderous coldness. “Jesse. Did you push him?” I let out a long, exhausted breath. I didn’t even have the strength to defend myself. “Think whatever you want. He lunged at me and tripped.” Before Cynthia could erupt, Tyler began to sob from the floor. “Cynthia… don’t blame Mr. Edmund. It was my fault, I was careless. I just… I love you so much. I don’t care about a title, I just want to be with you. Even if he hits me, even if he hates me, I won’t leave…” His crying was soft and performative, tears mixing with the blood on his cheek. He looked up at her with big, watery eyes, his hands desperately clutching the hem of her coat. I watched Cynthia’s expression soften. The absolute, fragile devotion Tyler was displaying was the exact thing she had once begged from me and never received. “Don’t worry, Tyler,” she murmured, her voice steadying. “I won’t let anyone hurt you again.” In those words, I heard her final decision. She was ready to throw me out to make room for him. I looked down at my scuffed, worn-out leather shoes. There wasn’t even a ripple of emotion in my heart. My lack of reaction only seemed to fuel Cynthia’s rage. “You’d stoop this low for money, Jesse? Fine. You hurt Tyler. How do you plan to pay for his medical bills and his distress?” “I don’t have any money,” I said, stating a simple fact. I barely knew where my next meal was coming from. “Then let me offer you a way out. Get on your knees. Bow to Tyler three times, apologize, and admit what a pathetic, miserable coward you are. The moment he forgives you, I’ll transfer three million dollars into your account.” “Three bows for three million. You won’t find a better bargain in this world. And if you’re worried I’ll go back on my word, I can pay you a deposit right now.” Cynthia reached down and unclasped a diamond tennis bracelet from her wrist, letting it drop carelessly at my feet. “Consider this the down payment. Don’t bother standing back up once you pick it up. Just stay down and bow.” I stared at the glittering piece of jewelry resting on the carpet. A quiet, breathy laugh escaped my lips—laughing at her arrogance, laughing at the utter absurdity of my life. “Keep your money, Cynthia. It’s too dirty for me.” I turned away, dragging my heavy, protesting legs step by step toward the exit. As I rounded the corner, I caught a glimpse of Cynthia lifting Tyler into her arms. I wondered, when I was nothing but a pile of ash, if she ever found out that the bracelet she threw on the floor could have bought me a few extra days free from the agonizing pain that made me wish for death… would she feel victorious? Or would she feel a sliver of regret? But that was a question for after I was gone. I wouldn’t be around to see it. I was reaching my limit. The last dose of pain medication had completely worn off. Cold sweat soaked through my clothes, and every step sent a violent spasm through my chest. … Back in my drafty, single-room apartment, I spent the longest night of my life. I writhed on the narrow twin bed, too weak to even scream. Caught between fever dreams and pure agony, my mind drifted, slipping back to when I was twenty. In the dream, Cynthia was still that bright-eyed, hardworking student, her forehead beaded with sweat. Back then, her eyes held nothing but gentle tenderness and fierce, protective love for me. I reached out blindly, trying to grasp the fading illusion, as if those long-dead memories could somehow numb the raw pain tearing through my flesh. “Cynthia… where’s the red string bracelet you made me?” As the whisper left my lips, I realized why I had stared so hard at Tyler’s wrist tonight. The design of that luxury watch was strikingly similar to the cheap digital watch Cynthia had bought me for my twentieth birthday. That year, my family had been pressuring me into arranged dates, and I was miserable. To cheer me up, Cynthia had spent an entire month hauling bricks at a scorching construction site in the dead of summer. Her skin had peeled, and her hands were covered in bloody blisters, all just to buy me a halfway decent digital watch. I remembered crying as I applied ointment to her raw hands, calling her a fool. She had just grinned, her teeth white against her sunburnt face, promising me that as long as we were together, she would build a beautiful life for us. She swore she’d never let me suffer. When we were twenty, I believed her promises would last a lifetime. The physical pain clawed at my nerves again, forcing tears and sweat onto my mildewed pillow. “Cynthia… I saw you give that watch to someone else tonight. It hurts so much…” “Jesse, don’t cry.” The Cynthia in my dream panicked, gently wiping away my tears as if I were made of porcelain. “I promise, I’ll never let you cry again.” I sobbed, holding onto that warm shadow with everything I had, because in my heart, I knew that this dying dream was the only place I would ever see that girl again. When morning came, I woke to the same broken, decaying body. I didn’t know how long I’d been unconscious. When I opened my eyes, my throat felt like dry sand. I reached instinctively for the cracked glass on my nightstand. “Jesse, here. Drink some water.” Through the haze, a familiar yet distant face came into focus. Cynthia was sitting there, the icy, arrogant mask she usually wore completely gone. There was a soft, aching warmth in her eyes, reminiscent of the girl she was at twenty. Believing I was still trapped in my fever dream, I leaned forward and let her guide the glass, swallowing the cool water. “Jesse, look,” she whispered, pushing a velvet box into my hands. “I found your old digital watch. And Tyler’s Patek Philippe—it’s in here too. Let’s stop fighting, okay? Let’s just go back to how we were.” I stared down at the yellowed, cheap plastic watch resting beside the dazzling diamond timepiece. The water I had just swallowed felt like liquid nitrogen, freezing my throat and stabbing into my lungs. There was no going back. The three years of systematic humiliation, the way she had trampled my remaining pride outside the lounge last night—every single blow was permanently etched into my bones. With a sudden burst of energy, I slapped the velvet box out of her hand, sending it flying across the room. “Are you insane, Cynthia?” I rasped, laughing coldly. “I mailed that piece of garbage back to you the exact day I signed the contract with Naomi Albright. Why on earth are you digging up my trash now?” The room went dead silent. The fragile warmth in Cynthia’s eyes shattered, replaced by a dark, bloodshot rage. She lunged, grabbing my shirt collar and pinning me hard against the mold-stained wall. “You’re playing with me?” she hissed, her voice shaking. “Last night, you were burning up, crying for this watch, begging through your tears… and it was all a goddamn act?” It took me a second to realize that last night hadn’t been a dream after all. But to a dying man, what difference did it make? I curled my lips into a mocking smile. “Of course, Ms. Shaw. I just wanted to see how far I could string along a powerful, ruthless executive like you. Do you see how pathetic you look right now?” We had been entangled for seven years; I knew exactly where to twist the knife to cause the most pain. Cynthia was a proud woman. She could never tolerate being played for a fool. “Shut up!” She lost all control, crashing her mouth against mine in a desperate, punishing kiss. She bit down hard, and the sharp, metallic taste of blood instantly bloomed between us. I had no strength to fight her off, letting the iron-like taste wash over my tongue. When she finally pulled away, her chest was heaving, her eyes wild. “Three years, Jesse. Do you even have a heart left in there?” “I paraded all those boys in front of you. Why didn’t you get jealous? Why didn’t you scream at me?” “Would it kill you to just bend a little? To admit that you still care about me?” “Do you have any idea how happy I was when I heard you crying for that cheap watch last night…” “How dare you lie to me, Jesse!” Her voice cracked on my name, thin and laced with a suffocating, desperate sorrow. Even though I was determined to take my secrets to the grave, my chest throbbed with a dull, heavy ache that left me speechless. In the stifling silence of our standoff, Tyler’s voice suddenly drifted from the hallway. “Cynthia? Are you in there? Why did you change the door code? My wrist hurts… are you mad at me?” The vulnerability in Cynthia’s eyes vanished instantly, locked away behind her familiar wall of ice. “I’m done wasting my time on you,” she said coldly. “Starting today, Tyler is moving into the estate. He’s taking your place.” She let go of my collar and turned toward the door. “You actually gave him the door code…” Before I could finish the sentence, a sudden, hot rush surged from the back of my throat. I coughed violently, and a spray of dark crimson blood splattered across the faded linoleum. Cynthia stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around, her brow furrowing as she stared at me with a cold sneer. “You missed your calling, Jesse. You should have been an actor. Did you actually prepare a fake blood pack? You’ll do anything for money, won’t you? Did you put on this kind of show for Naomi Albright, too?” She thought it was a trick. But I knew the reality: my fragile body couldn’t handle the strain of these emotional storms. That single fit had drained what little life I had left. Clawing my way onto the edge of the mattress, I managed to stand, gripping the bed frame for support. I snatched the velvet box from the floor and hurled it at her. “Get your trash out of here! You and Tyler can both rot! I’m still breathing—don’t you dare ruin my home!” Cynthia let out a dark, mocking laugh. “You think you still have a home? Tomorrow, I’m having Tyler set up right across from your breakfast cart. The more miserable you are, the happier I’ll be!” A blinding wave of fury washed over me, and another deep cough tore a fresh mouthful of blood from my lips. My vision began to dim. “Cynthia… you don’t know the first thing about love. Did you ever bother to look into why I went to the Albrights? Do you honestly believe those loan sharks hounding your father just magically grew a conscience and walked away?!” “You’ve spent years treating me like dirt… Cynthia, you are going to regret this for the rest of your life!” Crimson stained my shirt front, pooling fast. The sneer wiped clean off Cynthia’s face. Panic took hold of her, her body trembling violently as she lunged forward to catch my collapsing frame. Her voice cracked, barely recognizable. “Jesse! Jesse, look at me! Don’t close your eyes, please… I’m taking you to the hospital right now!”

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My mother passed away early, leaving me in the care of my three billionaire uncles. The oldest, Charles, is an AI tech mogul. The middle, Alistair, runs the largest fine art and antique auction house in the country. The youngest, Brody, is a culinary empire giant. These three powerhouse bachelors have spoiled me rotten, single-handedly raising me to be a thoroughly useless heiress. I fully expected to spend the rest of my life coasting as a luxury-class slacker. Until last night, right before bed, when I was dragged into a bizarre group chat titled The Underworld Cannon Fodder Support Group. The pinned announcement flashed my name in dripping, neon-red numbers: [Member: Maeve Callahan. Time remaining until forced offline: 30 days.] [Cause of Death: Fatal car crash plunge into the ocean, orchestrated by three Destined Heroines.] I thought it was a spam bot or some elaborate prank. But then, three candid photos popped up in the chat. The first was taken in Charles’s office. The timestamp read 11:40 PM. A woman in a cream trench coat carrying two coffees was smiling as she pushed the door open. Below it was a line of text: Victoria, 31, Stanford PhD, Lead Algorithm Engineer at Callahan Tech. Transferred three weeks ago. Note: The girl on page three of Charles’s high school yearbook. My heart skipped a beat. Sleep vanished instantly. The second photo was Alistair’s private appraisal room. A woman in an elegant, deep-emerald silk dress was leaning in close to whisper in Alistair’s ear, their faces mere inches apart. Isabel, Alistair’s high school sweetheart. Recently left her post at the British Museum to become the auction house’s chief appraiser. The third was even more direct. Outside Brody’s townhouse, a woman with a high ponytail was hauling two large duffel bags, smiling brighter than the morning sun. Note: Cassidy, the “tomboy best friend” Brody swore was like a sister. Just moved in next door under the guise of starting a joint restaurant venture. The group announcement scrolled on mercilessly: [These three women will collaborate to eliminate the host within a month to secure their hold on the Callahan fortune and affection. Meanwhile, your love-struck uncles, blinded by nostalgia, remain entirely oblivious.] [Once the host is dead, they will divide the Callahan estate, and their personal influence will skyrocket.] I stared at the screen, my fingers hovering over the dial button to call Charles. But I hesitated. … What would I even say? “Hey Uncle Charles, it’s 1:00 AM, and a ghost chat told me the girl from your yearbook is going to murder me”? With his hyper-rational, tech-CEO brain, he’d have me booked for a full brain CT scan and a mandatory mental health retreat by morning. Alistair would laugh and ask if I’d been watching too many psychological thrillers. Brody would call Cassidy over to cook me a warm meal and tell me to stop drinking iced energy drinks before bed. I tossed the phone onto the mattress, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t fight them directly. I had to outsmart them. They wanted to play a game? Fine. I would simply turn my three starry-eyed uncles into spinning tops that only rotated around me. The next morning at ten, wearing deep dark circles under my eyes, I stormed into the Callahan Tech high-rise. As the elevator let me out on the penthouse suite, Charles’s secretary, Frank, greeted me with a warm smile. “Morning, Miss Maeve. Mr. Callahan just finished his morning brief—” “Frank,” I interrupted, “what’s in the empty suite right next to my uncle’s office?” Frank blinked, startled. “That’s reserved for incoming executives. It’s currently vacant. Why?” “I’m leasing it. Actually, I’m buying it.” Frank froze as if someone had hit pause on his life. “Buying it? For what?” “A studio,” I said, entirely serious. “Music production. Heavy metal.” His mouth opened, but no words came out. I didn’t wait for him to recover. I pushed past him and opened the double doors to Charles’s office. Charles sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, reviewing a stack of data sheets. His gold wire-rimmed glasses caught the morning light, giving him a clean, untouchable look. At thirty-six, he easily carried the effortless grace of someone ten years younger. Hearing the door, he looked up. When he saw it was me, he set his pen down. “What are you doing here at this hour? Have you eaten?” “Yes,” I said, hopping onto the corner of his desk and swinging my legs. “Uncle Charles, I’m getting into music.” “Alright.” He looked back down at his documents. “What kind?” “Heavy metal.” The tip of his pen paused on the paper. “Where?” “Right next door.” Before Charles could reply, there was a soft knock, and the office door opened. “Mr. Callahan, I have the revised system architecture report—” Victoria walked in, wearing a crisp cream silk blouse, her dark hair draped over her shoulder. She held a folder in one hand and two cups of coffee in the other. Her gaze lingered on me for a fraction of a second before she offered a warm, polished smile. “And who is this?” “My niece, Maeve,” Charles said without looking up. “Maeve, say hello to Victoria.” Victoria’s smile widened slightly, savoring the polite distance of the introduction. “Hi, Victoria,” I said, beaming. Then I turned right back to my uncle. “So, about the room next door…” “Go see Frank for the paperwork,” Charles said, taking the folder from Victoria. “Make a list of whatever equipment you need. Run the invoice through company procurement.” Victoria’s grip on the coffee cups tightened ever so slightly. I slid off the desk, blew my uncle a kiss, and headed for the exit. As I passed Victoria, I caught her eye. Her smile remained perfectly composed, but beneath the surface, a tiny crack of irritation had opened. I didn’t miss it. The drum kit arrived three days later. Along with it came two electric guitars, a bass, and a pair of professional studio monitors standing nearly six feet tall. I timed my practice sessions to start exactly during Charles’s “deep focus hours”—two to four in the afternoon. When the first bass kick echoed, the entire floor’s glass partitions began to hum. The leaves of the potted plants in the corridor visibly trembled. In less than four minutes, the sharp click of high heels sounded outside. Victoria stood in my doorway, her smile still intact but looking distinctly strained. “Maeve, your uncle is running a critical algorithmic simulation right now. The noise is a bit…” “What?” I pulled one ear of my headphones off, tilting my head. “Victoria, what did you say? I can’t hear you over the track.” She took a slow, controlled breath. “I asked if you could turn it down.” “Turn it down?” I pointed at the massive monitors. “Have you ever heard quiet heavy metal? That’s not metal, Victoria. That’s a lullaby.” Her jaw tightened. Right then, the door to the executive office swung open. Charles stepped out, his suit immaculate, holding a sheet of messy scribbles. Victoria turned immediately, her voice softening. “Mr. Callahan, I was just trying to work things out with Maeve—” Charles ignored her, walking straight up to me. He took the drumsticks from my hands. Then, he sat down and played a flawless, driving four-four metal rhythm. Clean, precise, and heavy. I stared at him, my eyes wide. “You actually know how to play?” “College band,” he said, handing the sticks back and straightening his sleeves. “I’ll move my focus hours to the evenings. Practice whenever you want during the day.” He turned and went back inside his office, shutting the door behind him. Victoria stood frozen in the hallway, looking like a statue that had suddenly lost power. I spun the drumstick in my hand, caught it, and gave her a polite nod. “Sorry to disrupt your work, Victoria. Take care.” That evening, my phone buzzed. [28 Days Remaining. Threat levels updated: Target Victoria’s status toward the host has changed from ‘irrelevant bystander’ to ‘active threat’. Please exercise caution.] I rested the phone against my chest, staring at the ceiling as a slow smile spread across my face. An active threat. That was much better. If I didn’t get in her way, I’d never break her game. Just as I finished adjusting the cymbals, another notification popped up. [27 Days Remaining. Target Isabel will have lunch with Alistair in the VIP Appraisal Room today at 12:00 PM. Agenda: Establishing a joint valuation studio.] I stared at the screen for three seconds, grabbed my keys, and headed straight to the garage. It was time to pay Alistair a visit. Alistair’s auction house occupied the top floors of a sleek glass tower downtown. As I walked down the quiet, carpeted gallery hall, I caught sight of Isabel. She was carrying two small gourmet dessert bowls toward Alistair’s private appraisal room, wearing a tailored emerald-green dress, her hair swept up elegantly. “Maeve?” She stopped, looking surprised before offering a soft smile. “What brings you here?” “Looking for Uncle Alistair,” I replied, flashing a bright, innocent grin. “Hello, Aunt Isabel.” The word Aunt made Isabel’s hand stiffen visibly on the dessert tray. She was thirty-four, only two years younger than Alistair. Calling her “Aunt” was mathematically reasonable, but socially devastating. She kept her composure, though her smile slipped a fraction of a millimeter. “You can just call me Isabel, dear.” “Of course, Aunt Isabel,” I said earnestly, nodding. “He’s inside, right? I’ll let myself in. Don’t let me keep you.” With a quick step, I slipped past her, leaving her and her desserts out in the hallway. Inside, Alistair was leaning over a delicate blue-and-white porcelain vase with intricate lotus scrolls. He was a man of quiet, vintage elegance—equally comfortable in a tailored three-piece suit or a relaxed silk smoking jacket. Hearing the door, he didn’t look up. “Just set it down, Isabel.” “Uncle Alistair, it’s me.” He raised his head, his eyes warming instantly. “Maeve. What are you doing here?” I sat down on the antique rosewood chair across from his work table. “I’ve decided to get into metal sculpting.” “Oh?” “Industrial style,” I said, leaning forward. “Welding, scrap metal, blowtorches. The whole thing.” He set his magnifying glass down. “And where is this studio going to be?” “Right here.” His eyebrows rose. “This is a climate-controlled secure vault, Maeve.” “I know,” I said, entirely reasonable. “But I need inspiration. This room is practically dripping with history. If I stay here for a month, I’ll produce ten masterpieces.” Alistair stared at me for a few seconds, then let out a low laugh. “Fine.” “Fine?” “Yes,” he said, picking up his glass again. “The east wing storage is empty. I’ll have the staff move some welding equipment in. But there’s one rule.” “What?” “Touch a vase, and I lock you out.” “Deal.” Just then, the door pushed open. Isabel entered, carrying the now slightly cooled desserts, her expression soft and accommodating. “Alistair, I brought these up from the cafe downstairs—” Her eyes fell on the desk, landing on the joint-appraisal proposal she had spent two weeks drafting. It was currently buried under a messy, hand-drawn sketch of “Maeve’s Industrial Art Lab” taking up the entire east wing. “Alistair,” Isabel said, her voice dropping to a gentle, pleading register, “I thought we discussed using the east wing for our joint-venture office?” Alistair didn’t look up from his ancient text. “I changed my mind.” “Changed your mind?” “Maeve needs the space,” he said simply. “We can delay your project, or find another location.” Isabel’s fingers turned white against the edge of the dessert tray. I leaned over the table, looking helpful. “Aunt Isabel, those desserts look delicious. Can I have one?” She handed a bowl over with a stiff, mechanical movement. I took a bite and sighed happily. “Wow, so sweet. Uncle Alistair, do you want a taste?” Alistair took the spoon from my hand, sampled a tiny bit, and frowned. “Too sweet. Isabel, you know I don’t eat sugar.” Isabel’s face went pale. They had spent years together in high school, yet she had forgotten his basic aversion to sweets. Or perhaps she was still holding onto the memory of a seventeen-year-old boy who would eat sugar just to please her. But people change. Only those blinded by nostalgia stay in the past. As I left the auction house, my phone buzzed again. [26 Days Remaining. Target Isabel’s status updated: Alert. Host has successfully intervened in the second territory.] I slipped the phone into my pocket, intending to call a car, when Brody’s name flashed on the screen. “Maeve!” his booming voice echoed through the speaker. “The soft opening for the new restaurant is tomorrow. Come get some food! Oh, and Cassidy’s here. You two need to get to know each other—she’s my absolute ride-or-die.” I stared at the screen and smiled. Perfect timing. It was time to meet the third player. Brody’s new restaurant occupied a massive three-story corner space in the city’s trendiest culinary district. I arrived at four in the afternoon, an hour before the private soft opening. As my car pulled up, I saw Cassidy standing by the entrance, directing workers hanging a massive custom sign. She was wearing a white chef’s coat, her sleeves rolled up to reveal toned forearms, her high ponytail swinging as she laughed. She spotted me immediately and walked over. “Well, look who it is! Maeve, right? Brody’s little princess!” She reached out to hug me, but I took a step back, smoothly avoiding the contact. “Hello, Aunt Cassidy,” I said, offering a polite smile. “Is Uncle Brody inside?” Her hand remained suspended in the air for a second before she drew it back, her smile tightening. “Just call me Cassidy, sweetie. ‘Aunt’ sounds so formal. Your uncle and I grew up together. If we’re talking about seniority—” “But respect is important,” I interrupted, keeping my voice sweet. “I lost my parents young, so Uncle Brody has basically been a father to me. Since you’re his childhood friend, that makes you family. Like an aunt.” The corner of Cassidy’s mouth twitched. She was thirty-two, a year younger than Brody. Being labeled an aunt clearly wasn’t part of her plan. Inside, Brody was behind the open kitchen counter, tossing a heavy copper wok. When he saw me, he nearly dropped his spatula. “Maeve! You’re here! Are you hungry? Let me make you some garlic ribs!” Brody was the most rugged of my uncles—standing six-foot-three with athletic shoulders—but the moment he stepped into a kitchen, he became a gentle giant. I sat at the counter. “Uncle Brody, I have an idea.” “Let’s hear it.” “I want to study molecular gastronomy.” “Sure, sounds fun.” “I want to take over your kitchen.” Brody’s wok came to a halt. “Take over?” “Just for a week,” I said, putting on my best pleading look. “I want to set up an experimental lab. Liquid nitrogen ice cream, reverse-spherification caviar, things like that. I’ll give it back to you in perfect condition.” “But the soft opening—” “Can we delay it for a week?” I leaned in. “Please, Uncle Brody?” Brody sighed, waving his spatula in defeat. “Fine, fine. Whatever you want.” “Brody.” Cassidy’s voice cut through from behind us. She walked over, holding a tray of prepped ingredients, her expression strained. “We’ve been planning this opening for three months. The food critics are already booked. A delay is going to look highly unprofessional.” “Then we’ll reschedule them,” Brody said without looking up from his stove. “My niece wants the kitchen. Everything else can wait.” Cassidy’s grip on the tray turned her knuckles white. I turned to her with a helpful smile. “Don’t worry, Aunt Cassidy. I’ll have Uncle Charles’s secretary handle the critics. We’ll pay them triple their appearance fees and give them VIP passes to the Callahan hotels. They’ll be happy to wait.” She forced a laugh. “There’s no need to go to such trouble—” “It’s no trouble at all,” I said warmly. “After all, it’s your hard work we’re talking about.” I made sure to emphasize the “Aunt” once more. By seven that evening, I was in the kitchen directing a crew installing liquid nitrogen tanks when Cassidy walked in carrying a covered bowl. “Maeve,” she said softly, “your uncle simmered some chicken broth earlier. I brought a bowl over for you. Drink it while it’s hot.” I took the bowl and set it down on the stainless steel counter without tasting it. “Aunt Cassidy,” I said, looking up at her. “Can I ask you something?” “Of course.” “You and my uncle grew up together, right?” “We did.” “Then you must know about his severe peanut allergy.” Cassidy’s expression froze. She didn’t know. Brody’s allergy had developed during his college years, a period when she had been living abroad and they had lost touch for nearly six years. Her entire “ride-or-die” dynamic was built on childhood memories that no longer matched reality. “I—” “And,” I continued, pointing to the bowl, “you didn’t ask about his dietary restrictions before bringing this, did you? There are green onions in this broth.” “Yes… just a few.” “Brody hasn’t touched green onions in twenty years,” I said gently. Cassidy stood there, her face flushing red, then pale. Before she could speak, the kitchen doors swung open. Brody walked in, his expression uncharacteristically dark. Behind him stood Charles and Alistair. Three of the city’s most powerful men stood lined up at the kitchen entrance. Charles, looking cold behind his gold-rimmed glasses, fixed his gaze on Cassidy. “Who authorized that broth?” Alistair adjusted his cuffs, his voice deceptively calm. “I was just told downstairs that someone was calling my niece a ‘little princess’?” Brody untied his apron, tossing it onto the counter, his voice flat. “Cassidy, the three of us need to talk.”

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My sister and I have birthdays only two days apart. For her birthday, there was always a tiered cake from the French bakery uptown. For mine, there was a single, stale grocery-store muffin. But this year, my eighteenth, my parents finally promised me a real cake. A chocolate one with buttercream frosting, just like the ones they got for Lottie. So, on the evening of my birthday, I waited. And waited. But there was nothing. No pink boxes on the counter, no sweet scent of sugar baking in the oven. I finally walked into the kitchen, swallowing my pride. “Mom, where’s my cake?” My mother didn’t even look up from the stove, her face tight with immediate irritation. “Didn’t I buy you those blueberry muffins yesterday?” “But you promised—” “Do you have any idea how hard your father works?” she snapped, slamming a pot down. “You want us to throw money away on fancy bakeries when we have bills to pay?” Before I could speak, Lottie glided into the kitchen, her voice dripping with soft, patronizing concern. “Wren, sweetie, you know how tight things are. You have to be understanding.” Even Connor, my childhood best friend who had been hanging out in the living room, chimed in. “Yeah, Wren. Your mom made you a fried egg this morning. Don’t be ungrateful.” I looked at the three of them, and a cold, heavy weight sank into my chest. Every year, Lottie got a custom cake, a new designer dress, and a dinner reservation at a steakhouse downtown. I had spent eighteen years in her shadow, eating day-old muffins, and I had never once complained. How much more understanding was I supposed to be? I didn’t argue. I just turned around, walked back to my tiny room, and shut the door. I took a single, thin wax candle and drove it straight into the middle of the stale muffin. As I reached for the matches, I made a silent vow. Next year, I would be gone. I would buy my own cake. I would never rely on any of them again. … But before I could even strike a match, my bedroom door burst open. My mother marched in. Without a word, she snatched the muffin off my desk and hurled it onto the hardwood floor. “Wren, who do you think you are?” she hissed, her eyes flashing. “Walking out on us? Giving me that attitude in my own house?” The muffin shattered into dry, pathetic crumbs, scattering across the dusty floor. Sticky. Ruined. “I don’t have an attitude,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I just think you’re unfair. You’ve always been unfair.” “Unfair?” My mother gasped, as if I had slapped her. “Wren, I carried you for nine months. I brought you into this world, and this is how you speak to me? You are a curse. An ungrateful curse.” My father rushed in behind her, his face flushed with anger. Before I could move, he shoved me hard. I lost my footing and fell, my hands scraping against the floorboards. “Wren! How dare you speak to your mother like that?” he yelled. My palm pressed directly into the sticky remains of the smashed muffin. Tears welled in my eyes, hot and bitter. “A curse.” That was what they called me. Growing up, because Lottie was the beautiful, brilliant golden child, she got the sweet, juicy tips of the strawberries while I was left with the sour, white stems. When Lottie sneezed, they panicked and took her to the emergency room for a full workup. When I had a fever so high my teeth chattered, they handed me an expired bottle of Motrin from the back of the medicine cabinet and told me to sleep it off. Lottie took dance, piano, and tennis lessons. The only reason I was allowed to take a basic art class was because my aunt had secretly paid for it. My mother even kept a physical ledger—a worn black notebook where she recorded every penny she had ever spent on me, starting with a fifty-cent pack of gum I begged for when I was four years old. But if you added up every single entry in that book over eighteen years, it didn’t even reach three hundred dollars. Meanwhile, Lottie’s closet was lined with designer handbags, each one costing thousands. But I was the one who was a financial burden. Lottie stepped into the room, looking down at me with pity. “Wren, don’t be mad at Mom and Dad. They work so hard. Look, if you really want a cake, I’ll go buy you one right now. I’ll use my own allowance.” She made a show of grabbing her purse, but Connor immediately stepped in, catching her by the arm. “Lottie, don’t,” Connor said, glaring at me. “Someone as ungrateful as her doesn’t deserve it.” My parents nodded in agreement. “She’s right, Lottie. Don’t waste your money on her.” I stared up at them from the floor. The last lingering warmth in my chest died. With a heavy thud, my father slammed the door shut, leaving me alone in the dark. I sat there for a long time, my hands shaking. Finally, I pulled out my phone and logged into the state’s academic portal. Because Lottie was already in college, my parents didn’t even realize what day it was. Today was the day the standardized state exam scores were released. A few seconds later, the webpage loaded. I scrolled down to my name. There, in bold letters at the top of the screen, was my score. Underneath, a small system note read: “Rank: 1st in State.” I quickly pressed my hand over my mouth, choking back a sob. It meant everything. It meant that starting today, I could use my credentials to get high-paying tutoring jobs. I could support myself. The invisible chains binding me to this house were finally starting to snap. I messaged a classmate, asking them to post the state-wide honors list to our school’s parent group chat. Almost immediately, the sound of loud laughter drifted in from the living room. I heard my mother’s voice, thick with dramatic, emotional tears. “Oh, Lottie, you’re such an angel. To think you used your own money to buy us a gift on “your” birthday week. Why is it that two girls from the same womb can be so entirely different?” I sat on the edge of my bed, silent. Of course Lottie could afford gifts. Her monthly allowance was a thousand dollars. Mine was ten. I began packing my things into a small duffel bag when my mother knocked sharply on the door. “Wren? What are you doing in there? Get out here and clear the table. Your sister just got her nails done and can’t do the dishes.” My stomach growled painfully. I opened the door. The dining table was covered in the remnants of a massive seafood boil—empty lobster shells, crab claws, and pools of butter. My mother pointed at a plate with a few cold, broken pieces of crab meat. “There. Eat that. Lest you go around telling people we starve you.” I stared at the plate, my throat tightening. “I can’t eat that,” I said quietly. “I’m allergic to shellfish.” When I was two, I had ended up in the ER after eating shrimp. The bill had been a hundred dollars, and my mother had complained about it for years, logging it into her black ledger. Yet, she couldn’t remember the allergy itself. “Well, if you’re not going to eat, start cleaning,” she snapped. “Lottie can’t stand a messy house.” “I’m allergic,” I repeated, staring directly into her eyes, desperately hoping to see a flicker of guilt, or at least recognition. She blinked, caught off guard for a fraction of a second, before her face hardened again. “Well, you should have said something sooner. How are your father and I supposed to read your mind?” I gathered the greasy plates and carried them into the kitchen. I turned on the faucet, letting the rush of running water drown out her voice as she continued to mutter complaints from the hallway. I “had” told them. I had told them dozens of times. But just like the birthday cake, they chose to forget. Or maybe they remembered and simply didn’t care. When you don’t care about someone, forgetting is easy. By the time I finished the dishes, my father was opening the front door to a delivery courier. He signed for two packages, carrying them into the living room, and tossed one onto the couch near me. “Here,” he said carelessly. “That dress you wanted for your birthday.” A spark of genuine hope flared in my chest. I reached for the box, but before I could open it, Lottie let out a squeal of delight. “Dad! Oh my god! How did you know I wanted this bag?” “A father knows,” he said, puffing out his chest. “It’s been sold out for weeks, but I made sure to get it for my favorite girl.” “Thank you, Dad!” Lottie threw her arms around him. She ripped open the elegant, ribbon-tied box to reveal a designer leather tote—the one endorsed by her favorite actress. It was easily a three-thousand-dollar bag. I stood frozen, my fingers tightening around the cardboard mailer in my hands. My nail tore through the cheap, thin plastic packaging. I looked down through the tear. Inside was a synthetic, poorly made dress, and right across the front was a massive, gaping rip along the seam. A hot tear slipped down my cheek, landing on the torn fabric. My father glanced over at me, his tone sour. “Some people in this house could learn a thing or two about gratitude. I buy her a gift, and she doesn’t even have the decency to say thank you.” I kept my eyes glued to the floor, my jaw clenched. Say thank you? For a ruined piece of trash? Did he think I hadn’t seen his phone screen when he signed for the delivery? The cheap dress had been ordered from a discount clearance site. $9.99, free shipping. Sensing the tension, Lottie quickly grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the door. “Come on, let’s go out. We don’t want to ruin Dad’s mood.” She leaned in close, whispering to me and Connor. “Let’s go to The Velvet Lounge. I have a VIP annual pass.” I paused. The Velvet Lounge was the most exclusive club uptown. A monthly membership cost hundreds of dollars; an annual pass was thousands. Our parents would never allow Lottie to go to a place like that. “Lottie,” I asked, “how do you have an annual pass? Mom and Dad would lose their minds.” Lottie glanced at Connor, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink. “Connor got it for me,” she murmured. “As an early birthday present.” I looked down at the cheap, tarnished wire bracelet on my wrist. It was my birthday present from Connor, bought from a dollar-store bin. He had told me he was completely broke and couldn’t afford anything else. I had spent the last year wondering why he was always short on cash despite working a part-time job after school. I had worried about him. I had even given him every single dollar of my savings—$1,012—money I had painstakingly saved from odd tutoring jobs over three years. It hadn’t been much, but it was everything I had. And he had taken it to buy my sister a VIP pass to an exclusive lounge. Before I could process the betrayal, Lottie dragged me toward the car. When we arrived, Lottie immediately grabbed Connor’s hand and pulled him through the velvet ropes. I watched their retreating backs, the music pulsing through the heavy doors. I couldn’t do this. I turned to leave, but as I stepped away from the entrance, a heavily intoxicated man stumbled out of the shadows. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like iron. “Help! Thief!” he screamed, his breath reeking of cheap whiskey. “She stole my wallet! Somebody call the cops!” Dozens of eyes turned toward us. I struggled wildly, trying to wrench my arm free, but he only squeezed tighter, digging his fingers into my flesh. “Let go of me!” I cried, panic rising in my throat. Connor suddenly appeared, stepping between us and pushing the man back. “What do you think you’re doing?” Connor demanded. “She took it!” the drunk slurred, pointing a finger at me. “She stole my wallet right out of my pocket!” I shrank behind Connor, my entire body trembling with terror. But then, I felt Connor’s protective stance falter. The tension in his shoulders faded, and his grip on my hand began to loosen. He turned around to look at me. “Wren… is that true? Did you take it?” I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing. “You don’t believe me? Connor, you’ve known me my whole life.” The drunk man stepped closer. “Let’s go. We’re going to the police station.” Lottie, standing safely behind Connor, sighed. “Wren, if you took his wallet, just give it back. Otherwise, Mom and Dad are going to have to get involved.” I looked at Connor, waiting for him to defend me. To say something. Anything. But he just looked away. I remembered when we were kids. My parents never gave me lunch money, so I used to sit alone, watching the other kids eat. When some money went missing from the classroom, the teacher had immediately suspected me. Back then, Connor had been the first to stand up, putting himself between me and the teacher’s accusations. It was the first time I had ever felt protected. The first time I felt like I mattered to someone. But that boy was gone. Half an hour later, we were all sitting in a sterile room at the local police precinct. The moment my father walked through the door, he didn’t ask what happened. He didn’t check to see if I was okay. He simply marched over and struck me across the face. “You absolute embarrassment!” he roared. My mother sank into a plastic chair nearby, her finger pointed at my face. “Wren! You have dragged our family name through the dirt! I wish to God I had never had you!” I fell back onto the cold linoleum floor. The chill seeped through my thin clothes, straight into my bones. My wrist was already turning a deep, ugly purple where the man had grabbed me. A slow trickle of blood dripped from my lip, staining the white tile like a blooming poppy. They hadn’t asked for my side of the story. They didn’t care about the bruises on my arms. They only cared about their pride. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. Seeing my reaction, the drunk man grew bolder. “She stole my wallet. There was three thousand dollars in cash in there. You pay me back tonight, or I press charges.” Lottie walked over, her voice soft and pleading. “Wren, please. Just give him the wallet. Stealing is wrong.” Connor stood by the door, his eyes cold. “Wren, I really didn’t think you’d sink this low.” I wiped the blood from my lip, staring up at him. “Sink this low? Connor, did any of you look for proof? Did anyone even think to look at the security cameras?” My father’s face turned purple with rage. “You shameless brat!” He kicked my leg, sending me sprawling across the floor again. “You deal with this yourself! Don’t expect your mother and me to clean up your mess!” My mother glared at me. “Give him the money, Wren. Don’t make us say it again.” A bitter smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I was stupid,” I whispered to myself. “I was stupid to think, even for a second, that any of you would stand by me.” I slowly pushed myself up. I pulled out my phone and began texting the few friends I had, desperately asking to borrow money. I managed to scrape together a thousand dollars from classmates. For the remaining two thousand, I opened a high-interest lending app on my phone and submitted an emergency application. Two thousand dollars, with interest, meant I would owe twenty-three hundred. Three hundred dollars was more than my allowance for the last three years combined. As soon as the transfer cleared, I sent the money to the man’s account. My parents didn’t wait. My father grabbed Lottie’s hand and started walking toward the exit. “Leave her,” my mother spit out, not even looking back. “With an attitude like that, I don’t have a second daughter.” After that night, they completely washed their hands of me. They packed their bags and took Lottie on a lavish vacation—first to Miami, then to a boutique resort in Sedona. They had money for luxury hotels. They had money for three-hundred-dollar dinners. But they had never had fifty dollars for my birthday cake. But the pain didn’t sting the way it used to. I was numb to it now. With my state test scores officially published, the offers for tutoring came pouring in. Parents of wealthy high schoolers were willing to pay premium hourly rates for the state’s top scholar. Within weeks, I paid back every dollar I owed my friends and cleared the balance on the lending app. Because of my academic standing, Columbia University offered me a full-tuition scholarship. All I needed to do now was save enough for my living expenses. On the day my parents and Lottie returned from their trip, I was sitting on the sofa in our living room, being interviewed live by a state news crew. When the front door opened and they walked in, carrying their expensive luggage, I smiled directly at the camera. “Oh, look,” I said, my voice sweet and clear. “My parents and sister are back.” I stood up, opening the door wider so the camera operator could get a clear shot. The lens focused on Lottie’s three-thousand-dollar designer bag. It captured my parents’ sun-bronzed, glowing faces, and the expensive linen clothes they had bought on vacation. And then, the camera panned back to me—standing in our cramped living room, wearing a cheap, synthetic dress with a visible rip sewn together by hand. The contrast was glaring, undeniable, and broadcast live to thousands of viewers.

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My mother was the housekeeper for the Whitmores. From the moment I was old enough to walk, Hudson Whitmore treated me as his shadow. In elementary school, while other kids went home to watch cartoons, I was dragged along to his private tutoring sessions. In middle school, I stood by him during a chaotic street fight. He walked away without a single scratch, but a stray wooden plank caught me right across the forehead. Hudson cried the entire time he carried me on his back, running to three different emergency rooms in the pouring rain. The wound eventually healed, but it left a permanent white scar. By high school, the age of sudden flushes and secret pining, Hudson fell hard for the school’s golden girl. With an infectious, bright-eyed excitement, he enlisted me to draft his love letters, pick up her favorite breakfasts, and help him select the perfect gifts. I became his silent, loyal accomplice—a shadow he couldn’t shake—forced to choreograph every beat of his courtship. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, right before our final college prep exams, he turned to m and said: “Isla mentioned she’s always wanted a personal assistant like I have. Why don’t you go help her out for a few months?” For the first time in my life, I said no. He frowned, annoyed. “Cassie, don’t you love me? Why can’t you just do this one little thing for me?” The second the words left his mouth, he froze, realizing exactly what he had let slip. I looked at him, slowly. He knew. He had always known. … Loving Hudson Whitmore was the most agonizing, helpless secret of my youth. He was the golden heir to a real estate empire; I was just the stray dog living under his family’s roof. I was three when we first met. My parents had just divorced, and my mother, red-eyed and trembling, carried me into the Whitmore estate. Four-year-old Hudson sat on the plush living room rug playing with Lego bricks. He frowned up at my mother and said, “I don’t like crying kids. Make her be quiet.” My mother quickly pulled me close, bowing her head to apologize to the four-year-old heir. Then, she ushered me into her small, windowless bedroom off the kitchen. For many years, that windowless room was my world, and I learned to be incredibly quiet. I trailed behind Hudson like a keychain dangling from his backpack—a convenient, disposable fixture in his life. In elementary school, he would grab my arm as soon as the bell rang. “Advanced math tutoring today,” he’d announce, taking it for granted. I hated those classes. They were designed for elite kids. The instructors flew through the material, I struggled to keep up, and nobody ever spoke to me—except to whisper giggles and call me the “charity case.” But Hudson refused to let me leave. Once, while packing up my bag, I gathered the courage to ask him in a small voice, “Why do you always make me come with you?” Without looking up from his textbooks, he muttered, “Because I get bored alone.” Because he got bored. That single, selfish whim tethered my entire childhood to his side. Whenever classmates asked who I was, Hudson would offer a dismissive shrug: “Just the housekeeper’s kid. My shadow.” The moment those words were spoken, the pitying or contemptuous stares would settle over me like heavy dust. My elementary school years were entirely defined by those looks. Once, I asked my mother if we could rent a place of our own. She rubbed her calloused hands together, looking so terribly conflicted as she sat on our narrow single bed, scanning cheap rental listings on her phone late into the night. I didn’t sleep a wink either. The next morning, I pretended it was all a joke. “I was just being silly yesterday,” I told her, offering a practiced smile. “The Whitmores’ place is great, and Hudson is really nice to me.” I don’t know if she believed me, but she smiled, stroked my hair with her rough fingers, and hurried to the kitchen to prepare Hudson’s breakfast. I understood from a very young age: Hudson was gold, and I was dirt. The chasm between us was insurmountable. To fall in love with him despite knowing this was nothing short of emotional masochism. But love is rarely logical, and when the shift happened, I was entirely off guard. It was our freshman year of high school when Hudson got into a fight with a group of older boys from the vocational school down the street. In the chaotic blur of fists, someone swung a heavy wooden bat toward his head. I didn’t think; my body just moved on instinct. I threw myself over him. The next second, a blinding agony struck my temple, the world went black, and warm blood began pouring down my face. Everything dissolved into panic. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Hudson scream my name: “Cassie!” In the dim streetlights, I saw his beautiful, terrified face. He scooped me onto his back and ran through the downpour, trying three different emergency rooms before finding one that could take me. When I finally woke up, the first thing I saw was his bloodshot, tear-swollen eyes. He was kneeling by the hospital bed, completely drenched, his voice raw and cracking. “Does it hurt?” It hurt terribly. But seeing him look so utterly broken, I shook my head, entirely under his spell. The doctor told us there would be a permanent scar. Hudson sat in silence for a long time before whispering, “Cassie, I’m sorry.” It was the very first time he had ever apologized to me. Watching this proud, rumpled boy crying over me, my heart felt strangely, foolishly light. “It’s not your fault,” I whispered back. “The wood was just too hard.” As high school progressed, Hudson grew even more magnetic and popular, yet he still demanded my presence at every turn. He even playfully threatened me, insisting I had to get into Columbia University with him. When I agreed, his smile was so radiant it eclipsed everything around us, making my chest tighten with a dangerous hope. I believed this was our forever. I actually allowed myself to dream. Then, during our junior year, a transfer student arrived: Isla. She was brilliant, effortlessly beautiful, and immediately knocked Hudson off his throne as the top humanities student in our class. At first, Hudson dismissed her as a try-hard, but soon, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. One evening during study hall, Hudson stopped me. His ears were flushed a deep crimson as he slid a pale blue envelope across the desk. “Cassie, read this for me. Tell me if the letter sounds right.” My heart dropped into a hollow pit, but I reached out and took it. “Who’s it for?” “Isla.” In that exact moment, the old scar on my forehead flared, aching as if the wound had been ripped wide open again. I breathed through the pain, kept my face perfectly still, and said, “Okay.” From then on, I was the architect of his courtship. When he struggled with his prose, I polished his love letters. When he didn’t know what pastries she liked, I quietly found out. When he couldn’t choose a gift, I spent hours scanning storefronts with him. I swallowed the bitter, metallic taste of jealousy, wearing a placid mask of indifference while managing the logistics of his romance. I couldn’t let a single soul—least of all Hudson—discover my pathetic, unrequited, teenage pining. And so, for an entire year, I carried my own heart’s execution orders to the girl he wanted. But even as our final exams loomed, Isla hadn’t accepted him. Hudson grew restless and irritable. One afternoon, he sighed and said, “Isla told me she thinks it’s so cool that I have someone looking out for me all the time. Cassie, why don’t you go be her assistant for a few months? Just to help me win her over.” The air in the room suddenly felt freezing. My fingers turned numb. I looked at him, and for the first time in my life, I didn’t nod. Oblivious to the shift, his tone remained casually cruel. “I mean, what’s the difference? If Isla and I end up together, she’ll basically be your boss anyway.” I lifted my chin, my voice barely a whisper as I spoke the words I should have said years ago. “No. I won’t do that.” Hudson blinked, stunned. His expression hardened. “What do you mean, no?” I couldn’t begin to explain the quiet, humiliating agony of my teenage heart. I merely repeated, “I don’t want to.” He stared down at me, his voice dropping an octave. “It’s a simple favor, Cassie. Why are you making a federal case out of it?” I turned to walk away, but his hand shot out, wrapping tightly around my wrist. In the tense silence, a cold, mocking laugh escaped his lips. “Come on. You’re in love with me, aren’t you? Why can’t you do this one little thing for me if you care so much?” Every muscle in my body locked. My deepest, most fragile secret had been ripped open and exposed to the harsh light of day. I couldn’t even attempt to cover it. I just stared at him in sheer, horrified disbelief. He knew. He had always known how I felt, yet he still made me write those letters. He still made me buy those gifts. To him, my devotion wasn’t something to protect—it was a cheap tool he could exploit. Seeing the blood drain from my face, his smugness vanished, replaced by sudden panic. He dropped my wrist as if it burned him. “Look… if you don’t want to, forget it. Just go home and study. Don’t forget, we promised we’re going to Columbia together.” I didn’t say a word. Go to Columbia? For what? To spend another four years playing the unpaid maid to his perfect love story with Isla? That afternoon, I left school without waiting for him for the very first time. Halfway down the block, Isla stepped out to block my path. “I heard you and Hudson had a fight because of me,” she said gently. “You don’t need to do that. I’m never going to date him anyway. I like someone else.” Gathering her courage, she looked toward the shadow of a maple tree a few yards away. A boy was leaning against the trunk under the dim streetlight. Even in the gloom, I recognized him instantly: Wright Mercer, the brilliant, quiet valedictorian of the science department. He was aloof, strikingly handsome, with a sharp, guarded edge—like fresh snow on a high mountain peak. He stood in the cool evening air, his calm eyes fixed on us. Isla’s cheeks flushed. “So,” she whispered, “please don’t let him make you feel small on my account.” With that, she turned and hurried away. Wright didn’t leave. Instead, he began walking toward me. I stood frozen; though we shared a few classes, we had barely spoken, aside from the occasional times I’d asked him to explain a difficult physics problem. He stopped a foot away, looking down at my tear-rimmed eyes. His voice was level, almost detached. “Stop helping other people chase after what they want.” He paused. “It’s a bad look on you.” A sharp, bitter ache flared in my chest. “No wonder he barely talks,” I thought miserably. “When he does, he’s incredibly blunt.” I turned to leave, but then I spotted Hudson stepping out of the school gates, scanning the street anxiously. My stomach dropped; I couldn’t face him right now. Before I could panic, Wright shifted his weight, his tall frame perfectly blocking me from Hudson’s line of sight. “…Thank you,” I murmured. “Don’t mention it,” Wright replied, his tone as steady as ever. “Are you really going to Columbia?” “I…” “Columbia is fine for humanities, but Emory has a far better program for your major. Columbia isn’t your best option.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hudson give up his search and head down the street. I took a step back from Wright. “I know.” When I got home, I helped my mother prep dinner for the Whitmores before retreating to my windowless room. On my desk lay a fresh stack of scientific journals. It was Hudson’s classic way of offering an olive branch. When we were kids and I couldn’t afford books, he would hand down his old ones. But those gestures were never free. They were always offered right after he had done something particularly thoughtless, a quiet transaction to buy my forgiveness. He had always treated me this way—even his charity carried a price tag. If I kept the journals, it meant I was erasing the slate. No matter how deeply he had cut me. The next morning, Hudson was waiting for me in the dining room, looking exactly as he always did. In his mind, because the journals were on my desk, all was forgiven. He fell right back into his old, demanding rhythm. “Why were you walking with Wright Mercer yesterday?” he asked, pouring himself orange juice. “He’s a stick in the mud. What could you possibly have to say to him? Stay away from him.” I quieted for a beat. “That’s between Wright and me.” Hudson’s brow furrowed. “Between you and him? Since when do you have secrets from me? Besides, what could you possibly have going on with him? You’re “my” shadow.” I remained silent. His tone grew frantic, a note of desperation creeping in. “Are you still mad at me? Cassie… I didn’t mean it like that yesterday.” “I know,” I said softly. “It’s fine.” Once the illusion is shattered, nothing really matters anymore. I thought about those hand-me-down books. I used to treasure them, treating them like a quiet, private language between us. Every time he gave me one, a foolish warmth would bloom in my chest, followed quickly by guilt. I had told myself I was projecting, that I was the one making things complicated because of my unrequited feelings. I assumed Hudson was just being friendly, entirely unaware of my heart. But if he had known all along… then those gestures weren’t innocent. They were deliberate, cruel breadcrumbs. While I was agonizing over every brush of his shoulder, what had he been doing? Standing on the sidelines, amused by my devotion? Watching my quiet longing, my quiet grief, my entire universe revolving around his whims? It made me sick to my stomach to think about it. Hudson let out a sigh of relief. “I knew you wouldn’t hold a grudge. You’re not like that. Listen, once exams are over, we’re moving to Boston. My dad bought an apartment near Columbia, and there’s a room in it for you. Isla will probably move in too, and we can all go to class together. If you miss your mom, I’ll have my mom send her up to Boston too. She can cook for the three of us every day.” A cold, hollow laugh bubbled up in my throat. “We’ll see,” I said. I took a step back, opened the door, and walked out ahead of him. The final exams came and went in a blur. Even after graduation, Isla still hadn’t given Hudson a chance. Yet he kept trying to pull me into his efforts. I couldn’t understand his obsession with inserting me into their dynamic. If he bought a gift for Isla, he’d buy a duplicate for me. When we sat down for meals, he spent more time watching my reactions than hers. When he wanted to play video games with her, he insisted I log on to play support. One evening, I refused. Wright was on the line, helping me compare university programs. Hudson frowned, hovering by my door. “Who are you talking to? You’ve been on the phone for an hour.” “Wright,” I said evenly. “We’re discussing college applications.” “Why are you still talking to him? I told you to stay away from that guy,” Hudson said, his voice tightening with possessiveness. “And what is there to discuss anyway? You’re going to Columbia. The apartment is already set up. True, your room there doesn’t have a window, but you’re used to that, right? Hang up the phone and come play with us.” I glanced at the digital clock on my desk. Three days until our scores were released. Seventy days until the start of the fall semester. Not much longer now. I said goodbye to Wright, hung up, and went to play the game, just as Hudson wanted. The day our scores came out, my phone rang the second I logged off the portal. “Cassie, what did you get?” Hudson demanded. I read out my scores. On the other end of the line, he let out a loud, triumphant shout. “Yes! That’s a lock. We’re definitely going to Columbia together!” I let out a soft, humorless laugh. “What about Isla? What did she get?” “Oh… I haven’t asked her yet. I’ll text her in a bit. I was just worried about you because you always stress out over exams. I wanted to check on you first.” “Thanks,” I muttered, and hung up. Sixty-seven days. By the time our acceptance letters arrived, Hudson was away on a graduation trip in Europe. He had tried to drag me along, but I had flatly refused. I tucked my acceptance letter from Emory deep into my desk drawer. Forty-three days left. When Hudson returned, he brought back a sleek, designer suitcase. “It’s identical to mine,” he said proudly, sliding it toward me. “That way, when we arrive at Columbia, everyone will know you’re with me. It’ll keep the random guys from hitting on you so you can actually focus on keeping me organized.” I managed a polite smile and accepted the suitcase. Seventeen days left. On my final night in that house, I packed the scientific journals he had given me back into that beautiful, matching suitcase. I rolled it down the hall and left it right outside his bedroom door. The next morning, acceptance letter in hand, I boarded a flight to the South, bound for Emory. Hudson, this time, there is no forgiveness.

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The ninth time I caught Corey Dwight in bed with another woman, he played the exact same card. He fell to his knees, slapping his own face until his cheeks were raw, begging for my forgiveness with bloodshot eyes. Just as I was about to soften—again—a dry, raspy voice echoed in my head. It was a voice that sounded old, withered, and entirely too much like my own. “Why?” the voice asked. “You already have a grandson with him. Why won’t you just leave?” I froze. A grandson? Whose grandson? Then came the avalanche of regrets, whispered in my mind like a dying breath: “Corey, when we were twenty-six, I got pregnant. You told me you hated kids, and that very night, you dragged me to the clinic to get rid of it.” “At thirty, Melanie cried to you about some imaginary slight, and you wrapped your hands around my throat, telling me to just go die.” “At forty, I nearly died giving birth to our daughter. But she was only born so her bone marrow could save Melanie’s son. After the biopsy, you took everyone and left, leaving our baby girl to die of an infection in an empty hospital room.” “You even locked me inside the house during your grandson’s hundred-day banquet, making me miss my own mother’s final breath.” The voice grew thicker with a forty-year-old hatred while the young Corey knelt before me, swearing his undying love. “I don’t owe you anything anymore,” the voice wept. “If I could do it all over again, I would rather have died at twenty. I would have let myself rot in that abandoned construction site before I ever agreed to marry you.” A cold shiver ran down my spine. Every single word the voice spoke felt like a prophecy of my own future. The abandoned construction site at twenty? That was exactly where Corey and I had started. … Corey had blood at the corner of his mouth. He knelt, his eyes desperate, his voice raw. “Grace, I’m so sorry. I was drunk. I swear to God, I was drunk.” Drunk? But every single time he slipped up, it was with Melanie. Melanie sat on the edge of the mattress, the strap of her silk slip hanging loosely off her shoulder. She shrugged, entirely unbothered. “Your husband’s pretty good, honey. You’re welcome.” She walked over to me, her eyes dripping with condescension. “But honestly, why do you even care? You’re damaged goods anyway. You can’t expect a guy like him to keep his hands off fresh meat.” A soft, heavy sigh echoed in my mind again. “Corey, let’s just let the fire burn us both to ash. If I could start over, I’d never let you touch me. If I hadn’t held onto hope this ninth time… if I had just let you have Melanie, would we both have ended up differently?” The ninth time? That was right now. The sound of crackling flames roared in my ears, and for a split second, a searing, suffocating heat washed over me, as if bridging a forty-year gap. My hand moved before I could think. I slapped Melanie across the face. Usually, no matter how angry I got, I only took it out on Corey. I had never touched Melanie. We had both survived that hellish basement years ago, and that shared trauma had always held me back. She stared at me, shocked, her hand rising to strike back, but I caught her wrist mid-air. “Do you love Corey?” I asked. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. “Do you think everyone is as pathetic as you, Grace? Love? We’re adults. We just use each other.” My voice trembled, but a cold smile touched my lips. “Good. Because he loves you.” I turned to Corey, slipped the diamond ring off my finger, and dropped it into his palm. “Corey, we’re done. I want a divorce.” The room fell deathly quiet. Corey went stiff, staring at the ring in his hand as if it were a live grenade. Then, he scrambled toward me on his knees, desperately trying to force the ring back onto my finger. I pushed him away. He began to unravel, his eyes darting frantically around the room. “Grace, I don’t love her! I don’t care about her at all!” His eyes landed on the paring knife sitting on the fruit platter on the coffee table. “You don’t believe me? I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove you’re the only one.” Before I could react, he grabbed the handle and drove the silver blade straight into his own chest. He collapsed to his knees, blood coughing up from his throat, but he still crawled toward me, inch by inch. “Grace… is this… enough?” he gasped, his voice a wet, painful rattle. It was his favorite trick. From the moment we escaped that half-built building when I was twenty, to now at twenty-four, he had accumulated dozens of scars. Every time he went too far, he would hurt himself to make me pity him, to force me to forgive him. But today, the spell was broken. I had no desire to die in a house fire with him forty years from now. He stared into my eyes, searching for even a flicker of panic, of the desperate love I usually showed. But there was nothing. Just a flat, empty gaze. He cracked. A look of sheer, agonizing defeat crossed his face. He grabbed the hilt, twisted the blade inside his flesh, and ripped it out. When I still didn’t flinch, he raised the knife to plunge it in again. At the last second, Melanie grabbed the bare blade with her hand. “Are you out of your mind, Corey?” she screamed, blood dripping from her palm. “She’s just a used-up piece of trash! You said so yourself!” I stepped around them, walking toward the door without looking back. “I’ll have my lawyer draw up the papers. See you tomorrow.” “If you leave me,” his roar echoed from behind, “you leave in a body bag!” I paused, turned back, and walked over to him. I knelt down. He smirked, thinking he had won again, that I was about to bend. But instead, I snatched the knife from his hand and aimed it directly at my own heart. The blow never landed. His hand clamped around the blade, his knuckles white, his veins bulging on his neck. He roared at me: “Get the hell out!” The next morning, I rolled my suitcase out of the bedroom. The living room downstairs was loud. Corey was there, his face pale as death, surrounded by a group of his sleazy friends. He pointed a finger at me and sneered. “Your parents have been dead for three years, Grace. For three years, you’ve lived off my dime, eaten my food, and used my money. Now that you’ve bled me dry, you think you can just pack up and walk away? Is that how the Callahan family raises their daughters? No shame at all?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase tighter. “What do you want, Corey?” He looked at the blond guy next to him and let out a cruel laugh. “Make my boys happy. Once they’re satisfied, we’ll call it even. You can go wherever the hell you want.” Last night he wanted me dead, and I hadn’t shed a tear. But now, a bitter, choking sorrow clawed its way up my throat. Seeing me hesitate, he leaned in, his voice dripping with venom. “Oh, what, are we acting pure now? Those videos of you with those guys are still all over the internet. Everyone’s seen them. You’ve got ‘whore’ written all over you, Grace. Who are you trying to play the virgin for?” My entire body went rigid. The air left my lungs. He really knew how to hurt me. He was the love of my youth, the man I had given everything to, and he knew exactly where to twist the knife. The blond guy stepped forward, whistling as he looked me up and down. He smirked at Corey. “You serious, man? You’re really letting us have a turn?” Before the guy could finish, Corey’s fist flew out, cracking against the guy’s jaw. “Shut your mouth!” Corey snarled, his eyes wild. “She’s a piece of trash that’s been ridden by a dozen guys. I get sick just looking at her.” The blond guy clutched his bleeding face, nodding quickly. “Right, right. Sorry, man.” Corey turned back to me, his sneer returning. “When those videos leaked, your dad had a heart attack and died on the spot. You had no problem putting on a show back then. Have you forgotten how to do it after a few years of luxury?” Something inside me snapped. I let go of my suitcase and walked straight toward him. “I just wanted to survive, Corey. Was that my crime? If you wanted me dead so badly, why did you even bother saving me from that basement?” His face flushed a violent red. He grabbed my jaw, squeezing so hard I felt my bones creak. His eyes looked like they wanted to tear me apart. “To survive? Melanie was locked up in that basement for two weeks too. Did she sleep with those bastards? No! Grace, do you think I’m blind? Melanie heard everything. She heard you begging them. You practically stripped for them yourself!” Slap. The sound echoed through the room. My hand stung before I even realized I had swung it. “That was because I thought…” I choked on the words, swallowing the truth down. Back then, those monsters had pointed at Melanie, who was shivering in the dark corner, and threatened to kill her. I thought she was Corey’s younger sister, Rosalie. So, even though I knew it would ruin my life, even though I knew the world would spit on me, I swallowed my disgust and did whatever those beasts wanted to keep her safe. But two weeks later, when Corey broke through the doors, covered in blood, I found out the truth. Rosalie had tried to draw the kidnappers away from us, got pushed off a cliff, and was lying in a coma. The girl in the corner wasn’t Rosalie at all. It was Melanie, who just happened to have the same frame and hair. Corey claimed he didn’t care about the videos, but he punished me every single day. He slept with Melanie, compared me to her, and convinced himself that I was just a cheap, loose woman. Suddenly, the fight drained out of me. It was all so incredibly pointless. I let out a soft, hollow laugh. “You’re right. I’m just a cheap whore.” I turned, pushing the blond guy down onto the sofa. My loose shirt slid down my shoulder, exposing my collarbone, my hair falling over my face. The guy’s eyes lit up with lust, but he kept glancing nervously at Corey, his hands twitching, unsure if he should touch me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him. Crash! A heavy glass vase shattered against the wall behind us. Water and shards of glass exploded across the room. A sharp, burning pain sliced through my forearm. Blood began to drip down my skin. Corey lunged forward, grabbing my wrist with brutal force and ripping me off the man. “You want to die, Grace?!” he roared. He slammed me backward, his chest colliding with my injured arm. I couldn’t help the small, painful whimper that escaped my lips. Corey froze for a fraction of a second, staring at the smear of red on his shirt. But the warmth vanished instantly, replaced by that familiar, icy mask of hatred. “Is that it? Any guy with a pulse will do?” My heart squeezed, then went completely numb. Maybe he had loved me once. Maybe he had cared. But this twisted, suffocating version of love? I didn’t want it anymore. I pushed his hand away and climbed back onto the blond guy. Corey snapped. He dragged me off the couch by my hair and threw me onto the floor, then turned to his men, screaming like a lunatic: “Break his hands! Throw him out of Chicago!” The blond guy’s desperate screams echoed down the hallway as the guards dragged him away. Corey hovered over me, his eyes bloodshot, his fingers digging into my shoulders so hard they bruised. “You’re unbelievable, Grace! If your father could see you now, he’d die all over again.” I stared back at him, empty. “Are you happy now?” He seemed to have forgotten his own words, looking at me with a sudden, confused desperation. “No. If you want them so bad, I can bring them back.” I glanced at the other guys shivering in the corner. Corey realized what I meant, his chest heaving with rage. “Get out! All of you, get the fuck out!” He kicked a glass coffee table, shattering it, throwing a wild, helpless tantrum to release his inexplicable fury. I picked up my purse, pulled out the divorce agreement, and held it out to him. “If you’re done, sign it.” In the next second, he snatched the papers and tore them to shreds, throwing the confetti into the air. His massive hand wrapped around my throat, pinning me against the wall. “My sister is still lying in a vegetative state because of you, Grace. What makes you think you get to just walk away and be happy?” Why did I get to walk away? Four years ago, Corey was the rising star of Chicago’s business world. He had plenty of admirers, but even more enemies. Someone put a ten-million-dollar bounty on his head. Everyone knew his sister, Rosalie, was his Achilles’ heel. When I realized we were being followed that day, I made Rosalie swap jackets with me. Just as I planned, they thought I was her and chased me. When they threw me into the back of that van, I actually felt a sick sense of relief, thinking I had saved the person he loved most. But I never could have predicted that Rosalie, trying to draw the rest of the gang away, would scream out her real identity. They chased her to the edge of a cliff, and she jumped. She had been in a coma ever since. We were both victims. But because Rosalie was his sister, she was the martyr. And I, the girlfriend who survived, had to bear the cross of his hatred for the rest of my life. I laughed, my throat tight under his grip. “Then what do you want, Corey? Do you want me to kill myself to pay her back?” He let go of me, a storm raging in his dark eyes. “No. Death is too easy. You want to leave? I won’t let you. I will keep you here for the rest of your life. Even if you rot, even if you lose your mind, you are never stepping foot out of this house.” It wasn’t until I heard the heavy thuds of hammers outside, watching the light slowly vanish from the windows, that I realized what he was doing. I threw myself at him like a wild animal, screaming, clawing at his chest. “Corey! This is kidnapping! It’s illegal!” He looked down at me, his smile cold and mocking. “I’m just a devoted husband caring for his sick, unstable wife. Who’s going to stop me?” I slid to the floor, completely drained of strength. I didn’t even hear him leave. He had the windows boarded up. Not a single ray of sunlight could penetrate the house. He fired all the staff, leaving only a cleaning lady who came for an hour every evening. But the moment she tried to whisper a sympathetic word to me, Corey fired her too. After that, my world fell into absolute, suffocating silence. Two weeks later, Corey came back. He sat on the edge of my bed, gently brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. “If you promise not to leave, I’ll have the boards taken down. We can go back to how things used to be.” I closed my eyes, refusing to look at him. He slammed his fist into the drywall, leaving a crater, and stormed out. In the middle of the night, a loud crash woke me. The overhead lights flickered on, blinding me. Corey kicked the door open, dragging Melanie inside. He pinned her against the door, kissing her with a desperate, violent hunger. He ripped his shirt off, his voice thick and raspy as he sneered at me: “This is my house, Grace. If you don’t want to watch, get the hell out. Or do you want to see exactly how I make love to Melanie?” Melanie gasped for air, flashing me a brilliant, triumphant smile. “You have no idea how wild Corey gets, Grace. I’d hate for you to feel left out. After all, when he’s holding me, he doesn’t have to think about all those disgusting men who had their hands on you.” For four years, they had tortured me. Under their relentless cruelty, I had spent every single day asking myself why I hadn’t just died in that half-built building. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms until they bled, just to keep from breaking down in front of them. As I tried to slip past them to go downstairs, Corey’s phone rang. He answered it impatiently, but the moment he heard the voice on the other end, he pushed Melanie away. “What did you say?” his voice shook. “Rosalie is awake?” My heart stopped. His sister was awake. She was finally awake. The crushing weight of guilt that had suffocated me for four years suddenly lifted. He scrambled to grab his clothes, running down the stairs with a light, frantic step—happier than I had seen him in years. Melanie ran after him, and within seconds, the villa fell back into that familiar, deadly silence. My chest heaved. I couldn’t tell if I was crying or laughing. Rosalie was awake. Whatever debts I owed, they were paid. I began tearing through the house, searching for a way out. No matter how tightly he had boarded up the windows, there had to be a weak spot. Hours passed. Without the sun, I couldn’t tell day from night. After dozens of failed attempts, the last of my sanity snapped. I grabbed whatever I could find—vases, chairs, lamps—and hurled them at the boarded-up windows. I stepped on shattered glass, but I couldn’t feel the pain. But Corey had been thorough. Behind the wooden boards were heavy steel security grates, and behind those were even more bars. I was trapped. Truly, utterly trapped. In a manic haze of despair, grief, and hatred, I grabbed a lighter and set the curtains on fire. The flames spread rapidly, climbing the walls, swallowing the room in a hungry, golden roar. Even though I had heard the warning of my older self in my head, I still couldn’t escape my fate. I was going to burn to death. My only regret was that I couldn’t drag Corey into the fire with me.

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Working through the night to pull the project across the finish line left me running on fumes. My first instinct when it was over was to text Willie, to ask him out for a nice dinner and celebrate. But opening our chat, the reality of us hit me: we hadn’t spoken in nearly two weeks. The little digital spark that kept our thread alive had flickered out three years ago. The screen still held his last messages: [Bella, stop being mad over such a petty thing.] [I have to help my mentee prep her competition portfolio tonight. Don’t wait up, I’ll bring you an iced latte on my way back.] He was busy guiding a young girl through her career. I was busy working, chasing deadlines, squeezing onto crowded subway cars. I’d forgotten to reply. I’d even forgotten what little thing had triggered our latest silent war. Staring at the glowing screen, a quiet realization washed over me—I had, without a sound, slipped right out of his life. … I locked my phone and went to get fondue at a cozy spot downtown I hadn’t visited in ages. The waitress was wiping down a table when I walked in. She froze, rag in hand. “Oh,” she said, looking up. “You haven’t been here in a month, right?” I hesitated for a second. “Yeah. Been busy.” She glanced behind me. “Just one? Where’s your boyfriend?” My hand paused on the back of the chair. “We broke up.” Those words, once so terrifying to speak, slipped out of my mouth with an almost eerie ease. Natural. Light. She let out a soft “oh,” her face tightening with a brief, awkward sympathy. “Then… where would you like to sit? Your usual spot?” “Yes, please.” She led me to the booth by the window. It was a table set for two, with an extra, useless set of forks and a dipping plate resting on the opposite side. As I sat down, my mind drifted. Right after high school graduation, when we first started dating, we stumbled across a meme listing the ‘ten levels of loneliness.’ Eating fondue alone was level eight. I had forwarded it to him with a crying emoji. He replied instantly: [Don’t worry, you’ll never hit level eight.] [Why?] I had asked. [Because I’ll always be sitting right across from you, cooking your steak skewers.] Followed by three little pig emojis. I had laughed for a long time, saving a screenshot of that exchange. And for a long time, I really never ate fondue alone. From high school through college, and then into our working years, he was always there. He would always snatch the meat out of the boiling broth just as it cooked, dipping it in the garlic-butter sauce and putting it on my plate with a familiar tease: “Look at you, so clumsy.” But eventually, I learned to ride the subway alone. I worked until midnight alone. I sat in the ER with an IV drip alone. I spent birthdays and anniversaries alone. I even went to try on wedding dresses alone. Being alone, I realized, wasn’t actually that hard. The pot arrived, the seasoned broth bubbling in the center of the table. I lowered a beef skewer into the broth, watching it cook. He used to insist on doing this, claiming his timing kept the meat tender. I lifted a piece to my mouth, the hot broth stinging the tip of my tongue, numbing it. The numbness let my thoughts wander. Was this actually a breakup? Neither of us had uttered the words. I couldn’t even remember the details of our last fight. I just remembered slamming the door, him leaving for the lab to review data, and then those final two texts. He had brought home the iced latte that night. I didn’t drink it, and he never asked why. We became like two roommates sharing a lease, polite enough to take turns changing the trash bags, but nothing more. I didn’t know who stopped talking first. I just remembered coming home late one night to the sound of his voice echoing from the study. He was on a Zoom call, his tone incredibly patient, explaining a concept, punctuated by a couple of light, easy laughs. I stood by the door for a moment before going in to grab my charger. He looked up, gave a brief nod, and immediately returned his eyes to the screen. It was a shared presentation. In the corner of the screen was the avatar that used to trigger an instant argument within three seconds—his mentee, Daisy. He didn’t bother to hide it, and I no longer cared. I grabbed the charger and walked out. That night, we lay in bed, a pillow’s worth of empty space stretching between us. He slept with his back to me, his breathing steady and even. I stared at the back of his head for what felt like hours, wondering: if I spoke right now, would he turn around? But I forgot if I ever made a sound. The next morning, he was gone before I woke, the sheets cold. On the kitchen island lay some breakfast, pinned down by a sticky note: [Meeting tonight. Won’t be home for dinner.] And that was how we lived. The waitress came over to refill the broth. “Miss, your couples’ membership is about to expire,” she said, holding the heavy metal pitcher as steam billowed from the spout. “It’s the ten-year anniversary promotion we ran—deposit five hundred, get a thousand. There’s still about two hundred dollars left on it. I asked the manager, and you can still renew it with the bonus if you do it today.” Before I could answer, the chimes above the door jingled. Willie walked in, followed by a young woman. Ponytail, white jacket, a camera slung around her neck. “Stand under the light, Boss! Let me take a quick photo,” she said, tugging lightly at his sleeve. “Let’s eat first. You’ve been starving yourself these past few days.” “No way! You’ve been mentoring me for three whole years, practically living at my place to help me prep. Now that I’ve won the gold prize, I need a picture to commemorate this,” she insisted. He shook his head with a fond smile, reaching out to gently disentangle her camera strap from her jacket zipper. “Watch what you say.” “I’m serious,” she said, clicking the shutter and peering at the screen. “Oh, by the way, isn’t today your anniversary with your girlfriend? Won’t she be upset that you’re celebrating with me?” He paused. “It’s fine. She knows I’m busy. She doesn’t mind.” “Really?” Daisy beamed, grabbing his arm. “That’s great! Let’s order. I want the triple cheese fondue.” He took a couple of steps with her, then his eyes drifted up and locked onto me. His footsteps halted. He pulled his hand out of his pocket, then slipped it back in. “Bella. You’re here.” I didn’t stand up. My fork held a roasted potato wedge. “Yeah,” I said. “Having fondue.” Ten years of shared habits meant we even picked the exact same restaurant to celebrate. He was celebrating his mentee’s big win. I was celebrating the completion of a project that would secure my partnership at the firm. But both of us had forgotten that today was our ten-year anniversary. Daisy leaned over to look at my table. “Oh, a split-pot broth. You’re so cute, sitting all by yourself with a half-Cajun, half-garlic-wine broth.” Willie stood by the edge of the booth, silent. Daisy had already raised her camera, snapping photos of the bubbling cheese, then turning to the window to photograph the streetlights and passersby. “Let me take one of you,” she said, aiming the lens directly at my face. “I’ll title it: ‘Eating Fondue Alone: Which Level of Loneliness Is This?’” The shutter clicked. My hand froze. The potato wedge slipped back into the boiling broth, splashing a tiny drop of hot liquid onto the table. “Delete it.” Daisy blinked, lowering the camera. “Excuse me?” “The photo. Delete it.” Daisy looked at the camera screen, then up at Willie. He stood there, a slight crease forming between his brows. “Bella, it’s just a picture. Don’t make a scene.” “I said, delete it,” I repeated, staring directly at him. Willie’s frown deepened. “Why do you always have to make things difficult for her? It’s just a photo. It’s not like she’s going to post it anywhere.” I stood up, stepped around the table, and reached for the camera. Daisy took a step back, feigning a stumble, her elbow jerking outward. The camera strap whipped across my wrist. My hand swerved, knocking directly into the dipping ramekin on the edge of the table. Warm garlic butter splattered across the wood, some of it catching my hand. I winced, pulling back. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry!” Daisy cried. “Are you okay?” Willie stepped forward, reaching for my wrist. “Did you get burned? Let me see—” I ignored him, snatched the camera from her hands, and deleted the photo myself. Daisy bit her lower lip, her voice dropping to a meek whisper. “I really didn’t mean to… I just tripped…” Willie looked at me, his gaze briefly passing over my reddened hand. “Clean yourself up. I’ll get her settled at another table and come right back.” They walked to a table three rows over. The waitress hurried over with some burn ointment. “About the membership card…” she said awkwardly. “Should we… renew it?” I looked down at the bubbling broth. “No. Don’t renew it.” I pulled out my phone and sent a text to my boss: [I’ll take the partner track. A girl’s got to afford her own fondue.] As I looked up, I caught Willie watching me from a distance. It was the same look he always gave me whenever I threw a tantrum—patient, slightly amused, waiting for me to cool down and soothe myself. I wondered how he could be so distracted. After all, the new favorite was right beside him; the old love was just background noise. He always prided himself on ‘knowing what mattered.’ The first time I realized there was a new girl in his lab was when she called him, sobbing because her PowerPoint wouldn’t open. That night, I was meeting his parents for the very first time. He left halfway through dinner, leaving me to face them alone. Back then, though frustrated, I convinced myself to be understanding. She was just a rookie; mentors had to mentor. But then she started calling him at midnight to ‘discuss sudden inspiration.’ He would slip on a jacket, head out to the balcony, and talk for two hours. Then she began using his database credentials. To make things easy, he changed his password to her birthday. By the time she claimed the front passenger seat of his car as her personal spot, we had fought more times than I could count. I was never good at arguing. I would repeat the same line: “Can you please remember who your actual girlfriend is?” He wasn’t good at arguing either. He would always shoot back: “She’s just a student. Stop being so petty.” Afterward, he would lock himself in the study, and I would cry in the living room. Eventually, the screaming stopped, replaced by cold silence. One day, three days, a week… neither of us would speak. Until I would ask him to bring me a cup of coffee. Even though he knew my order by heart, he would still ask me what kind of milk I wanted, every single time. And that was how we ‘made up.’ It felt like if I didn’t bow my head first, this relationship would simply cease to exist. … Daisy tugged at Willie’s sleeve, pointing at the menu. He leaned down, his profile softening, his dimples vanishing into a smile. I ate my last piece of potato, stood up, and went to the front counter to pay. The cashier looked up. “Oh, your table has already been paid for, ma’am. Your boyfriend,” she pointed toward their table, “that gentleman over there paid.” I glanced over. He was currently dipping a fresh piece of chicken into cheese for Daisy, teasing her: “Look at you, suddenly losing your appetite when the food actually gets here.” Daisy laughed, pushing his shoulder. I turned back to the cashier. “Ex-boyfriend.” The cashier blinked. “Oh… then…” “It’s fine.” I pulled out my phone to Venmo him the money. I typed out: [Sending you the money for dinner. We—] The cursor blinked. That was when I noticed the green bubble at the bottom of our chat. [I’ll take the partner track. A girl’s got to afford her own fondue.] My fingers froze for two long seconds. In my rush, I had sent the message meant for my boss to Willie. His chat was still pinned to the top of my list. We had texted about date nights thousands of times over the years. [Fondue tonight?] [My treat, you pay.] My thumbs had simply acted on a decade of muscle memory. No wonder he had paid my bill. He actually thought I couldn’t afford dinner. I stared at the text, letting out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh. I turned and walked out. As the door swung open, the warm, savory aroma of the restaurant hit my back like a gentle push, nudging me out into the cool night. I had only reached the streetlamp when I heard hurried footsteps behind me. He was running, his coat fluttering in the wind. “I told you to wait for me,” he said, a touch of exasperated affection in his voice—the exact tone he used whenever he did something nice and I failed to show proper gratitude. “Why did you just leave?” I stopped. He stood in front of me, slipping off his jacket to drape it over my shoulders. “Look at you, moving up in the world,” he said, a small smile playing on his lips. “Making partner? No wonder you’re working so hard. You can eat all the fondue you want now.” He patted my shoulder. “Come on. The car’s parked over there.” He took a few steps, then paused, expecting me to follow. It was so natural. Just like all those times he locked himself in the study, waiting for me to finish crying before I’d go knock on his door to ask him to open a bottle of water for me. He assumed this time would be no different. The words gathered in my throat. But before I could speak, a sharp gasp came from the steps nearby. Daisy was leaning against a billboard, clutching her ankle, keeping her foot off the ground. She looked over, her voice laced with panic. “Boss… I’m okay. I just twisted it a little…” Willie froze. Daisy waved her hand dismissively. “Go ahead. I’ll just sit here for a bit. Don’t worry about me…” She tried to take a step, stumbled, and grabbed the billboard again. Willie looked at me. It was a glance so fleeting I didn’t even have time to utter the word ‘breakup’ before he turned and ran back to her. “Don’t move,” he called out. “Stay right there. Let me look.” The wind swept under the streetlamp. The jacket he had draped over my shoulders slipped, falling silently onto the pavement. I bent down, picked it up, brushed off the dust, and hung it over the metal railing nearby. Then I turned and walked away. When we first got together, there was no grand confession. We were having fondue, he put a piece of steak on my plate and said, “Let’s eat like this forever,” and I said, “Okay.” It was as natural as water flowing downstream. And so was the end. We didn’t need a formal date to sit down and discuss it. Every time he looked at his phone instead of listening to me, every time he shut the study door, every time he ran to her side… those two words had already been written. I had just refused to read them. I pulled out my phone as I walked. My boss’s contact had a red notification dot. I tapped it. [To become a partner, you must accept an overseas relocation. It’s a three-year minimum at the London office. Think it over carefully.] The cursor blinked in the input box. I typed: [Are flights reimbursed?] The phone buzzed instantly with a facepalm emoji from my boss, followed by a thumbs-up. [Only you would ask about that.] I locked the screen and slipped the phone into my pocket. At the intersection ahead, a right turn led to the subway; a left turn led back to the apartment we shared. I turned right. Standing behind the yellow line on the platform, I watched my reflection in the glass barrier doors. My expression was flat—neither crying nor smiling, just tired. My bags were already packed and stored at the office. I had known this partnership was mine for the taking. And I had known, for a long time, that I didn’t want him anymore.

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