Category: English

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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The night before our wedding, my dad’s right foot was crushed under a heavy metal stage prop while he was helping set up the reception venue. When I begged my fiancé to drive us to the ER, he didn’t even look up from his phone. “Just put some Bengay on it. It’s late—stop being so dramatic, Patricia.” As the words left Brandon’s mouth, my dad quietly pulled his blood-soaked foot back, trying to hide it behind his other leg. The pain must have been agonizing, but he just forced a placating smile, his rough, weathered hands smoothing down the fabric of his cheap, off-the-rack suit. “I’m fine, sweetie,” he said, his voice tight but incredibly gentle. “It’s just a scratch. Don’t go starting a fight with Brandon over me.” But by midnight, the pain had grown so severe he couldn’t even close his eyes. Terrified and trembling, I was about to call 911 when my thumb accidentally swiped onto Brooke’s Instagram feed. “Just a tiny little scratch, but someone insisted on dragging me to the hospital. The doctor said if we’d waited five more minutes, it would’ve healed itself~” In the attached photo, Brandon—a man who usually wore an armor of cold indifference—was cradling Brooke’s hand in his, looking frantic as he checked her in at the front desk. I looked at my father, who was sweating through his shirt from the sheer pain, and felt an overwhelming wave of exhaustion settle deep into my bones. I double-tapped the photo to leave a like. Then, with a strange, quiet calm, I called the coordinator and canceled the wedding. Some things are rotten to the core. They should have been thrown out a long time ago. … The fluorescent lights in the hospital corridor were blindingly bright. My dad sat on a blue plastic chair, his right ankle swollen to twice its normal size, a dark, angry purple bruise spreading rapidly across his instep. He kept his head down, his fingers nervously picking at the seam of his faded jeans. “Patricia, maybe we should just go home.” He didn’t look at me. “It’s past midnight. The copay here must be crazy. I’m really fine.” I knelt in front of him, the sting of unshed tears burning behind my eyelids. “Dad, we’re getting an X-ray just to be safe. We have the money.” Right then, my phone vibrated in my palm. It was Brandon. I took a deep, steadying breath and pressed answer. “Patricia, what the hell is wrong with you?” Brandon’s voice came through, laced with his usual sharp impatience. “Canceling the wedding? Is this some kind of sick joke to get my attention?” In the background, I could hear Brooke whimpering. “Brandon, please don’t yell at her. It’s my fault. I didn’t mean to make her mad…” I gripped the phone, pushing down the bile rising in my throat. My voice was entirely level when I spoke. “I’m not joking, Brandon. I’m not marrying you.” The line went silent for two long seconds. Then, he let out a cold, mocking laugh. “Right. Keep playing your games. All this because I couldn’t drive your dad to the clinic? He scraped his foot, Patricia. You’re blowing this completely out of proportion. Since when did you become so utterly unreasonable?” I closed my eyes, refusing to waste another breath on him. I hung up and blocked his number. I stood up and walked over to the billing window to pay for the X-ray. But when I handed my debit card to the receptionist, she slid it back across the counter without a word. “Declined. Insufficient funds.” My mind went completely blank. That card was linked to our joint savings account—our wedding fund. There was supposed to be thirty thousand dollars in there. With shaking hands, I opened my banking app to check the transaction history. There it was, processed ten minutes ago: a wire transfer of the entire balance to an unrecognized account. The memo line read: Brooke’s Studio – Final Venue Payment. A physical chill crept up my spine. Standing in that crowded hospital line, I suddenly felt like I couldn’t draw oxygen into my lungs. “Patricia? What’s wrong? Are we short?” My dad had hopped over on one foot, his face tight with worry. He fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out a small plastic bag tied with a rubber band. “I have this,” he whispered, his hands trembling as he unfolded the plastic to reveal a small stack of crumpled, worn bills. It was the cash he had saved, dollar by dollar, working the graveyard sanitation shift for the city. A hot tear slipped down my cheek and splashed onto the back of my hand. Before I could find my voice to comfort him, a heavy wool suit jacket was draped over my shoulders. “Why are you crying?” Brandon’s smooth, familiar voice sounded right beside my ear. He was holding a paper bag containing a warm container of clam chowder—the comfort food I always craved when I was sick. For a split second, a wave of vertigo hit me. Seven years ago, when I was hospitalized with severe food poisoning, he had run through a torrential downpour across the city just to bring me hot soup, keeping it warm inside his jacket. The ice around my heart softened, just a fraction. “Brandon, you—” Before the words could leave my mouth, he reached down and snatched the debit card from my fingers. “Brooke’s cut is actually pretty deep,” he said, his tone brisk and clinical. “She needs a localized pain block, and my phone died. I need to use this card to pay her co-pay. Your dad’s injury is mostly superficial anyway. Just use his basic insurance to get some over-the-counter painkillers.” Without casting a single glance at my father, he turned on his heel and walked briskly toward the urgent care wing. The container of soup was left in my hands. It was scalding hot, but my fingers felt entirely numb. My dad’s X-ray came back: a hairline fracture in his ankle. The doctor put him in a heavy plaster cast and gave strict instructions that he was not to put any weight on it. I paid the bill using my personal credit card and called an Uber to take him back to the condo we were supposed to move into after the wedding. But the moment I unlocked the door, I thought I had walked into the wrong apartment. Our clean, minimalist living room was completely overrun with Brooke’s photography gear, loose cables, and half-unpacked boxes. Hearing the door, Brandon stepped out of the master bedroom. He was wearing his custom wedding tuxedo, though the bow tie hung loosely around his collar. Brooke stepped out right behind him, wearing a white gown. It was my wedding dress. The one I had spent three weeks of sleepless nights designing, cutting, and sewing by hand. And she was wearing it. “Oh, Patricia, you’re back!” Brooke said, offering a fragile, innocent smile as she gathered the delicate silk skirt in her hands. “Brandon thought the waistline looked a bit off, so he asked me to try it on to see how the drape looked. But I accidentally got a little lipstick on the collar… you’re not mad, are you?” She pointed to a faint red smudge right near her collarbone. The look in her eyes was pure, unadulterated provocation. I stared at the dress, my chest tightening until it hurt. “Take it off,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper, but cold as ice. Brandon’s brows knit together in instant annoyance. He stepped in front of Brooke, shielding her. “Patricia, what is your problem? Brooke was just trying to help you out. Why do you have to be so hostile? It’s just a dress. We can get it dry-cleaned.” Then he looked at my dad, who was leaning heavily against the entryway wall, and sighed in exasperation. “And honestly, Mr. Thomas, you’re too old to be this clumsy. Getting yourself in a cast the night before the wedding? Do you have any idea how bad this is going to look tomorrow?” My dad shrank back, his fingers white from gripping his jacket. “Brandon… I don’t have to walk Patricia down the aisle. I can just sit in the back. I won’t get in anyone’s way, I promise.” Hearing my father speak so submissively broke something inside of me. “Enough!” I screamed, shoving Brandon back. “I already told you, Brandon. The wedding is off. Now get her, and get all of this trash, out of my apartment!” Brandon stared at me, his face hardening into an ugly sneer. “Don’t push your luck, Patricia. I went to the hospital to find you, and I’ve been trying to play nice. What more do you want from me?” He ripped off his bow tie and threw it onto the sofa. “Brooke, we’re leaving.” Brooke bit her lip, looking thoroughly victimized. “But Brandon, my camera gear is still here…” “We’ll get a moving crew tomorrow,” Brandon snapped, grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward the exit. At the door, he paused and glared back at me. “If you don’t call me to apologize by eight tomorrow morning, then don’t bother showing up at the church.” The door slammed shut behind them, leaving a heavy, suffocating silence in the room. My dad hobbled over to the sofa. He hesitated to sit down, clearly afraid his dusty clothes would ruin the white wool rug I’d picked out. He settled on the very edge of the cushion. “Patricia, I’m so sorry. I ruined everything for you.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, velvet jewelry box. “I had this made for you. A solid gold bangle. I wanted to put it on your wrist before we walked down the aisle. Take it to Brandon… tell him I’m sorry. Maybe he’ll understand.” He opened the box to reveal a thick, heavy gold bangle. It was a classic design, slightly old-fashioned, but it still carried the warmth of my father’s hands. I sank to my knees on the floor and buried my face in his lap, sobbing uncontrollably. “We’re not doing this, Dad. We’re never doing this again.” The next morning, I was jolted awake by a violent pounding on the front door. When I opened it, Brandon’s mother, Mrs. Norman, stood there, her face contorted with rage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Patricia?” she demanded, pushing past me into the apartment. “The guests are already arriving at the venue, and you’re here throwing a temper tantrum? Do you have any idea what this does to our family’s reputation?” She stopped in the living room and glared at my father, who was resting on the sofa. She pinched her nose in disgust. “Oh, look at that. Your leg was perfectly fine yesterday, Mr. Thomas. Are you seriously staging a medical emergency just to guilt-trip us into paying for a bigger registry?” I was trembling so hard I could barely breathe. I pointed a finger toward the open door. “Get out of my house.” Mrs. Norman gasped, staring at me as if I had lost my mind. “How dare you speak to me that way! You’re just a girl from a dead-end town. Marrying Brandon was your ticket out of the gutter, and you should be thanking God every day that he’s soft-hearted enough to take you in!” “I bought this apartment!” I yelled, my voice cracking. She let out a harsh, dry laugh. “You paid the down payment, sure. But who paid for the renovations? Who bought the furniture? My son did! You’re not kicking anyone out.” My dad struggled to sit up, trying to put himself between us. “Please, let’s just talk calmly. Don’t yell at my daughter.” He leaned over, trying to pick up a glass of water from the side table, but with his cast, his balance was entirely off. He tipped forward, crashing heavily against the glass-front media console. There was a deafening shatter. A large shard of broken glass sliced deep into his forearm, and blood immediately began to pool on the floor. “Dad!” I screamed, lunging toward him. Mrs. Norman took a couple of steps back, her face pale but her expression still sneering. “Unbelievable. Bleeding on a wedding day. No wonder Brandon says your family is a black cloud.” She grabbed her designer purse and hurried out the door. My hands shook violently as I ripped a strip of fabric from the hem of my shirt and tied it tightly above the cut on his arm. “Dad, look at me. Stay with me.” “It doesn’t hurt, Patricia,” he whispered, though his lips were turning white. I dialed 911, my voice cracking as I gave our address. At the hospital, the emergency room was a blur of movement. Finally, a surgeon stepped out of the operating room, holding a clipboard. “The patient has underlying high blood pressure, and the sudden blood loss has triggered severe cardiac distress. He needs an emergency bypass immediately.” He looked at me, his eyes grave. “The procedure will cost fifteen thousand dollars up front. We need you to settle the deposit at the billing desk.” I held the thin slip of paper, my mind racing. Brandon had cleaned out our joint savings. I dialed his number. It rang and rang. When it finally connected, it wasn’t Brandon who answered. It was Brooke, her voice light and musical. “Oh, Patricia. Brandon is actually helping me set up the lighting for my gallery exhibition right now. That money from the account was already wired to the venue lease, so we can’t get it back~” A loud ringing started in my ears. “Put Brandon on the phone,” I commanded, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Now.” A few seconds later, Brandon’s voice came through, heavy with annoyance. “Patricia, what is it this time? Yesterday it was an ankle, today it’s a major surgery? Do you think I’m some kind of endless ATM?” “If you’re actually short on cash,” he continued, his tone incredibly dismissive, “then get your act together, put on your dress, and get to the venue. You can keep every single cash envelope the guests bring tonight.” The sheer coldness of his voice made me feel physically sick. In that moment, seven years of love dissolved into nothing but ash. “You disgust me, Brandon.” I hung up, leaning my head against the cold hospital wall. I began calling everyone I had ever known, begging for loans. I managed to scrape together five thousand dollars, but I was still ten thousand short. Just as I was staring at a predatory payday loan application on my phone, a pair of polished leather shoes appeared in my field of vision. Brandon stood there in his wedding suit, looking down at me. He tossed a plastic credit card onto the floor. It hit the linoleum with a sharp click. “Done throwing your fit?” He looked at me, completely indifferent. “There’s ten grand on that card. The PIN is your birthday. Take it, sign the consent forms, and let’s go. The guests have been waiting for hours. Don’t humiliate me any further.” I stared at the black card at my feet, then slowly raised my eyes to look at him. Seven years ago, when his first venture failed and he was drowning in debt, I had worked three separate jobs, living off instant ramen just to pay off his creditors. I remembered him holding me in our damp, tiny apartment, crying into my shoulder, promising that once he made it, he would never let me suffer a single day. And now, he was using my father’s life to buy my submission. I slowly bent down and picked up the card. A smug, knowing smile crept onto Brandon’s face. He thought he had won. He reached out his hand, intending to brush a stray hair from my face. But I stepped back, placed both thumbs on the card, and snapped it in half. The smile froze on his face. His eyes flared with sudden, dangerous anger. “Patricia, are you insane? Your dad is lying in that room waiting for surgery, and you’re playing pride games with me?” “I would rather beg on the street than use a single cent of your filthy money,” I said, my voice entirely calm. Just then, my phone screen lit up. It was an anonymous text—a photo of Brooke, wearing my handmade wedding dress, lying on the custom mattress Brandon and I had picked out together. The caption read: Thanks for leaving the best parts for me. I turned my phone screen and shoved it directly in front of Brandon’s face. “So this is the ‘gallery space’ you spent thirty thousand dollars of our savings on?” A flash of genuine panic crossed Brandon’s features. “Patricia, let me explain… Brooke was just…” “Don’t bother,” I interrupted, my voice flat. “Brandon, we’re done.” He let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “Fine. Let’s see how long your little pride lasts. I’ll push the reception back to eight tonight. The longer you take to come to your senses, the longer your father sits in that room.” He was entirely convinced I had no other options. He turned and walked away, confident I would crawl back. I watched his retreating back, then dialed a number I hadn’t called in years. “Does the offer your company made me three years ago still stand?” The voice on the other end answered with an immediate, enthusiastic yes. “Good. I’m taking it. I need to arrange an emergency medical transfer right now.” Brandon, you will never see me again.

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The university was hosting a debate tournament. The topic: “If you’re in a committed relationship and the love of your life—your ex—comes back, what do you do?” The affirmative argued for the ex; the negative argued for the current partner. My boyfriend of three years, Chris, chose to speak for the affirmative. My roommate, Zoey, watched me warily, keeping her voice low as if any wrong word might shatter whatever fragile composure I had left. “Maeve…” I forced a small, practiced smile, offering the perfect excuse on Chris’s behalf. “It’s just for the course credits. I’m sure he didn’t want to be on the affirmative side anyway.” But during the free-rebuttal round, things got heated. The third speaker for the negative, his face flushed with adrenaline, gestured sharply toward where I sat in the crowd and shouted: “Chris! Your girlfriend is sitting right there in the audience. Are you seriously standing up there and telling us you’d choose your ex?” Chris didn’t look at me. His gaze drifted, turning distant, as if he were suddenly pulled back into some old, sacred memory. “My current relationship is a perfect score,” he said, his voice echoing through the microphone, steady and heartbreakingly clear. “It’s a flawless paper. But she’s the bonus question I never got to solve, and I’m just not ready to leave it blank.” The auditorium erupted into thundering applause. In my quiet corner of the back row, the sound was deafening, swallowing me whole. Chris won the debate. He got the trophy, the handshakes, the loud cheers of his peers. But he made sure I lost everything. … When the debate ended, Chris practically ran off the stage toward me. He leaned down, bringing his eyes level with mine. “Mae, I only did what I had to do for the grade. You know me. You know I didn’t mean it, right?” I kept my eyes trained on the floor, blinking hard against the hot tears clinging to my eyelashes, refusing to let them fall. The tragedy was that I “did” know him. And because I knew him, I knew he was telling the truth—he truly, deeply, could not let go of that unsolved question. Seeing how quiet I was, Chris tried to soften the air. Like a magician performing a cheap trick, he pulled a cherry lollipop from his coat pocket. He tore open the plastic wrapper with a quick, practiced flick and held it out to me. “Eat something sweet, Mae. It keeps the sad faces away.” Our story had started with a lollipop just like this one. Three years ago, I was living through the darkest winter of my life. My high school sweetheart had ghosted me out of nowhere, cutting me off so cleanly it felt like a physical amputation. Around the same time, my parents finalized their bitter divorce, remarried other people, and decided that since I was eighteen, I was no longer their responsibility. I was a leftover child, suddenly entirely alone. To top it off, I had choked on my finals, missing out on a crucial scholarship by a mere fraction of a GPA point. I remember sitting on a bench in the pouring rain, sobbing hysterically, utterly convinced the world had abandoned me. That was when Chris appeared. He held an umbrella over my head and handed me a lollipop. He told me that if I ate something sweet, my face wouldn’t have to look so sad. Later, I learned that Chris had been going through his own quiet hell that day. His family’s business had collapsed into bankruptcy overnight. His girlfriend had boarded a plane to study abroad without even saying goodbye. And his little sister, whom they couldn’t afford to keep in the clinic, had passed away. The lollipop he gave me was the one his sister loved most—the last gift he’d never got to give her. From that afternoon on, those cheap lollipops became my anchor. Every time my world started to tilt, they brought me back. Maybe we were just two drowning people clinging to each other for warmth, or maybe it was real, but our grief eventually bloomed into love. We fell into a relationship naturally, and we stayed there for three years. I reached out to take the lollipop from him. But just as my fingers brushed the wrapper, a fragile, trembling voice cut through the crowded hallway. “Chris…” Chris stiffened instantly. His hand jerked, and the lollipop slipped from his fingers, hitting the linoleum floor and shattering into a dozen sharp, sugary pieces. He turned around, his eyes instantly turning a raw, painful red as he stared at the girl standing a few feet away. I recognized her instantly. I had seen her face tucked away in a hidden, password-protected folder on his laptop. It was Rebecca Shaw—his great, unfinished love. Rebecca took a tentative step toward him, her voice thick with tears. “Chris… I heard what you said on stage. I came back because I needed to tell you. I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. I had no choice.” Chris let out a harsh, mocking laugh, though his lips trembled. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the exit. My mind was a chaotic blur. A small, desperate part of me wondered if I had been overthinking things. Maybe he really had moved on. Maybe I could trust him. I squeezed his hand, trying to offer some silent comfort, trying to anchor him to me. But then, Chris stopped. I looked up. He had his eyes closed tightly, his chest heaving as he took a succession of shallow, ragged breaths. When he turned back around to face Rebecca, his voice shook with a desperation he couldn’t hide. “What choice did you have?” Rebecca froze, caught off guard by his sudden demand. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Chris’s expression crumbled, his eyes wild and bloodshot. “You didn’t even bother to think of a lie before coming back? You couldn’t even respect me enough to fake an excuse?” He took a step toward her, his voice rising. “And as for the debate—don’t flatter yourself. It was an assignment. Nothing more. I will hate you for the rest of my life.” But he couldn’t even bear to look at her face. He turned and stumbled blindly out the doors, running away from the very sight of her. In his haste, his heavy boot came down hard on the shattered pieces of the cherry lollipop. The sharp, cracking sound of breaking candy echoed in my ears like a gunshot. He left me standing there, face-to-face with Rebecca. Rebecca walked up to me, her eyes filled with a pity that made my stomach turn. “You see it, don’t you?” she whispered. “He’s still completely in love with me. Staying with him is just humiliating yourself.” She looked me up and down, her voice dripping with condescension. “You’re smart enough to go to this school. You know when to walk away, right?” I didn’t answer. Around us, the whispers of passing students were already starting to swell. “It was such a tragedy when Chris and Rebecca broke up. Even their names sounded like they belonged in a book together.” “Remember when he hijacked the campus radio station to apologize to her? Or when he engraved her initials on his soccer trophy? He literally jumped into the campus lake in November to find her lost ring. You don’t just forget a love like that.” “Honestly, Maeve was always just a placeholder. She got him on the rebound because he was lonely.” It was true. In the three years Chris and I were together, no one in his circle ever really took us seriously. They all whispered that if the Mercer family hadn’t lost their fortune, a guy like Chris would have never looked twice at a girl like me. Our entire relationship felt like something I had stolen, a temporary lease on a life that belonged to someone else. A few people tried to defend me in the crowd. “If he wasn’t over his ex, he shouldn’t have started dating someone else. How is any of this Maeve’s fault?” But those quiet voices were quickly drowned out by the romanticized nostalgia of his past. I walked out of the building and headed toward the wooded hill behind the campus, sitting down on our usual wooden bench. On the back of the wood, our initials were still carved: “M + C”. I traced the letters over and over, my fingers shaking as the tears finally spilled over. A sudden rain began to fall, soaking through my clothes, chilling me to the bone. It occurred to me that exactly three years ago today, on this very bench, in a rainstorm just like this, Chris had found me. But today, there was no umbrella. There was no sweet candy to make the sad face go away. I buried my face in my knees and whispered to the wet grass that when the rain stopped, I would let him go. A few minutes later, the downpour abruptly ceased to hit my back. But the sound of water splashing nearby kept going. I looked up. Chris was standing in front of me, holding an umbrella over my head. Just like three years ago. The dam broke, and I sobbed, loud and ugly, right there in the open air. I didn’t understand why happiness was always something dangled in front of me, only to be yanked away the moment I reached out to touch it. Chris dropped to his knees and pulled me gently into his arms. “Mae, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I lost my temper, and I never should have left you there alone. I’m so sorry.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out another lollipop, his eyes pleading. “Look, I got you a new one. Don’t cry, okay?” The gentler his voice was, the more it broke me. The word “breakup” was lodged in my throat like a stone, heavy and unspeakable. He helped me up, tilting the umbrella so it covered me completely while the rain beat down on his shoulders. “Come on. Let me walk you back to your dorm.” But as we took our first step, Rebecca’s voice cut through the rain again. She was standing on the path behind us, completely drenched, without an umbrella. “Chris… are you really just going to abandon me?” This time, Chris’s face was entirely blank. He didn’t even look back. He kept his hand firmly on my shoulder, guiding me forward, away from her. Then came the sound of splashing water—a frantic, clumsy run, followed by a dull, heavy thud. Rebecca had tripped on the slick pavement, falling hard into a puddle. She lay there, clutching her ankle, letting out a sharp cry of pain. That sound seemed to strike Chris right in the chest. He stopped dead in his tracks. He let out a long, slow breath, then turned to me and handed me the umbrella. “Mae, go inside and take a hot shower. Don’t catch a cold, okay? Just go on up.” He didn’t wait for me to argue. He turned around and walked back down the path toward Rebecca. Seeing him approach, Rebecca reached up with her pale, trembling arms. “Chris… I knew you wouldn’t leave me.” Chris looked down at her, his voice freezing cold. “This is the last time. Don’t ever seek me out again.” He bent down and lifted her into his arms. Rebecca smiled through her tears, her hands naturally wrapping around his neck. I stood under the umbrella, watching them disappear into the gray mist, my chest feeling as cold and hollow as the rain. I don’t know how long I stood there before I finally turned and walked the other way. When I reached my dorm, I closed the umbrella, walked over to the trash bin outside the lobby, and tossed it inside. The resident advisor saw me and jogged over. “Oh, sweetie, that’s a perfectly good umbrella. Are you sure you want to throw it away?” I gave her a quiet, empty smile. “Yes,” I said. “I don’t need it anymore.” I didn’t need the umbrella. And I didn’t need him. I went upstairs, took a long shower, and dried my hair. When I reached for my phone to check the campus forum out of habit, Zoey suddenly snatched it out of my hand. “Mae, you’ve been on your phone too much today. It’s bad for your eyes,” she said quickly, her voice unnaturally bright. “Yeah, seriously,” our other roommate, Sarah, chimed in. “Blow-dry your hair, and let’s go grab some diner food. My treat.” I looked at their anxious faces, the tension in their shoulders. “What’s going on? What is on my phone that you don’t want me to see?” They exchanged a nervous glance, their forced smiles faltering. “Nothing, really. We just realized we haven’t had a girls’ night in forever.” I sighed gently. “Give me the phone, guys. You can’t keep me in a bubble forever.” I took the phone back and opened the student forum. A headline pinned to the top of the feed made my blood run cold: “Maeve: The Gold-Digging Homewrecker Who Ruined a Perfect Love.” I clicked on it. The comment section was a toxic wasteland of vitriol. “Honestly, Chris and Rebecca were soulmates. Maeve just saw an opportunity when Rebecca went abroad and leaped on him. Pathetic.” “I bet she sat on that bench every single day waiting to trap him. Who else sits in a rainstorm on purpose?” “No wonder her parents abandoned her the second she turned eighteen. Clearly, there’s something fundamentally wrong with her.” The words sliced through the fragile scars I had spent three years trying to build, tearing them open to bleed in public. My family, my past—I had only ever shared those secrets with one person. Chris. I knew he wouldn’t post this himself. He wasn’t that cruel. Which meant there was only one other person who could have done it: Rebecca. I couldn’t believe that within twelve hours of her return, Chris had already handed her the weapons to destroy me. Before I could scroll any further, my phone buzzed. Chris’s name flashed on the screen. When I answered, his voice was as gentle as it always was, but it no longer carried the power to soothe me. “Did you take that hot shower? I ordered a ginger tea to your dorm lobby. I got one for your roommates too, so you don’t have to walk down into the cold air to get it.” He was still so attentive, so careful with the logistics of my life. But I was done playing the game. “Have you seen the forum?” I asked, cutting through his pleasantries. I expected him to play dumb, but he didn’t. He answered with a heavy quiet. “Yes.” “Rebecca posted it, didn’t she?” I braced myself for him to defend her, to accuse me of being paranoid. But again, his honesty was brutal. “Yes. It was her.” I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Then why haven’t you cleared my name?” A soft sigh traveled through the receiver. “Maeve… if the school finds out why she really left three years ago, she’ll be absolutely ruined. The online mob will tear her apart.” He paused. “I’ve already talked to her. She knows she was wrong.” “I’ve already talked to her.” My privacy had been violated, my painful past broadcasted to thousands of strangers, and my reputation dragged through the mud—and all it warranted was a polite scolding behind closed doors. I couldn’t stop the bitter laugh that escaped my lips. “And what about me, Chris? Will the online mob not tear me apart?” “Mae, the truth always wins in the end. People will move on. You know who you are.” I looked at my reflection in the dark window pane, feeling a profound, cold clarity. He knew everything. He knew Rebecca was selfish, that she had abandoned him when he was poor, and that she was currently trying to ruin my life. He knew her flaws, and yet he still loved her. And he loved me simply because I was “good.” I was the safe harbor, the girl who didn’t cause trouble. In that moment, the contrast was painfully clear. I used to think that letting go of someone you loved was a long, agonizing process filled with sleepless nights, empty bottles, and screaming at the ceiling. But as I sat there, the weight of the last three years simply evaporated. I just felt tired. And finished. “Chris,” I said softly, my voice barely a whisper. “Let’s break up.” In that exact second, a loud, frantic voice echoed on his end of the line. I heard Rebecca calling his name in panic. “Mae, something’s happening. I have to go, I’ll call you right back,” he said hurriedly, and the line went dead. I didn’t care enough to wonder what drama had called him away. I put my phone on silent, crawled into bed, and closed my eyes. But sleep didn’t bring peace. I dreamed of my parents walking away from me at a crowded train station, of my high school ex turning his back on me, of the bench in the pouring rain. When I finally woke up, Zoey was sitting on the edge of my bed, her eyes full of concern. “Mae… you were crying in your sleep. Are you okay?” I wiped my face, finding it damp. “I’m fine.” “Okay. Well, get dressed. We have the department dinner tonight.” I had forgotten. Chris and I shared the same major, which meant we shared the same academic advisor. Every two months, the department organized a dinner at a local restaurant to keep everyone connected. As the student representative, I couldn’t skip it without looking unprofessional. When I arrived at the private dining room, Chris was already there. Rebecca was sitting right next to him, laughing at something she had just said. Chris’s face was neutral, but I knew him well enough to spot the faint, relaxed curve at the corner of his mouth. A few students at the end of the table looked up, their eyes darting between me and the couple. “Well, look who it is. The perfect score has arrived,” one of Chris’s friends muttered under his breath, loud enough for the table to hear. Against such mockery, Chris did nothing to stop him. Zoey stepped forward, her mouth opening to defend me, but I laid a hand on her arm, shaking my head. It wasn’t worth the energy. I walked to the far end of the long table, taking the seat furthest from Chris, and quietly ate my dinner. Halfway through the night, whether from the chill of the rain or the tension in the room, my stomach started to ache. I excused myself to the restroom. When I came out to wash my hands, Chris was waiting by the sinks. “Mae,” he said, stepping into my path. “Rebecca doesn’t really have any friends here yet. That’s why she sat next to me. I knew you had Zoey and the others, so I figured you wouldn’t feel lonely.” He called her Rebecca now. Not “my ex,” not “her.” Just Rebecca. When I didn’t reply, he pressed on. “Mae, she’s not staying here permanently. But we are. We both got accepted into the graduate program here. We have our entire lives ahead of us. Please don’t let a temporary situation make you insecure.” Before I could speak, one of his friends, Connor, walked into the hallway. “Hey, Chris. Rebecca’s had a bit too much to drink. She’s asking for you.” Chris pinched the bridge of his nose, looking exasperated. “She always does this. She knows she can’t handle her liquor.” Despite the complaint in his voice, his feet were already moving, rushing back toward the dining room before Connor could even finish his sentence. Once Chris was out of earshot, Connor turned to me, his expression cold and critical. “You should just do the right thing and step aside,” he said. “Save yourself the embarrassment.” I knew Connor had never liked me. In his eyes, a girl with no family and a mediocre background was a stain on Chris’s potential. Whenever we hung out, he always called me “Maeve,” formal and distant. But Rebecca was always “Becca.” I let out a slow, steady breath. “I don’t remember asking for your advice on my life, Connor.” He let out a dry, mocking laugh. “Suit yourself. Keep humiliating yourself if you want.” On the way back to the table, I bumped into our advisor, Dr. Sterling, who was standing near the coat rack. I looked at him, feeling a sudden, liberating wave of certainty. “Dr. Sterling, I’m sorry, but I won’t be accepting the graduate offer here. I’ve decided to attend the University of Texas at Austin instead.” He looked toward the dining room, where Rebecca was currently leaning her head on Chris’s shoulder, then looked back at me with a soft, understanding sigh. He patted my shoulder gently. “I understand, Maeve. Go do what you need to do.” When I went back inside, Rebecca was practically glowing, her face flushed as she rested against Chris’s chest. “She’s just a little drunk, Maeve. Don’t take it personally,” someone called out. I didn’t answer. I smiled at the rest of the table. “Is everyone finished? I’ll go take care of the bill.” As the student rep, I had the department card. The line at the host stand was long, and by the time I returned to the room, most of the students had already left. Only Chris, his core group of friends, and a semi-conscious Rebecca remained. “Chris, seriously, what are you doing?” Connor was asking, leaning over the table. “Rebecca’s back. Who are you choosing?” Chris stared blankly at the polished wood of the table. After a long, agonizing silence, he spoke. “I don’t know.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “But Maeve is my girlfriend. I have to be responsible for her. Rebecca is going to leave eventually to finish her degree anyway. Once this period is over, things will go back to normal.” As he spoke, Rebecca murmured something in her sleep, shifting closer into his side. Chris’s arm tightened around her automatically. He looked down at her with a tenderness that made my stomach drop. “Just let me have this one last moment,” he whispered. In the weeks that followed, I didn’t reach out to Chris, and he didn’t reach out to me. It wasn’t until I was in the library, researching the prerequisites for my new curriculum, that I ran into them again. The moment our eyes met, Chris dropped Rebecca’s hand as if he had been burned. When he saw that my expression remained entirely neutral, he let out a subtle sigh of relief and walked over, sliding into the empty chair next to mine. He glanced at the textbooks spread out in front of me, his brow furrowing. “Are you studying the wrong material? These aren’t the courses for our graduate track here.” I didn’t want him to know about Austin yet. Before I could formulate a lie, Rebecca stepped up behind him. “Maeve is a straight-A student, Chris. She probably just reads this stuff for fun. Stop micro-managing her.” Chris seemed to accept that. He gave her a fond, teasing smile. “True. Mae’s always been the smart one. Unlike you, who only went to Europe to slack off.” Rebecca giggled, tapping his shoulder playfully. I felt a physical wave of nausea. I truly did not understand how he could live like this—maintaining this effortless, agonizing equilibrium between two different women. Just then, Zoey walked up to the table. She gave Chris an icy glare. “Excuse me. You’re in my seat.” Chris stood up quickly, offering a polite nod. “Sure. Mae, make sure you eat something when you’re done studying.” I didn’t look up. I just kept writing. By dinnertime, the library had cleared out, but I stayed behind, determined to finish the last set of advanced calculus problems. Zoey and the others had gone to grab food, leaving me alone in the quiet stacks. A few minutes later, a bag of takeout and a carton of milk were set gently on the corner of my desk. I looked up to see a freshman library assistant. “Are you Maeve?” I nodded. “Some guy named Chris asked me to bring this to you. He said you always forget to eat when you’re studying and that you need to take care of yourself.” I stared at the paper bag. He knew me well enough to predict my habits. He knew I would skip dinner. Yet he had ordered sweet and sour cod—a dish he knew I absolutely despised. A love so careless, so divided, was something I had no use for anymore. The semester blurred by, and soon the day arrived to check the graduate admission results. When I logged into the portal and saw the acceptance notification from UT Austin, I knew my future was secure. A few days later, the university published the official list of accepted students for our local graduate program. Chris searched the list cover to cover, but my name was nowhere to be found. I was walking back from the campus mailroom, holding the physical acceptance package from Austin in my hands, feeling a quiet sense of triumph. It had been a long, hard road, but I was finally free. Before I could even savor the feeling, Chris appeared at the end of the path. He looked like he had been running across campus for hours, his chest heaving, his face pale. “Maeve! Why isn’t your name on the graduate list? What happened? Was there a mistake with your paperwork?” Then his eyes fell on the package in my hands. The logo of the University of Texas was printed clearly across the front. The color drained entirely from his face. “Mae… you’re going to Austin?”

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We were halfway through my bridal fitting when Nigel’s phone rang, and he slipped out to answer it. I quietly followed him out, only to hear the familiar, high-pitched whine of my best friend’s voice filtering through the receiver. “Did you finish picking out those sneakers and jerseys I asked for?” Nigel, who had been completely checked out since we walked into the boutique, suddenly sounded alive. He rattled off a dozen recommendations without missing a beat. Then Mallory asked, “Are you really going to lie to Maggie, tell her you’re on a business trip, and fly to the World Cup with me? What about the wedding?” Nigel let out a soft, easy chuckle. “We can just have the ceremony when we get back. I promised I’d watch the World Cup with you, Mal. How could I miss it?” “Besides, the World Cup only happens once every four years. She’s only been waiting for three.” “Aren’t you worried Maggie will make a scene?” Nigel hesitated for a brief second before his tone turned dismissive. “She’s sweet. And besides, it’s not the first time I’ve kept her waiting.” The color drained from my face. The bridal consultant beside me gave me a worried look. “Ma’am? Are you alright? Maybe you should take a moment to think about it. After all, this is the biggest day of your life.” But I just shook my head. “No need. We’ll take this dress.” The invitations had already been sent. He couldn’t back out, and neither could I. … When Nigel returned, he looked at my reflection in the mirror, his eyes crinkling with a smile. “You look beautiful, Maggie. I’m so happy.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a yellow diamond ring, and slid it onto my ring finger. “An early wedding gift for you.” The consultant, oblivious to everything, let out an envious sigh. But as I stared down at the yellow diamond, a sharp, physical ache bloomed in my chest. Because this ring was never meant for me. Only Mallory liked yellow diamonds. Yellow was also the signature color of their favorite soccer team. He wasn’t happy about marrying me. He was happy because he was about to fly across the world with Mallory. Nigel didn’t notice the stiffness in my shoulders. He checked his watch and adjusted his cuffs. “It’s been two hours. Let’s head out.” I couldn’t help but ask, “Are you really in that much of a hurry?” He sighed, offering a practiced, helpless look. “I have a meeting soon, Maggie. You know how busy I am.” Staring at my reflection, where even the heavy makeup couldn’t mask the exhaustion, I let out a quiet breath. Nigel had used work as an excuse to avoid every single detail of our wedding planning. From drafting the guest list to designing the venue, I had carried the entire weight of this wedding alone. I had practically begged him to clear his schedule just to choose the dress, and yet, he was already planning to cancel the whole thing. “Just take me home,” I said quietly. Nigel smiled, relieved, and patted my head. “Good girl. Once this busy season is over, things will get easier. Just bear with me a little longer.” In the car, the physical exhaustion caught up to me, and I fell asleep against the passenger window. But a sudden, violent brake sent my head slamming against the glass. A sharp pain shot through my temple, and a bump began to form. Nigel threw the wheel into a hard turn, not even casting a glance in my direction. “What’s going on?” I asked, rubbing my head. Nigel kept his eyes on the road, his face entirely casual. “It’s starting to pour. Mallory texted and asked me to pick her up.” Only then did I notice the heavy sheets of rain blurring the windows. “I thought you had a meeting?” He hesitated for a second before speaking with practiced ease. “She’s your best friend, Maggie. If I leave her stranded, she’ll just complain to you about me later.” I pressed my fingers against the swelling on my head and said nothing. When we pulled up to the curb, Mallory was huddled under a building awning. The moment the car stopped, Nigel grabbed the only umbrella in the vehicle and rushed out into the rain. He left the car door slightly open, and a blast of cold, damp air rushed in, making me shiver. Outside, Mallory shivered too. Without a second thought, Nigel slipped off his designer coat and draped it over her shoulders. For a fleeting second, I saw the ghost of the man who had first fallen in love with me. He was still capable of being incredibly tender and attentive—it was just that the recipient of that tenderness had changed. Nigel opened the passenger side door. “Maggie, Mallory gets carsick easily. Let her sit up front.” I looked at their shoulders, pressed tightly together under the shared umbrella, and quietly got out of the car. The rain pelted my face. The umbrella, which was supposed to cover both of them, was tilted entirely over Mallory’s head. I climbed into the back seat, my clothes damp and clinging to my skin. Neither of them seemed to notice. Within seconds, they were laughing over some inside joke about a recent soccer match. It sounded like an encrypted code, a language designed specifically to lock me out. But I still tried, clinging to a desperate, pathetic shred of hope. “Are you guys talking about the game tonight?” The laughter died instantly. Nigel spoke with a thin thread of irritation. “You don’t even know the rules, Maggie. There’s no need to force yourself into the conversation.” My fingers curled tightly into my palms. Despite how many times they had shut me out, I still hadn’t learned my lesson. I remembered shopping trips where we’d walk past a sports store, and they would disappear inside for hours, leaving me to wait alone on a bench outside. I remembered private dates where Nigel would suddenly leave after a single text from Mallory, rushing to watch a game with her. I used to think it was my fault for not understanding his interests. Only now did I realize they simply didn’t want me there. The rest of the drive was dead silent. When we reached the entrance of my apartment complex, Nigel handed me the wet umbrella. “Head inside. I’m going to drop Mallory off.” I took the umbrella without a word. Before I could even turn around, the car roared away, kicking up a spray of water. As I walked into the lobby, my phone rang. It was my mother. “Sweetie, your Nana is arriving tonight. She’s been counting down the days to see you walk down the aisle.” Tears mixed with the rainwater on my face, hot and stinging. “Okay, Mom. I know.” “Tell Nana to get ready. I’m going to be the most beautiful bride.” When I got upstairs and dried my hair, a text from Nigel lit up my screen. “Working late tonight. Get some rest, don’t wait up.” “We still have dinner with your parents tomorrow at two. I haven’t forgotten.” I stared at the glowing screen, then opened a browser to search the World Cup schedule. Sure enough, there was a crucial midnight match tonight. A match he and Mallory wouldn’t miss for the world. I let out a dry, self-deprecating laugh. I didn’t call him screaming, and I didn’t cry. I simply replied with a single sentence, confirming the dinner. The next afternoon, my parents arrived at the restaurant early, sitting expectantly in the private dining room. But by two-fifteen, Nigel still hadn’t shown up. As the dishes grew cold, my mother looked at me with quiet concern. “Is his work really that busy, sweetie? Maybe we should just start eating.” I forced a smile and dialed Nigel’s number. It went straight to voicemail. Then, I called Mallory. She picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Maggie, what’s up?” My voice was entirely devoid of warmth. “Is Nigel with you? Put him on.” There was a brief, awkward silence on the other end, and then Nigel’s voice cut through. “The dinner, right? I’m on my way.” Mallory took the phone back, her tone breezy and light. “We stayed up until dawn watching the match and completely overslept. You’re not mad at us, are you, Maggie?” Before I could answer, I heard Nigel’s faint laugh in the background. “Of course she isn’t. Maggie doesn’t get jealous over things like that.” I looked at the hopeful, tired faces of my parents and swallowed the rage burning in my throat, simply telling him to hurry. When Nigel finally arrived, he brought expensive gift boxes for my parents. They accepted them with a mix of flattery and embarrassment, while Nigel looked at me with a smirk that said, “Are we good now?” I kept my face neutral. Halfway through the meal, my father raised his glass to toast Nigel. But Nigel waved his hand, declining the drink. “Dad, actually, I should toast you. I owe Maggie an apology.” My father chuckled, waving it off. “Oh, a little lateness is fine, son—” “It’s not that,” Nigel interrupted, his voice smooth and entirely unbothered. “Maggie and I need to postpone the wedding by two months. I have an urgent international business trip during those dates.” “But don’t worry, I’ve taken care of everything. Consider this a vacation for you guys. I’ll cover all your travel and lodging expenses, and we’ll hold the actual ceremony in two months.” The sound of my mother’s fork hitting the table was sharp. My father’s hand shook, spilling half his wine onto the white tablecloth. I couldn’t believe he was doing this here, in front of them. After a long silence, my father, a man who had worked hard his entire life, lowered his voice to a near-pleading tone. “Son, does it really have to be postponed? The invitations are already out. All our relatives have booked their travel to be here.” Nigel simply shook his head, looking down at his plate. “You don’t understand how the corporate world works, Dad. My career is extremely important.” His arrogant tone made my father’s face turn a deep, humiliated red. My father looked at me, completely helpless. I stood up, grabbed Nigel’s arm, and dragged him out of the private room. “I never agreed to postpone the wedding,” I whispered, my voice shaking. Nigel looked at me, his eyes cold. “Your parents already accepted my gifts, Maggie. Why are you still making a scene?” A lump formed in my throat. So the gifts weren’t an apology. They were hush money. They were a bribe to buy my parents’ compliance. Nigel reached out, lightly patting my head as if calming a restless pet. “I’ve already compensated you. Stop throwing a tantrum. Don’t make your parents worry.” My eyes stung. I looked at him and asked one last time, “Nigel, are you absolutely sure you want to cancel the wedding next week?” He gave me a strange look, but didn’t think much of it. “It’s a postponement, Maggie. Not a cancellation.” He pulled a black credit card from his wallet and pressed it into my hand. “I have to run. Finish up dinner with your parents, and put the bill on this.” Without another word, he turned and walked toward the elevators. My chest rose and fell in shallow, ragged breaths. I quietly followed him. I trailed him down to the underground parking garage, where I watched him walk toward his SUV. The passenger door was already unlocked, and Mallory was sitting inside, scrolling through her phone. Nigel climbed into the driver’s seat, a proud smile on his face. “I took care of Maggie’s family. We’re good to go.” I didn’t stay to hear the rest. The tears finally spilled over, hot and heavy. My chest felt like a sponge soaked to the brim with years of quiet humiliation and ignored red flags. I wiped my face dry, walked back into the private dining room, and looked at my parents. “Nigel has an emergency,” I said, my voice steady. “He won’t be attending the wedding.” The next morning, I walked into the office and sat down at my desk. Within minutes, Mallory slid her chair over to mine. She stared at my face for a long moment, then let out a loud, exaggerated gasp. “Oh my god, Maggie! Did you actually cry? Since when did you become such a sore loser?” “You know how Nigel and I are. We’re just soccer buddies. Nobody is closer to you than me.” She patted my shoulder, her grip tightening with a strange, heavy force. Her face was a mask of pure innocence, but she was deliberately exposing my humiliation to the entire open-plan office. I coldly brushed her hand off my shoulder. Instead of being offended, she let out a light laugh. “Fine, I apologize. Don’t be mad, Maggie.” There wasn’t a single shred of sincerity in her eyes. Staring at her, I felt a sudden, profound sense of detachment. The Mallory who used to stand up for me, the girl who had been my fiercely loyal best friend in college, was entirely gone. She was just a stranger wearing my friend’s face. I turned back to my computer, but before I could type, Nigel’s voice cut through the air. “Why are you apologizing to her? You didn’t do anything wrong.” My hands froze on the keyboard. Nigel stood beside Mallory, looking down at me. “We tried bringing you to games before, Maggie, but you just sat there looking miserable because you didn’t get it. Bringing you along just ruins the mood for everyone.” I couldn’t even remember the last time they had invited me. But I remembered the first year of our relationship. He used to sit with me for hours, patiently explaining the rules, the teams, the players. He had even watched slow, romantic dramas with me, even though he hated them. Back then, I thought I was his exception. But the moment Mallory entered the picture—a woman who actually understood his passion—his eyes had lit up. Just like now, as he looked at Mallory with genuine admiration, before turning a look of pure, irritated exhaustion on me. “The boss is right,” a male colleague piped up from a nearby cubicle, eager to suck up. “You have to watch the World Cup with people who actually get the sport. I wouldn’t bring my girlfriend either.” Several other men joined in, laughing and praising Nigel’s logic. Nigel smiled, clearly pleased. “Tell you what—during the World Cup tournament, everyone in the department gets one paid day off to catch a match.” The entire office erupted into cheers. “Mallory is the best! Thank you, boss!” In the middle of the noise, someone shouted, “Honestly, the boss and Mallory look so much more compatible!” Mallory’s cheeks flushed a light pink, and Nigel looked away, avoiding my gaze. Neither of them said a word to deny it. In that moment, everyone in the room seemed to forget that I was the one wearing his ring. I quietly put on my noise-canceling headphones, drowning out the cheers. But after that day, the atmosphere in the office shifted entirely. Colleagues began to bypass me, sending me files without a word of explanation. When they ordered afternoon boba, my name was pointedly left off the list. Whenever I approached a group chatting in the hallway, they would abruptly fall silent and disperse. Meanwhile, Mallory became the golden girl of the department. Even if I wanted to ignore it, the subtle, systematic exclusion was impossible to miss. I walked straight into Nigel’s corner office. When we had first started this company, he had made a speech about zero tolerance for office politics and exclusion. But when I brought it up, Nigel simply shrugged, his tone breezy. “It’s just natural progression, Maggie. How long did you expect to get special treatment?” I stared at him, stunned. Nigel looked entirely unbothered. “Before, everyone accommodated you because you were my girlfriend. Now, you’ve simply lost that privilege.” The air felt tight in my chest. I wanted to ask him if he truly couldn’t tell the difference between losing a privilege and being actively bullied. But before the words could leave my mouth, the door to his private office lounge swung open, and Mallory walked out. Nigel immediately handed her a glass of warm water. “Mallory’s on her period and wasn’t feeling well. I told her to rest in here.” Mallory took a sip, then offered me a sweet, pitying smile. “Don’t worry, Maggie, it was just me in there. But I couldn’t help but hear what you guys were talking about.” “Honestly, I think you need to be a bit more independent. You can’t rely on men for everything.” My fingernails dug into my palms, the sharp bite of pain keeping me from breaking down. “And what about you? Are you relying on Nigel for your sudden promotion?” Mallory slammed her glass onto the desk, her brow furrowing. “Maggie, I know you’re in a bad mood, but don’t go spreading baseless rumors.” “My transfer to corporate headquarters was based strictly on my performance reviews. It has nothing to do with favoritism.” I let out a cold laugh. I had been with this company for six years. The people who started with me had either been promoted to directors or moved on to high-paying roles elsewhere. I was the only one still stuck in an entry-level position, making a meager salary. Yet Mallory, who had been here for less than two years, was already in a managerial role and was now being fast-tracked to the parent company. And the gatekeeper for that internal transfer was Nigel. Whenever I had asked about my own career progression, Nigel had always told me we needed to “avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.” But when it came to Mallory, he was more than happy to let her climb over his shoulders to get to the top. Perhaps my gaze was too sharp, because Nigel’s voice softened slightly. “Go back to your desk, Maggie. I’ll handle this.” But this time, I didn’t play along. “I resign.” Nigel’s face instantly darkened. Mallory looked at me with a mix of shock and suspicion. I pulled a pre-written resignation letter from my pocket and laid it flat on his desk. Nigel glanced at it, then let out a harsh, mocking laugh as he picked it up and ripped it into pieces. “Are you out of your mind? You’re resigning to get married?” “Who are you even marrying? I already told you I’m going to be out of the country next week.” I looked at him, completely detached. “My family has already prepared everything.” “So what? I’m not going to be there. My flight is booked for tomorrow morning.” “Do whatever you want,” I murmured. Nigel didn’t quite catch my words, his brow furrowing in irritation. He opened his mouth to say something, but Mallory cut him off. “Maggie, honestly, your resume isn’t great, and you haven’t really accomplished anything here. If it weren’t for Nigel keeping you on, you might not even have a job. If you quit now, do you really think any other company will want you?” Nigel stared at me for a few seconds, then let out a smug chuckle. “She’s right. Do you think you’re some kind of princess, Maggie? That everyone in the world has to coddle you?” Listening to them take turns tearing me down, I realized with a strange sense of peace that I felt absolutely nothing. No anger, no sorrow. Just a vast, empty space. “I have the right to resign. Let’s not waste any more time.” Nigel’s smug smile faltered, the words dying in his throat. His eyes flashed with a cold, sharp anger. “Fine. If I don’t let you experience how brutal the real world is, you’ll never realize how good you had it with me.” He picked up his desk phone, called HR into his office, and ordered them to process my termination immediately, right there in front of everyone. Mallory shook her head with a look of mock pity, though Nigel reached out and gently squeezed her arm to keep her quiet. I signed the paperwork with a steady hand. Then, I reached into my bag, pulled out a handful of traditional wedding candies, and dropped them into the HR manager’s palm. She blinked, startled, but slowly took them. As I walked out of the glass office, I heard Mallory’s sigh carry through the air. “Maggie is just a bit too desperate to walk down the aisle.” And Nigel’s cold reply: “She’s delusional. As if I’d actually stay behind just for a wedding.” Even though I had expected it, the words still felt like a physical sting. I quickened my pace. While I packed up my desk, I felt a heavy, intense gaze burning into the back of my neck. But every time I turned around, everyone was looking at their screens. I sat down to wipe my personal data from my computer. Just as I was about to delete a major marketing proposal I had spent the last two weeks drafting, Mallory blocked my hand. “Maggie, since you’re leaving anyway, why don’t you just transfer this proposal to me?” “Why?” I asked, looking up. “Can’t you write your own?” Mallory bit her lip, looking embarrassed. “Come on, we’re best friends. Why are you being so petty about a document?” Nigel walked by, his voice carrying an administrative authority. “The proposal was created on company time. It belongs to the company, Maggie. Hand it over to her.” My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second. Then, I hit the transfer button. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be needing it anyway. When I walked out of the glass building carrying my single cardboard box of personal belongings, I could feel Nigel’s eyes boring into my back from his second-floor window. He later told me that a bizarre, heavy unease had settled in his chest the moment the elevator doors slid shut on me. Even after he boarded his flight the next morning, that heavy stone remained in his stomach. Sitting next to him in business class, Mallory had noticed his silence and patted his arm. “Don’t overthink it, Nigel. Maggie is just throwing a tantrum. Once we get back, you can buy her a nice gift and she’ll be fine. Trust me, I know her.” Nigel only narrowed his eyes and remained silent, staring out at the runway. The moment the plane touched down in Qatar, he pulled out his phone. He had expected to see a dozen frantic, apologetic texts from me. Instead, he froze, his fingers tightening around the metal casing of his phone. “What is the meaning of Maggie’s post?”

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My fiancée, Sally, wanted to go on a two-month road trip up the Alaska Highway with her male best friend, Rory. I said no. She called me insecure. I told her a single man and a single woman spending two months alone in a truck wasn’t right. She called me disgusting. I asked her if she absolutely had to go. She lifted her chin, defiant. “Yes.” I just smiled. I pulled out my phone and texted my assistant, Lawrence: “Thirty minutes. Cut off every single business line the Spencer family has in this city.” She had no idea. The “struggling delivery boy” she thought she was dating held enough keys to make her entire family beg on their knees in the middle of downtown Seattle. 1 It all started three days ago. I’d come home late after a brutal shift. Sally was curled up on the sofa, scrolling through her phone without even glancing up. There were two iced lattes on the coffee table. One was untouched, condensation pooling at the base; the other was empty. I kicked off my shoes, walked over, and picked up the full one. I took a sip. It was lukewarm and watery. “Who was here?” Only then did she look up, her expression utterly detached. “Rory. He stopped by for a bit.” Rory. Always Rory. I’d heard that name at least fifty times over the past six months. Her “platonic best friend.” College classmate, freelance photographer, free spirit. I didn’t say anything. I just sat down next to her. Suddenly, she shoved her phone screen in front of my face. “Look at this. Rory took these in Banff last week. They’re absolutely breathtaking.” I glanced at the screen. Snow-capped peaks, empty highways, a lonely tent. The composition was good. “Yeah. Nice.” “He’s planning to drive all the way up through the Yukon to Alaska next month. A massive road trip.” “Oh.” Sally pulled her phone back, her eyes shining with an intensity I hadn’t seen in a long time. “He asked if I wanted to go with him.” I set the lukewarm latte down. “And what did you say?” “I think it’d be amazing. I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights.” I looked at her profile. She kept her eyes glued to the screen. “Sally.” “Yeah?” “You and him. In one truck. Driving through the wilderness to Alaska. That’s a two-month trip, minimum.” “So?” “Just the two of you.” She finally turned her head, her forehead creasing in irritation. “Adam, can you not be so disgusting? Rory and I are completely platonic. We could share a tent and literally nothing would happen.” Share a tent. She said it so casually, like she was talking about sharing a cab. I squeezed the plastic cup in my hand until it buckled. “So you already told him yes?” “I haven’t officially given him an answer, but I want to go.” “I’m not okay with this.” Sally let out a soft, mocking laugh. “Adam, you don’t own me. You don’t get to dictate my life.” “You’re my fiancée.” “A fiancée is still an independent person.” She stood up, clutching her phone as she headed toward the bedroom. Before she shut the door, she threw one last line over her shoulder: “If you’re going to be this insecure, I don’t even know why we got together in the first first place.” The door clicked shut. I sat alone in the living room, the artificial sweetness of the watery coffee coating my throat like ash. I didn’t sleep in our bed that night. I stayed in the study, staring at the wall until dawn. It wasn’t just that she wanted to go to Alaska. It was that she hadn’t even thought to invite me. And when she spoke, her eyes were completely empty of me. Over the next two days, she lived in a different world. She spent hours on FaceTime with Rory, planning routes, gear, budgets. I sat in the same room, listening to her laughter. It was a bright, easy sound—a sound she hadn’t given me in a very long time. It felt like I had already become a ghost in my own apartment. On the third night, she officially laid her cards on the table. “Adam, I’ve made up my mind. We’re leaving on the fifteenth.” I was sitting across from her at the dining table, my fork resting against the rim of my plate. “A guy and a girl, sharing a vehicle for two months in the middle of nowhere. You really think that’s appropriate?” “What’s inappropriate about it?” “So I’m just supposed to sit here and wait for you to cheat on me?” Sally’s face flushed red. She slammed her fork onto the table. “Adam! How dare you? Are you seriously insulting my integrity?” “I’m stating facts.” “The fact is that Rory and I are friends! If you can’t even trust me that much, what’s the point of this relationship?” “My trust isn’t the only thing at play here, Sally. Have you thought about how this looks to anyone else?” “I don’t give a damn about what other people think.” She stood up, leaning her hands on the table, looming over me. “Let’s be honest, Adam. You’re just bitter because you don’t have the means to take me on a trip like this, so you can’t stand the thought of someone else doing it.” The words hit home, sharp and cold. I didn’t answer. She pressed on, her voice dripping with disdain. “Rory has money, free time, and talent. He actually wants to show me the world. What can you offer me? You pull sixty-hour weeks at some dead-end office, and your monthly paycheck doesn’t even cover what he spends on a single weekend.” I looked up at her. Her eyes held a cruel, unvarnished honesty. “So this trip,” I said quietly, “you’re absolutely going, no matter what?” “Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. I nodded. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and opened my chat with Lawrence. I typed a single line. Thirty minutes. Shut down every distribution channel the Spencer family has in this city. Send. The message immediately showed Read. Lawrence replied with three words: On it, sir. I flipped the phone face-down on the table and looked up at Sally. “Go ahead then.” She blinked, clearly caught off guard by my sudden surrender. “You… you’re letting me go?” “I’m not letting you go on a trip.” I stood up and began clearing the plates, taking them into the kitchen. With my back to her, I said the last words I would ever say to her as her partner. “I’m letting you go for good.” 2 Sally didn’t understand. Or maybe she chose not to. “Adam, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I placed the dishes in the sink and turned on the faucet. The rush of cold water drowned out her steps. “It means the wedding is off. We’re done.” “Are you out of your mind?” She marched into the kitchen, standing at the threshold, her face a storm of anger and disbelief. “You’re throwing away our engagement over a vacation?” I shut off the tap, dried my hands on a dish towel, and turned around. “It’s not about the vacation.” “Then what is it?” “It’s about everything you just said.” She froze. I looked directly into her eyes. “You said Rory has money, time, and talent. You said I can’t offer you anything. You said my monthly salary isn’t worth one of his trips.” “I…” “You have a scale in your heart, Sally. And you don’t weigh love on it. You weigh dollar signs.” Her lips parted, but no sound came out. “Since you think I’m so beneath you, go run to your rich best friend. I won’t stand in your way.” I brushed past her, walked into the study, and grabbed my car keys and jacket. She followed me to the entryway. “Adam! Stop! Calm down! I was just angry, I didn’t mean it!” “People mean exactly what they say when they’re angry.” “Don’t walk out that door—” “I’ll have someone contact your parents about dissolving the engagement.” I pulled the door open and stepped out. Behind me, her voice chased me down the hall—tinged with panic, but mostly laced with that familiar, insulted pride. “Adam! Who the hell do you think you are to call off the wedding? You’re nobody!” I paused in the stairwell. The fluorescent motion-sensor light hummed overhead, casting a harsh, sterile glow. Who do you think you are. I smiled to myself. She was going to find out the answer to that question very, very soon. I drove straight to our corporate headquarters. It wasn’t the modest mid-rise she pictured. It was the tallest skyscraper in downtown Seattle’s financial district. The top floor. Fifty-eighth. The elevator chimed open, and Lawrence was already waiting by the glass doors. Impeccable charcoal suit, a tablet in his hand. “Mr. Sabrina.” “Status?” “The three major developers partnering with the Spencer construction business have already been notified. They will officially terminate all contracts tomorrow morning. We’ve also halted deliveries from our material supply subsidiaries to their waterfront site. And the commercial line of credit Richard Spencer was negotiating? The underwriting department pulled the authorization ten minutes ago.” I walked into my office and sat down. Through the floor-to-ceiling glass, the Seattle skyline stretched out beneath me—a glittering sea of lights. Once, Sally and I had looked at those lights and talked about building a life together. Now, it was just cold glass. “Anything else?” “We finished the background check on Rory,” Lawrence said, sliding a digital file onto my desk. “His father, Arthur Rory Senior, runs a high-end used car operation. Rory’s ‘freelance photography’ career is mostly a front to help launder funds for his father’s side businesses. His interest in Sally is purely transactional. Richard Spencer holds the rights to a prime parcel on the waterfront, and the Rorys want in on that development.” I leaned back in my leather chair. So the “pure, platonic friendship” she defended so fiercely was nothing more than a calculated hustle. Rory was playing her to get to her father’s land. And Sally, blind to it all, thought he was just a gentleman wanting to show her the snow peaks. Foolish. “Do you want me to share this with Miss Spencer, sir?” “No.” I stared out at the dark harbor. “Let her figure it out on her own.” Lawrence nodded, then paused. “The engagement… are we making it official tomorrow?” “Yes. Have my mother’s office handle it. If the Spencers try to cause a scene, show them exactly what we hold over them.” “Understood.” Before Lawrence turned to leave, he hesitated. “Sir… you were with her for three years. Are you certain about this?” Three years. Over a thousand days. I remembered buying her ninety-nine roses for her birthday. She’d complained they were cheap, pointing out that Rory had gifted her a vintage Leica camera. I remembered taking her to a luxury resort in Maui, booking an oceanfront suite. She’d posted on Instagram with the caption: Okay for a weekend, but definitely looking forward to better views next time. I transferred fifteen thousand dollars to her account every month for “living expenses.” And just last month, I’d overheard her talking to her friends on the balcony: “Adam’s fine. He’s safe, predictable. We’ll settle down, I guess. At least until something more exciting comes along.” Settle down. Fine. Three years of devotion, reduced to a safety net she was waiting to outgrow. “I’m certain,” I said, setting my teacup down. “Three years was more than enough.” 3 At ten o’clock the next morning, my mother made the call. Victoria Sabrina. Very few people in the Pacific Northwest didn’t know that name. She was the matriarch and founder of the Sabrina Group, a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate. I was her only son. Her sole heir. But since I was twenty-three, I had chosen to live outside the family shadow, wanting to build something of my own. My mother respected my choice, only insisting that Lawrence stay close to manage my security and assets. For three years, I had loved Sally as “Adam, the mid-level corporate employee.” The Spencers had no clue who I actually was. To them, I was a quiet guy with a decent salary and zero family pedigree. Richard Spencer had only tolerated the engagement because Sally insisted on it. At a dinner with his business partners, he’d reportedly said, “My girl fell for a working-class nobody. What can I do? At least the boy is compliant. He’ll make a decent, obedient son-in-law we can run ragged.” Decent. Obedient. Run ragged. Lawrence had reported those words to me at the time. I’d let them slide because I still believed Sally was worth it. She wasn’t. At eleven in the morning, our legal team, led by our lead attorney Thomas Pendelton, arrived at the Spencer residence. Richard Spencer didn’t take them seriously at first. What kind of legal representation could a “working-class boy” afford? But when he opened the door, he found three men in bespoke suits. “Mr. Spencer,” Thomas said calmly. “We represent the Sabrina family. We are here to formally notify you that the engagement between Mr. Adam Sabrina and Miss Sally Spencer is dissolved, effective immediately. Please review the termination agreement.” Richard took the folder, his eyes scanning the first few pages. His smug expression quickly curdled. “What the hell is this? That kid Adam sent you? Who does he think he is, hiring lawyers like this?” Thomas’s face remained impassive. “Mr. Sabrina has every right. Page three outlines the terms. There are no outstanding property disputes, nor is there any request for compensation. We simply require your signature.” “Get the hell out of my house!” Richard slammed the folder onto the floor. “Tell that coward to come face me himself! Lawyers? He can’t afford you!” Thomas bent down, picked up the folder, and brushed off a speck of dust. “Mr. Spencer, I strongly advise you to compose yourself. Furthermore, there are a few pressing matters I must bring to your attention.” He pulled another document from his briefcase. “The three major development projects under your name have had their contracts terminated as of nine this morning. Your material suppliers have ceased all deliveries. And your pending commercial loan application has been officially denied.” Richard froze, the color draining from his face as if he’d been plunged into freezing water. “What… what are you talking about?” “Consider this a courtesy notice,” Thomas said, placing the document on the console table by the door. “Take your time with the dissolution agreement. But I suggest you sign it soon.” The lawyers turned and walked out. Richard stood frozen at the door, holding the termination notice. He couldn’t comprehend it. How had every single one of his business partners, suppliers, and lenders turned against him overnight? Just then, Sally ran down the stairs. “Dad! What’s going on? Who was that?” Richard looked at his daughter, his anger slowly giving way to a cold, creeping dread. “Your fiancé… who is he, really?” 4 Sally scoffed. “Adam? Who is he?” She let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “He’s an office worker who barely pulls six figures. Who else would he be?” Richard’s expression remained grim. He handed her the papers. Sally glanced at them, her smirk faltering. But her immediate reaction wasn’t fear—it was indignation. “This has to be a coincidence. He doesn’t have the power to do this.” She whipped out her phone and dialed my number. The number you have dialed is currently unavailable. She tried again. Same result. “He turned his phone off!” She threw the device onto the sofa. “He’s just throwing a tantrum like a child.” Richard wasn’t listening. He was dialing his business contacts. His first call went straight to voicemail. On his second attempt, a partner answered, his voice hushed and frantic: “Richard, look, I’m sorry. The order came from the very top. I can’t touch your projects without ruining my own company.” The third call was even more brutal: “Richard, you need to figure out who the hell you pissed off. Because whoever they are, they’re burying you. I can’t help you.” Richard’s hand began to shake. He’d been in business for twenty years, and he’d never seen a supply chain collapse this quickly. It was clinical. It was absolute. “Dad, stop panicking,” Sally said, stepping closer. “I’ll go talk to him. He’s just acting out because of the trip—” “Shut up!” Richard roared. Sally flinched, taking a step back. She had never seen her father lose his temper like this. “Do you have any idea what’s happening? Our waterfront projects have been shut down! Our funding is gone! I have thirty million dollars in construction debts due next month! Where am I supposed to get that kind of money?” “But… what does that have to do with Adam?” “He called off the engagement, and within the same hour, my entire business is ruined. You think that’s a coincidence?” Sally bit her lip. A cold knot of anxiety was forming in her stomach, but she refused to acknowledge it. No, Adam couldn’t be some powerful shadow figure. It didn’t make sense. Her phone buzzed. A text from Rory. Hey babe, got the gear packed and the truck ready. We still on for the fifteenth? Alaska is calling! The message felt suddenly jarring. She stared at it, unable to type a reply. Richard took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down. “I’m going to call some favors. Find out who is pulling the strings.” He spent the entire afternoon on the phone. By eight that evening, an old contact from the bank finally returned his call, his voice barely a whisper: “Richard, you’ve stepped on a landmine. The directive to pull your loans came directly from the executive board of the Sabrina Group. You know who they are, right? They hold half the commercial real estate in the Northwest. Think carefully—how did you offend the Sabrinas?” Richard hung up. The phone slipped from his fingers, landing with a soft thud. Sabrina. Adam. Adam Sabrina. He slowly turned to look at his daughter, who was curled up on the sofa clutching a throw pillow. “Your fiancé,” he whispered, his voice dry. “His last name… is Sabrina.” Sally looked up. “Yeah, so? It’s a common name.” “As in the Sabrina Group.” “Dad, what are you talking about? He lives in a rented apartment, he drives a ten-year-old sedan—” “He lied to you,” Richard said, sinking into his chair as if the bones in his legs had turned to liquid. “He lied to all of us.” “No way…” Sally’s voice trembled. “He couldn’t be…” “Look it up,” her father rasped. “Look it up right now.” Sally unlocked her phone, her fingers shaking so badly she could barely type the words into the search bar: Sabrina Group heir. The search results were sparse; the family kept a notoriously low profile. But there was a single profile from a business journal three years ago. It featured a grainy photograph of a young man leaving a charity gala. The sharp line of his jaw, the quiet, focused gaze. She knew that face. It was Adam.

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I was the only daughter of an incredibly wealthy man—naive, soft-spoken, and painfully agreeable. But I was also someone who listened to advice. When my father died of a sudden heart attack, my world fractured. As I knelt weeping outside the ER doors, my stepmother, my half-brother, and my fiancé immediately shed their disguises. They wanted me gone. They wanted the company keys. They wanted me stripped of everything. I was on the verge of giving in, too weak to fight back, when I saw the words. Luminous, floating text scrolled across my vision like a live-stream feed. [Don’t cry! Your dad is faking it. He took a beta-blocker cocktail to test them. Don’t blow his cover!] … Meredith stood over me, looking down like I was something she’d stepped in. “Your father is gone,” she said, her voice flat and dry. “Go pay the ER bill, and while you’re at it, hand over the corporate seal.” She didn’t have a single tear in her eyes. I sat paralyzed on the freezing hospital floor, my mind a complete blank. Just half an hour ago, my dad had been sitting across from me at the breakfast table, complaining about his coffee. Then he’d gasped, clutching his chest, and collapsed. By the time the ambulance pulled up to the hospital, he had stopped breathing. I was crying so hard I could barely draw breath, my fingers clutching the hem of Meredith’s trousers. “Meredith, please. The doctors said they could try one more time. Tell them to use whatever it takes. I’ll pay anything.” “Don’t be naive, Isabel. Death is final.” Meredith brushed me off with a sharp jerk of her leg. She usually wore casual athleisure, putting her arm around my shoulders and telling everyone we were more like best friends than stepmother and daughter. Now, her face held nothing but naked, cold calculation. “Isabel, sweetie, I’ve always looked out for you like my own. Now that your father’s gone, let me carry this burden. What do you know about running an empire? Hand over the vault keys and the signing authority.” I stared at her, utterly shattered. My father’s body wasn’t even cold, and she couldn’t even bother to pretend anymore. “I won’t,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “We haven’t even planned the funeral. How can you do this?” Before she could answer, a heavy set of footsteps stomped down the hallway. It was Brody, my half-brother, his bleached blond hair disheveled and a vicious sneer on his face. “The old man is finally dead!” Brody yelled, pointing a finger directly at my face. “You useless leech, hand over those keys!” “The Mercer estate belongs to me. You’re just a daughter who’s going to marry out anyway. What right do you have to anything?” He lunged forward, grabbing a handful of my hair, and shoved me hard against the wall. A sharp pain shot through my scalp. I gasped, instinctively looking toward my fiancé, Simon Graham, who was standing a few feet away. “Simon, help me!” Simon walked over slowly. He reached down and pried Brody’s fingers off me. For a second, I thought he was going to defend me. But then he pulled a silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and began wiping his hands with slow, deliberate disgust. “Isabel, Brody is right. You have nothing now. Stop being difficult,” Simon said. His eyes, once so warm, were now as cold as winter frost. “If you hand over the corporate seal quietly, I will still honor our engagement and marry you. Think of it as my final act of charity. Don’t push your luck.” I felt suffocated. The three people I trusted most in the world had turned into monsters in less than an hour. My hand trembled as I reached into my purse for the keys. I was ready to give up. I was ready to let them take it all just to make the nightmare stop. But then, the glowing words appeared in the air. [Don’t give it to them! You don’t know the first thing about running the company. If you surrender the seal, they’ll bleed you dry.] [They’ve been plotting this for months. Simon is already sleeping with Meredith’s niece.] My fingers froze inside my bag. Then, a bold red line of text floated past: [Don’t cry! Your dad is faking it. He took a temporary-coma drug to test their loyalty. Don’t blow his cover!] [I gasped, my breath catching in my throat. I didn’t know where these floating words were coming from, but I had always been highly suggestible—especially when I was completely overwhelmed. I looked at the closed double doors of the ER. [Dad is alive? He’s in there, listening to everything?] I pulled my hand out of my purse and took a deep, steadying breath. “I don’t have the keys on me.” “Bullshit!” Brody kicked a metal trash can, sending it clattering across the linoleum. “I saw you slip them into your designer bag before we left the house!” He lunged to grab my bag. I hugged it tightly to my chest, refusing to let go. Simon sighed, a look of profound annoyance crossing his face. “Isabel, do you really want to make this ugly? You don’t have a single penny in your personal account. Without the Mercers, without me, you won’t even be able to buy groceries. Just listen to me, okay?” I hesitated. Part of me, the old, weak part, desperately wanted to believe him. Then the text flashed again: [Girl, are you seriously this gullible? You believe a single word out of his mouth?] [Listen to us: Play along, act weak, and record everything they do.] [Your dad is practically vibrating with rage in there. Let him see their true colors.] [I clenched my jaw, keeping my head down so they wouldn’t see the shift in my eyes. I held onto the bag with everything I had. Brody raised his hand to strike me, but a passing nurse yelled at him to behave. Meredith, realizing they were drawing a crowd, smoothed down her shirt and forced a tight, fake smile. “Fine. Keep your useless keys for now. Stay here with the corpse.” She sneered, leaning in close. “Brody, Simon, let’s head to the estate. There’s plenty of valuable art and antiques to secure anyway.” Watching them walk away, I felt a wave of cold fury replace my fear. The text floated again: [Don’t worry. Let them rob the place. Anything over ten thousand dollars is a felony.] [Go buy a spy camera. There’s going to be a grand performance at the mansion.] [I wiped my face, pushed myself up from the cold floor, and looked through the glass window of the ER at the sheet-covered figure on the bed. “Meredith, wait! I’m coming with you,” I called out, making my voice sound as weak and broken as possible. I didn’t take an Uber. I took the city bus, stopping at a local tech shop to buy a tiny spy pen, just as the comments suggested. When I opened the front doors of our suburban mansion, my jaw dropped. The grand living room was completely trashed. The Italian leather sofas had been slashed open, and the crystal glasses lay shattered across the hardwood floor. Brody was standing by the fireplace, hammering away at the wall safe with a heavy mallet. “What’s the damn passcode? Even dead, the old bastard is a pain in the ass!” Meredith was standing nearby, directing two movers to pack up my dad’s favorite paintings. “Careful with that landscape. It’s a genuine piece. It’ll fetch at least half a million.” I trembled, balling my fists. Text scrolled wildly in my vision: [Record it! This is textbook grand larceny and destruction of property!] [The meathead’s got muscle. Let him smash. The more he breaks, the longer his prison sentence.] [I swallowed my anger, pasting a terrified expression on my face, and crept into the room. “Meredith, what are you doing?” Meredith didn’t even look guilty. “Oh, Isabel. I’m just organizing your father’s estate. These paintings are just gathering dust. We need to liquidate them to cover the company’s cash flow crisis.” “But those were Dad’s favorites…” “Shut up!” Brody snarled, pointing the mallet at me. “One more word and I’ll crack your skull next!” I shrank back, letting tears well up in my eyes. Simon came downstairs, holding a small velvet jewelry box. It was my mother’s heirloom—a priceless emerald necklace. “Simon, that’s my mother’s!” I lunged for it, my heart dropping. He dodged easily and handed the box to Meredith. “Isabel, don’t be selfish. Meredith has been working herself to the bone for this family. Think of this as a token of appreciation.” “Simon, that is my inheritance! How dare you give it away?” “Because I am your fiancé!” Simon snapped, his patience wearing thin. “Isabel, get a grip. Your father is dead. You are an orphan with zero leverage. If I wasn’t protecting you, Brody would have thrown you out on the street hours ago.” He stepped closer, looking down at me. “Sign the proxy voting rights of your shares over to me, and I’ll make sure you have an allowance for the rest of your life.” The text flashed: [The audacity of this mediocre man. Using your money to play savior.] [Agree to it! Ask for the transfer papers. Keep them placated.] [Your dad’s legal team is already on their way. These agreements are legally void, but they’re gold-standard evidence of fraud.] I took a shaky breath, letting my shoulders slump. “Okay, I’ll sign. But please, give me back my mother’s necklace.” Simon sneered, pulling out pre-drafted documents from his briefcase. “We’ll talk about the necklace later. Sign first.” “I… I don’t understand these terms.” “You don’t need to. Just sign,” Meredith urged, tapping her foot. I picked up the pen, my hand shaking so hard I could barely write. Brody snatched the pen and shoved me. “Hurry up!” I tumbled to the floor, scraping my palm against the rough rug. “Brody, play nice with your sister,” Meredith said insincerely, a smirk plastered on her face. I lay on the floor, looking at their ugly faces. The comments were right. I had to play the long game. I got up and signed my name. Simon blew on the ink, satisfied. “See? Was that so hard?” He turned to Meredith. “Meredith, since Isabel is being so cooperative, she can handle the receiving line at the wake tomorrow. Kneeling, preferably.” Meredith laughed, putting the emerald necklace around her neck. “Of course. She is the daughter, after all.” “Oh, and Isabel,” she added, tossing another document on the floor. “Your dad left a thirty-million-dollar debt under the company’s name. As the eldest daughter, you’ll be taking sole responsibility for this liability.” “Thirty million? But the company’s financial report last month showed we had a massive cash surplus!” “What do you know?” Meredith barked. “That was creative accounting. Your dad blew it all on bad investments.” “If you don’t sign, creditors will seize this house tomorrow, and you’ll be sleeping on the streets.” The text flashed like strobe lights: [Sign! Sign it now! That thirty-million-dollar debt is a fake contract set up by Meredith’s brother, Todd.] [The moment you sign, they’ve committed major wire and contract fraud. Ten years minimum!] [Every ounce of your patience right now is another nail in their coffin.] I bit my lip, crying out, “I’ll sign… just please don’t kick me out.” I signed. Meredith snatched the paper and exchanged a triumphant look with Simon. “Now get out of my sight. Go to your room,” Brody ordered. I walked upstairs. As I reached the landing, I heard him yell, “Mom, her room is the biggest. I’m moving my stuff in!” “Go ahead, sweetie. It’s got the best light. Perfect for you and your future wife,” Meredith replied. I froze, turning around. Brody was already coming up with the movers. He kicked my door open. “Throw all this garbage out!” My clothes, books, and childhood stuffed animals were tossed into the hallway. “Stop! This is my room!” I tried to block them. Brody shoved me hard. “Your room? The old man is dead. This whole house is mine!” He grabbed a photo album off my desk—the only picture I had with my late mother. “Why keep dead people’s junk? It’s bad luck.” He ripped the photos to pieces and threw them out the window. “No!” I screamed, lunging toward the window. The shredded pieces drifted down like snow. My chest ached as if my heart had been torn apart too. “Brody, you monster!” I glared at him, my eyes burning. “Oh, she’s got teeth,” he mocked, raising his hand to strike me. “Stop!” Simon called out, grabbing Brody’s wrist. For a fraction of a second, I thought he was defending me. “Don’t bruise her face,” Simon said coldly. “She has to look presentable for the wake tomorrow. If she’s black and blue, people will talk.” He looked down at me. “Isabel, behave yourself. No one is coming to save you.” I stared at the man I had loved for seven years, feeling a deep, physical revulsion. The text floated quietly: [Don’t cry. Tears won’t solve this.] [The higher they climb, the harder they fall tomorrow.] [Go pick up your photos. Then slip down to the basement and grab your dad’s backup laptop.] I took a deep breath, ignored them, and ran downstairs. I gathered the shredded photos from the lawn, tears dripping onto the wet grass. “Good girl. When you’re begging on the streets next week, maybe I’ll toss you a quarter,” Brody laughed from the balcony. The next day, at the funeral home, I sat kneeling in the chapel, wearing a faded black T-shirt. Meredith had thrown away all my clothes. “The funeral is tomorrow and you don’t even have a decent black dress. Unbelievable,” she had sneered. The chapel was decorated lavishly, but my father’s urn was the cheapest wood option available. Meredith claimed we needed to save money for Brody’s new sports car. I kept my head down, greeting guests mechanically. The spy pen in my pocket remained active. Midway through, Meredith walked up to the microphone. “Dear friends and family, thank you for joining us to send Thomas on his final journey.” She dabbed her dry eyes with a tissue. “But today, besides mourning him, I have a painful announcement to make.” The room went quiet. Meredith pointed a finger at me. “Isabel is not Thomas’s biological daughter!” The room erupted into whispers. I looked up in feigned shock. Meredith pulled out a document. “This is the DNA test I received yesterday. Isabel shares no genetic markers with my late husband. Her mother was unfaithful, pregnant with another man’s child when she tricked Thomas into marriage twenty years ago!” Flashes went off. Reporters, tipped off beforehand, swarmed the chapel. “That’s a lie!” I stood up, trembling. “The proof is right here!” Meredith sneered. “Thomas knew before he died, which is why he left his entire estate to Brody. We’ve raised this imposter for twenty years out of charity, but today, I am cleaning house!” Simon walked up next, looking pristine in a sharp suit. “Since Isabel is not of Mercer blood, the family engagement is officially off. I cannot marry a fraud.” He reached out and took the hand of a girl standing near Meredith—her niece, Amber. “Amber is the rightful lady of the household. Our engagement will be next month.” Amber gave me a smug, triumphant look. I stood there, feeling stripped bare under the glares, whispers, and flashing cameras of the high-society crowd. “What a parasite…” “Poor Simon, dragged along by a fraud for years.” Brody lunged forward, grabbing my collar. “You heard her! Get the hell out of here!” He shoved me, and I fell hard, my knees scraping against the marble floor. Two hired security guards pinned me down, my face pressed against the cold stone. Suddenly, the text on my screen flared up in brilliant, rapid succession: [Time’s up! The beta-blockers are wearing off!] [The casket lid is lifting. Let the show begin!] [Isabel, stand up! Tear them apart!]

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