I won a million dollars on a scratch-off ticket Ethan bought me. The moment I saw the winning numbers, I screamed, jumping up and down in pure ecstasy. “Ethan! We have the money to get married now!” He wouldn’t have to stress about our wedding budget, a down payment for a house, or car loans anymore. Our five-year relationship was finally going to end in a beautiful wedding. But he didn’t laugh. He just let out a faint, irritated sigh. “Are you really that desperate to marry me?” I froze. Then, a burst of roaring laughter erupted from his phone on the table. “Ethan, a bet’s a bet! She actually wants to use that money to marry you! You better put a ring on it, bro!” “Your wedding budget is only ten grand? That’s not even enough to buy Chloe a designer bag. She’s so cheap.” Chloe. The rich girl who bullied me throughout high school. I looked down at the scratch-off ticket crumpled in my fist. Then, I tossed it straight into the trash can. “Alright, cut it out, guys,” Ethan said into the phone. “Am I the type to go back on my word? Just get your wedding gifts ready for me.” After another round of teasing from the group, a voice that often haunted my nightmares came through the speaker. It was Chloe. “Ethan, are you insane?!” “We agreed you’d just play her to help me get even. Are you actually going to marry her?” Ethan wiped my tears with one hand while replying carelessly into his phone, “Yeah, why not? Who else would I marry? You, Chloe?” “Did you really think I was your lapdog, doing whatever you told me to do?” The call ended abruptly with a beep. She had hung up. Ethan stared at his phone for a long time before looking up at me with a smile. “Why were you crying just now? Were you just shocked that I actually have money?” Before I could answer, he asked, “Want some pasta? I’ll make it now.” He put on his apron and began boiling the pasta, acting as if that humiliating prank call had never happened. I took a deep breath, my chest aching terribly. I couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t you tired?” “What?” “These past five years… aren’t you tired of acting?” Ethan went silent. The only sound in the apartment was the roar of the range hood. It was driving me crazy. I walked over, shut it off, and yanked Ethan’s arm, forcing him to look at me. “Aren’t you going to explain?” “I just did, didn’t I? What else do you want me to say?” He paused, then added, “Chloe is just a childhood friend. Don’t overthink it.” He was brushing it off, completely avoiding the bet they had made, and conveniently ignoring Chloe’s words about “getting even.” I tilted my head back, blinking hard to keep the tears from falling. Five years. More than a thousand days and nights. I had given Ethan my whole heart. I truly believed he was the one I would spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t care that we were broke. We could work hard. I didn’t care that we didn’t have a house or a nice car. We could rent, and we could save. But now, I was being told that all of this—our entire relationship—was just a setup to help Chloe get revenge on me? A custom-made trap? I honestly didn’t get it. I was just an ordinary girl. Why did they go to such lengths to mess with me? How could Ethan play the role of the perfect, caring boyfriend for five whole years? When he used to tell me how guilty he felt for not being rich enough to give me a better life, did he want to laugh? When he massaged my cold feet or did my laundry, did he have to hold back his disgust? What an amazing actor. I really put him through a lot, didn’t I? “So, what date should we set for the wedding?” he asked casually, as if asking whether I wanted cheese on my pasta. I clenched my teeth, my voice dripping with bitterness. “We’re not getting married.” He scoffed. “Seriously? Because of a joke? Haven’t you been begging to marry me?” “Yeah, I lied to you, but doesn’t this have a happy ending?” “I can increase the wedding budget to over a hundred thousand dollars. House, car—whichever you want, just name it. What are you still throwing a tantrum about?” “This isn’t about the money…” Ethan stopped what he was doing. Suddenly, he slammed the pasta bowl against the wall. The shards shattered everywhere, scratching my bare leg. Marinara sauce splattered all over the floor. “When we had no money, you wanted security. Now that we have money, you want to talk about something else!” “Ava, are you out of your mind?!” Blood trickled down my leg, and my hands felt numb. Ethan instinctively reached out to grab me, but I pushed him away. “Yes! I am out of my mind!” My voice was barely a whisper. I pulled up my sleeves, revealing the old and new scars lining my forearms. “I have severe depression and PTSD. Are you happy now?” Tears poured down my face. I bit my lip so hard it bled, staring straight into his eyes. “Ethan, I’m asking you—are you happy now?!” “Why the hell would I marry you?!” “Why would I marry the man who helped my bully torment me?!” Ethan’s lips trembled, and a flicker of emotion crossed his eyes. For a split second, I actually thought it was pity. Then, his phone rang. He answered it. A frantic voice yelled from the other end, “Ethan! Chloe’s wasted! She’s screaming your name, saying she needs to see you!” “What does that have to do with me?” Ethan said, pulling out a first-aid kit to clean my cut. “She said… if you don’t show up tonight, she’s going to sleep with some random guy at the bar…” The bottle of antiseptic knocked over, spilling brown liquid all over the floor. Ethan clenched his fists. He gave me a conflicted look, then made his decision. “Clean yourself up. I’ll be right back.” I didn’t say a word. I just stood by the window in silence. I watched him sprint out of the building. He even kicked over my Vespa parked by the entrance because it was in his way. He had bought me that Vespa during our second year of dating. It couldn’t shield me from the rain, but it meant I didn’t have to squeeze onto the subway anymore. The day I got it, I was so happy that I took him on rides around the neighborhood for hours. My definition of love, my definition of happiness… Just like that Vespa, it was now lying knocked over on the pavement, its side mirrors shattered to pieces.
The blood kept dripping. I wrapped my leg up with gauze, feeling completely numb. The bright red blood mixed with my tears. It was sickening. I stared at the bandage. My mind kept drifting back to Chloe’s words: “play her.” Then, I remembered the nights I would wake up sobbing from nightmares, cutting myself because I couldn’t handle the pain, and how Ethan would always hold me and scream— “Ava! If you die, you get to escape! But what about me?!” “What about the people who love you?!” He had held me so tight. He sounded so incredibly sincere. His warm tears had soaked my shoulder, melting the ice around my heart. So, I had opened up to him. I sobbed and told him all my trauma. I told him how Chloe and her friends had spread disgusting rumors about me, accused me of stealing money, and how they had poured ice-cold water over my head in the middle of winter, leaving me with chronic health issues… It had forced me to take a year off from school and spend six months in a hospital. I had broken down countless times because of “Chloe,” yet I kept enduring it. And Ethan had comforted me every single time, holding me from dusk till dawn, whispering, “Don’t worry, I’m here.” Was he really comforting me? Or was he sharing my misery with Chloe as their proud trophy? I didn’t dare to think about it anymore. My laptop screen lit up. The Snapchat icon kept flashing. Ethan had forgotten to log out. With trembling hands, I clicked on it. I saw a group chat where Chloe was the admin. I scrolled all the way to the top and read every single message, word by word. I saw how Ethan’s relentless pursuit of me in college wasn’t because of love at first sight. It was because Chloe had said: [She’s going to the same college as you? She doesn’t deserve to be there.] [Ethan, I hate her so much. Can you pretend to date her, ruin her, and then dump her?] And Ethan had replied casually: [You won’t be my girlfriend, but you’re pushing me to someone else?] [You’re cruel.] I saw how every time I let my guard down around Ethan, the group chat would celebrate, begging him to “take her virginity.” I saw Ethan posting the video of him gifting me the Vespa, and everyone laughing at it: [So cheap. And she actually treats that piece of trash like a treasure.] I saw them calling the watch I bought him—using six months of my savings—cheap garbage… Every single cruel, toxic message pierced through my brain. My tears splattered onto the keyboard. I wiped them away with my sleeve and kept reading. Later on, Ethan’s messages in the group became less frequent. Until recently, when they couldn’t wait to see me break, planning the final blow. I sank back into my chair, my heart pounding violently. The air in the room felt frozen. I could hear my own shallow breathing and the loud noise coming from a video sent in the group chat. “Kiss her! Kiss her!” “Ethan, Chloe is being so obvious. Aren’t you going to show her some love?” I stared blankly at the video. I watched Ethan pick up a drunken Chloe and carry her into a private bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them. The cheers and wolf whistles in the video almost blew out my speakers. My fingers slowly moved to the keyboard. I typed and hit send: [You disgusting, sick bastards. Why don’t you all just go to hell?] The next second, the account was force-logged out. My stomach churned. I ran to the toilet and threw up until my throat burned. It turned out the storm of my youth had never ended. Ethan had just temporarily held an umbrella over me, making me believe the sun was shining. My phone rang. I picked it up. “You saw it?” Ethan’s voice sounded panicked. “Yeah.” “Wait till I get back. I’ll explain. I…” “No need.” I sat on the cold bathroom floor, looking around the cozy apartment we had decorated together. “You don’t need to explain, and you don’t need to come back.” “Ethan, I don’t want to play your game anymore. Just let me go.” “I can’t fight you guys, but at least I can run away.”
My phone wouldn’t stop ringing. Annoyed, I turned it off completely. I packed my bags and found the deed to the apartment. I put it back where it belonged. I used to wonder how Ethan had found such a cheap place so close to my office. It never occurred to me that he was the actual landlord. The bright moon hung outside, shining on my lonely figure. The rolling sound of my suitcase was incredibly loud in the silent night. But even louder was the screech of car tires stopping right in front of me. “Where do you think you’re going?” Ethan ran up to me, gasping for breath, grabbing my wrist tightly. “You’re a grown woman and you’re running away? How childish can you get?” “Come on. We’re going home.” I turned my head away, trying not to look at the hickey on his neck. I pulled my wrist back with all my might. “There is no ‘home’ between us.” Ethan stared at me. I tried to walk past him, but he snatched my arm again. “Be rational, okay?!” “Whatever happened between you and Chloe was years ago! How long are you going to keep bringing it up?” “You need to move on. I’ve been good to you for five years, and you know it. If you leave me, where else are you going to find a guy like me?” *How long am I going to keep bringing it up?* Because it still hurts. And he was casually reducing the trauma that gave me sleepless nights to a mere “old grudge.” I looked closely at him. This face that used to bring me so much joy… why did it look so foreign now? I guess I never truly knew him. My head was pounding. I didn’t want to argue anymore. “The keys are under the doormat. I didn’t take anything you bought me, except the clothes I’m wearing. But they’re ripped now.” “Tell me how much they cost. I’ll pay you back.” “You can’t afford it,” Ethan sneered, as if hearing a joke. “Do you really think I buy you cheap mall clothes? This was custom-made, Ava. What are you going to pay me with?” “With your tiny paycheck? Or your sad little pride?” “If you’ve got the guts, then take them off right—” He cut himself off. Because I had already started unbuttoning my shirt. One, two… “Fuck!” He threw his jacket over me, growling, “Ava, you’re literally insane!” He shoved me into his car. The car sped through the night, driving towards Ethan’s real home— A massive luxury mansion I had only ever seen on TV. “You’re sleeping here tonight,” he said, leading me into a bedroom. The closet was filled with clothes in my size. The bathroom had my favorite brands of toiletries. Even the giant plush strawberry bear I had wanted but couldn’t afford was sitting on the bed. What was this? A poisoned apple wrapped in gold? Or a temporary sweet treat before the next cruel prank? My stomach turned again. I dry-heaved, my hair sticking to my tear-stained face. Ethan frowned, looking at me with sudden uncertainty. “Ava, are you…” Are you what? I saw a flash of hope on his face, but it was immediately crushed by the loud clicking of high heels. Chloe stormed in, glared at me with pure hatred, and raised her hand to slap me. Fear shot through my chest. I instinctively flinched and closed my eyes. But the pain never came. Ethan had caught her wrist. “What is your problem?!” Chloe screamed. “I told you to play her, not marry her!” “Ethan, did you actually fall for this bitch?!” “She’s been a manipulative slut since we were kids! Don’t let her trick you!” Ethan didn’t say if he loved me or not. He just paused for a few seconds before saying coldly, “The moment you pushed me to someone else, you lost the right to question me.” I sat on the floor, watching them fight. My head felt heavier and heavier, and my skin felt burning hot. Through the haze, I heard Chloe yell, “This is my room! Why did you give it to her?! You’re just trying to make me jealous!” I couldn’t hear the rest of their argument. I just smiled faintly. I smiled at how pathetic I was. I had actually thought Ethan had a shred of genuine feeling for me. But he was just a liar through and through.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed. Ethan was sitting beside me, dark circles under his eyes, but a huge smile plastered on his face. “You’re pregnant.” He gently touched my stomach and opened his phone calendar. “I looked up some wedding dates. Which one do you like?” “We can have a beautiful outdoor wedding. I’ll get a custom wedding gown for you. Take a look at these designs.” “And after the wedding, we’ll go on our honeymoon. Didn’t you always want to go to…” He kept talking, planning out our future. I didn’t say anything. I just stared at my phone. My HR manager had messaged me. I was fired. It came from the higher-ups. I didn’t even need to ask. It was either Ethan or Chloe’s doing. Five years. I had worked my ass off at that company for five years. And they ruined my career with a single sentence. A trending notification popped up on my phone. It was about Chloe. I clicked on it. It turned out she was an influencer with millions of followers. Her page was filled with her glamorous life as a rich girl, with tons of people kissing her feet. Why did she get to live such a perfect life? Did she deserve it? The trending video was of her crying about her “doomed love story.” She claimed she and Ethan were childhood sweethearts. She said Ethan rented out venues for her birthday fireworks every year. He had gifted her countless luxury items and jewelry. And I was the “homewrecker” who ruined it all. With a few tears, she painted me as a manipulative gold-digger. Her followers were already doxxing me in the comments. My hands shook. I glanced at Ethan, who was busy talking to a wedding planner on the phone. I slowly began to type, attaching screenshots of our chat logs, and hit post. I watched the likes on my comment shoot up. Some people questioned my mental illness, while others brought up Chloe’s bullying history. Soon, the comment section became a warzone. But within minutes, my post was gone. Chloe had deleted it. Ethan walked back into the room after finishing his call, his brow furrowed. “Ava, you’re being too impulsive.” “Chloe is an influencer. It’s normal for her to exaggerate things online. I won’t let her hurt you anyway.” “We’re all in the same social circle. Don’t make things so ugly.” After a pause, he added, “Go apologize to Chloe. Let’s just put all these years of drama behind us.” I let out a soft laugh, looking at him with hollow eyes. My heart was too dead to feel any anger. I obediently let him lead me to a private room at a high-end restaurant. Ethan pressed a glass of juice into my hand. Across the table sat Chloe, looking perfect and arrogant. She tilted her head. “Apologize. Just like you did in high school. On your knees…” The room was filled with their wealthy friends, all wearing mocking grins. Just like back then. I walked over to her, step by step, and whispered, “I’m sorry, Chloe. I’m sorry you’re such a miserable piece of trash—” And then, I threw the juice right in her face. She shrieked in horror as her expensive makeup ran down her neck. I grabbed a bottle of wine from the table and poured it over her head. As the dark liquid soaked her hair, I yelled, “I’m sorry that I was prettier than you! I’m sorry my grades were better than yours!” “I’m sorry the class president liked me instead of you! I’m sorry you had to bully me to feel important!” Someone tried to grab me, but I slammed the wine bottle against the table, shattering it. I pointed the jagged glass at them. “Come near me and I’ll stab you! We can all die tonight!” Chloe was sobbing on the floor. I grabbed her hair, pulled her up, and slapped her face hard, over and over again. “Go to hell! You’re nothing but a spoiled, pathetic dog!”
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