1 The day I caught Gideon cheating, my depression drove me to a rooftop edge. My sister Vivian stabbed him, dragging him to beg. Under her watch, he changed—deleting contacts, coming home on time, even reporting when he took out the trash. I thought our broken marriage was mending. Then a call came from my future self. The gaunt woman onscreen whispered, “Ten years on, and I’m still not healed?” She turned the camera: Gideon had Vivian pinned in a dusty utility room, eyes burning. “Ten years under the same roof, and you won’t let me touch you. How long will you punish me?” Vivian wept. “We betrayed Iris. Staying apart is our atonement.” Ice flooded my veins. The woman I’d hunted across Seattle was my own sister—hidden in plain sight for a decade. The future me leaned close, voice manic: “Hear them? While you breathe, everyone suffers. Die, and they’re free.” … I lowered my gaze, slowly picking up the paring knife on the table, tracing it against my chest. “Gideon is a neat freak. Why do you think he suddenly volunteers to take out the trash every single day? Did you really think your sister was staying here just to keep him in line for you?” “Don’t be stupid, Iris. Go check the blind spots of the estate. Those ten minutes of taking out the trash are the only moments they can escape you and have their own little world.” The front door clicked open. Gideon was back. Seeing the knife pressed against my chest, his face drained of all color. “Iris! What are you doing!” He didn’t even kick off his shoes, rushing toward me like a madman. The voice on the phone kept droning: “Look at his cuffs. He has such severe OCD. Look at him now.” Gideon’s obsession with order meant his sleeves were always folded up precisely three times, exposing his wrists. But right now, his cuffs were messy, and there was a faint smudge of lipstick near the hem. My gaze drifted past him, landing on my sister, whose makeup was slightly smudged. Clatter. My hands lost all strength, and the knife slipped, nearly piercing my thigh. Gideon stopped dead in his tracks, his hands hovering in the air, his voice trembling with caution: “Iris, put the knife down. Don’t hurt yourself.” I stared at his messy cuffs, my voice shaking violently: “Who is she?” Gideon froze, then quickly unlocked his phone, pulling up his GPS tracker to show me. “I just went to throw out the garbage, right downstairs. It wasn’t even ten minutes.” A deep, exhausted helplessness filled his eyes. “Iris, that happened three years ago. How much longer are you going to hold this over my head? I am exhausted from taking care of you every single day. Please, stop seeing ghosts everywhere.” He reached forward, trying to grab the knife. I swung the blade, stepping back. “Don’t touch me!” The edge sliced my palm, and blood welled up, dripping onto the hardwood floor. “Iris!” Vivian cried out, rushing forward to stop me. But in her haste, she tripped over her own feet, crashing hard against the side cabinet. “Vivian!” Gideon lunged toward her by instinct. But just before his hands reached her, he seemed to catch himself, freezing mid-air. Vivian stared at my bleeding hand, then swung her arm and slapped Gideon across the face. “Gideon! You’re pushing her again! Don’t you know she is sick!” The slap was incredibly hard, forcing his head to the side. He clenched his fists, struggling to rein in his brewing temper. When he turned back to me, the anger and resentment were entirely gone, replaced by the submissive, gentle husband I knew. “I’m sorry, Iris. I lost my temper. You’re bleeding. Let me patch you up.” He knelt before me, but his eyes were glued to Vivian’s reddening ankle. After quickly wrapping my hand, he naturally handed the medical kit to Vivian, his voice hoarse: “Put some ice on that.” Watching his quiet, agonizing restraint, I couldn’t take it anymore. I bolted into the bedroom and locked the door. Three years ago, when I first caught him cheating, I had searched every hotel room in the city like a lunatic, yet failed to find even a single strand of that woman’s hair. In my despair, I stood on the edge of the rooftop. It was Vivian who stabbed him and dragged him to my feet to beg for mercy. That day, the proud, untouchable Gideon had knelt before me, crying like a child who had lost his entire world. “Iris, I beg of you, you can’t die.” That desperate plea had made me believe he actually loved me. But now, a single phone call from the future had shattered every illusion I ever held. 2 This wasn’t an office. It was a perfect, one-to-one replica of our master bedroom. The emerald-green velvet sofa, the floor lamp in the corner that Gideon had handpicked, even the fresh flowers on the coffee table were identical to the ones we had at home. The only difference was the wall where our wedding photo should have hung. Instead, it was covered in hundreds of photos of my sister. Vivian chopping vegetables in the kitchen, Vivian sleeping on the sofa… Every single photo was captured with breathtaking warmth, the soft lighting radiating a deep, drowning love that transcended the paper. My chest throbbed with a dull, physical ache. I remembered our honeymoon, how I had spent two hours putting on makeup, practically begging Gideon to take a photo of me. He had merely clicked the shutter with a bored sigh, leaving me with a blurry, stiff image. It turned out he didn’t hate taking photos. He had simply saved all his patience, his passion, and his devotion for Vivian. Footsteps echoed from the hallway. Startled, I scrambled inside the wardrobe. The door swung open. “Let go of me!” Vivian’s voice was thick with tears as she tried to wrench her hand from Gideon’s grip. But Gideon held on like a man possessed, pulling her tightly against his chest. “Vivian, I can’t do this anymore! When she held that knife today, all I could think was… if she actually plunged it in, would we finally be free?” Vivian slapped him hard. “You monster! She is your wife!” “But I don’t love her!” Gideon’s eyes were bloodshot, his voice dripping with despair. “You have no idea how suffocating it is to lie next to her every single night. Vivian, let me just confess to her. If she lets me go, I’ll give her every single dime I own!” “No!” Vivian cried out, completely broken. “If you tell her now, you will drive her to her grave!” Gideon buried his face in the crook of her neck, begging like a drowning man. “Then what about me? You pity her, but who is going to pity me?” Vivian sobbed, her heart breaking. “When we were ten, she pushed me out of the way of a speeding truck. I swore I would protect her with my life, yet I fell in love with her husband. And when you crossed the wrong people for that business deal, she was the one who got cornered in that dark parking garage for you… If it weren’t for us, Iris would never have gotten sick. How can we do this to her?” Gideon trembled, kissing the tears from her face. Inside the wardrobe, my nails dug deep into the fresh cut on my palm. The wound reopened, warm blood flowing freely, but I couldn’t feel a thing. So that was it. How tragically beautiful. One was sacrificing her love to repay a childhood debt, while the other endured his guilt for the sake of his beloved. But in their grand, dramatic tragedy, what did that make me? After what felt like an eternity, the room fell silent. I crept out of the wardrobe, my legs shaking as I walked out of the office building. The freezing winter wind whipped against my face, drying my tears. I suddenly remembered the day Gideon had thrown the divorce papers at me, ready to give up his entire fortune just to leave. But then, he abruptly stopped mentioning it. It wasn’t because he wanted to stay. He was just terrified of carrying the guilt of my death, terrified that Vivian would never forgive herself. Since their love was so agonizing, I decided to set them free. I pulled out my phone and dialed my lawyer with numb fingers. “Mr. Reynolds, I need you to draft a divorce agreement. As quickly as possible.” The line went quiet for a long moment. The lawyer’s voice held a note of profound confusion, almost pity. “Mrs. Lockwood, are you playing a prank on me?” “What do you mean?” “There is no record of your marriage in the system,” the lawyer explained gently. “On paper, Iris, you are completely single.” 3 I stood on the icy street, the world spinning around me. So, Gideon had given me a diamond ring, a grand wedding, and impeccable daily care, but he had kept his legal registry completely empty, reserved solely for my sister. Even in our farce of a marriage, he was keeping himself pure for Vivian. A laugh tore from my throat, tears spilling over. Yet, clinging to one final shred of hope, I dialed the future number again. “I want to know,” I whispered. “Even for a single second, did he ever love me?” Silence stretched over the line. “Go to the VIP wing of the city hospital right now,” the future me said softly. “You’ll realize how pathetic that question is.” Like a ghost, I drifted into the hospital lobby. Through the glass window of a private room, I saw Vivian. She had apparently suffered an acute bout of gastroenteritis and was dry-heaving. And Gideon, the man who couldn’t tolerate a single speck of dirt, was wiping the vomit from the corner of her mouth with his bare hands. Watching them through the glass, my tears fell silently. Six months ago, when I threw up in the middle of the night due to my medication’s side effects, what had he done? He had recoiled to the doorway, his face twisted in disgust as he called the maid to clean it up. Then he spent an hour in the shower, washing himself three times, never once coming back to check on me as I gasped for air. But with Vivian, his rules of cleanliness simply didn’t exist. Gideon walked out of the room holding a basin. Seeing me, he slammed the door shut behind him. His gaze dropped to my bare feet and my purple, frozen lips. The hostility in his eyes softened, and he quickly wrapped his heavy wool coat around my shoulders. “Are you insane? Running out in the middle of the night dressed like this? Do you want to kill yourself?” Even now, he was still playing the role of the dutiful, protective husband. I looked at him, my voice eerily calm. “She’s in there, isn’t she?” Gideon’s face darkened, his grip on my arm tightening. “It’s an important client. You’re having an episode, Iris. Let’s get you home.” I shoved him back with all my strength, throwing the door open and rushing in. “Iris!” Gideon roared in panic. The person on the bed shrieked, pulling the blanket over her head to hide. I reached for the edge of the sheet. I knew that with one tug, I could rip away their mask, but my hand froze. Even at this point, I wanted them to admit it themselves. Under Gideon’s terrified gaze, I pulled a small penknife from my pocket and pointed it at my chest. “Gideon, pull that sheet back and tell me who she is. Or watch me die right here. Your choice.” Gideon didn’t move. The last trace of patience faded from his eyes. “Iris, do you really think threatening me with your life still works? For three years, whenever things don’t go your way, you threaten suicide. Don’t you get tired of playing this little game?” A game. So every single cry for help, every moment I was on the verge of collapsing, was nothing more than a cheap theatrical performance to him. The last spark of hope in my heart went out. I let out a soft chuckle and drove the knife down toward my chest. Gideon’s face contorted in sheer terror. “Don’t you dare touch her!” He didn’t even see where the blade was pointed. He lunged forward, kicking me squarely in the stomach. I flew back, crashing heavily onto the cold floor. A sharp, blinding pain flared in my lower abdomen. But I didn’t cry. I just watched as he threw his arms around the trembling figure on the bed, shielding her from me like a rabid beast protecting its mate. He thought I was going to hurt her, so he didn’t hesitate to use deadly force against me. At that moment, I was just so incredibly tired. “Gideon, the game is over. Let’s get divorced.” His shock lasted barely three seconds before transforming into a bitter sneer. “Stop testing me, Iris. If you actually wanted a divorce, you would have left years ago.” “This time, I mean it—” Before I could finish, the trembling figure on the bed lost her balance, tumbling off the mattress and crashing into the shattered glass of a broken vase on the floor. An muffled cry of pain echoed from beneath the blanket. Gideon’s face drained of color. He scooped her up in his arms, entirely ignoring me. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you. Let’s get a doctor.” I lay on the freezing tiles, watching a dark, terrifying crimson pool spread beneath me.
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