The day I was diagnosed with Dependent Personality Disorder, my therapist told me, “Your world can’t exist without Noah’s love.” I became his emotional porcelain doll. He put me before everything, even canceling major projects just to be with me during my therapy sessions. The day my condition finally stabilized, he broke into a genuine smile for the first time in months. But his childhood friend, Sophie, just smirked. “See? I told you it was never that serious. Wasn’t it just my dear Kathy’s little trick to keep Noah wrapped around her finger?” That was the first time he ever laid a hand on Sophie. He physically pushed her back, forcing her to apologize to me. But tonight, when Sophie went out drinking, all I did was whisper that I was feeling a little anxious. Noah slammed the bottle of pills onto the counter. “Can’t you stop being so selfish for once? Sophie’s heartbroken over her breakup!” His voice was ragged. “My entire life revolves around you. Can’t I take a few hours to be there for her? Just a few hours?” “If you want to have an episode, then go ahead. I’m done. I’ve had enough!” He kicked the pills, scattering them across the floor, snatched his car keys, and slammed the door behind him. I didn’t say a word. I just stared at the angry red scratches my own nails had left on my wrist, each breath growing shorter and more difficult than the last. … I scrambled to pick up the pills. I swallowed several, but they did nothing. The panic was still climbing my throat. My therapist’s words echoed in my mind. “Your body has developed a tolerance to the medication. But the person you truly depend on, the one who gives you a sense of security, is Noah.” My hand trembled as I reached for my phone to call him. But the only response was a cold, mechanical voice repeating, “The person you are trying to reach is unavailable.” Then I remembered. Sophie hated how Noah was always with me. I tried to calm myself down, to ride out the wave of panic on my own. But as I sank into the sofa, my eyes caught something tucked into the cushions: a pair of black lace panties that weren’t mine. Ugly images flooded my mind, a sickening slideshow of betrayal. My breathing became a desperate, ragged gasp. I rushed to the cabinet where we kept the emergency oxygen tank. But inside, there was no tank. There was only a stack of photos of Noah and Sophie. In several of them, their lips were pressed together. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. With a cry, I swept the entire photo album onto the floor. The sound of shattering glass filled the apartment, and a sharp pain shot through my hand. Blood dripped, staining the smiling faces on the paper. The chaos on the floor, the wreckage I’d created, suddenly brought Noah’s exhausted face to my mind. “Kathy, what do you want from me? What do I have to do to stop you from having these episodes?” He must be so sick of me, so tired of the mess I always make. A new wave of panic, this time laced with shame, washed over me. I had to clean it up. I had to make it right. But I’d barely taken two steps before the world began to spin, tilting violently on its axis. Horrifying voices clawed at the edges of my hearing, whispering and screaming. I was terrified. I stumbled into the bedroom and locked myself in the closet. The small, dark space offered a fleeting moment of relief from the crushing anxiety. I missed Noah so much it was a physical ache. After a moment’s hesitation, I called Sophie. She’d told me once I could call her if I ever needed anything. One ring, two… She actually answered. The background was filled with the thumping bass of a nightclub and the clinking of glasses. “God, why are you so relentless?” she sighed into the phone. “Sophie, I don’t feel well… I need to see…” The phone was snatched away, and Noah’s voice, raw with impatience, cut through the noise. “You never feel well!” he snapped. “Can you stop with the act? I’m just trying to cheer Sophie up, is that too much to ask?” “You’re twenty-five years old, for God’s sake. Can you stop playing these childish games?” The line went dead. The faint glow of the screen in the pitch-black closet illuminated my tear-streaked face. Noah was right. I wasn’t a child anymore. I was a burden, dragging him down, ruining his life. I didn’t deserve a boyfriend as good as him. My hand brushed against one of his shirts hanging beside me. I pulled it down, wrapping it around myself. It still carried his scent, the same one that used to surround me every time he held me. I greedily breathed in the familiar mix of sandalwood and clean linen, pretending he was here, whispering his usual comfort, “I’m here. Don’t be afraid.” I don’t know how much time passed. My breathing slowed, grew shallow, until it felt like it might stop altogether. The last sliver of light from under the door vanished. I closed my eyes, and my life flickered past like a broken film. Maybe my death would be a release for everyone. Noah would no longer have to sacrifice million-dollar deals for me. Sophie wouldn’t have to throw tantrums because her childhood friend was paying too much attention to me. And I… I wouldn’t have to pretend to my therapist that I was getting better when I was only getting worse. I gave up the idea of pushing the closet door open. I buried my face in his shirt, imagining he had come home to hold me as I fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again, I was looking at myself, my body curled into a stiff, unnatural position in the corner of the closet. So this is what it felt like to be free. My spirit drifted through the apartment as Noah returned, carrying a drunken Sophie in his arms. “Noah… I love you so much…” she mumbled, her tone soft and intimate. It sent a sharp, phantom pain through my chest. Noah didn’t push her away. He just gently laid her down on the sofa. “I’ll go make you something to help with the hangover.” As he walked past the mess on the floor, he paused. “Why are there so many of our photos here?” “Weren’t those the ones we took the other day? I thought they looked good, so I had them printed,” Sophie murmured, her words slightly slurred. “Looks like your precious Kathy was throwing another fit. She called and screamed at me earlier…” She was faking it. She wasn’t that drunk. She rolled over, letting the strap of her dress slip from her shoulder. Noah just sighed. “Don’t stoop to her level. She’s crazy. I’ll take you to get new prints tomorrow.” He turned and went into the kitchen, acting as if I had never existed in this home. My teeth clenched. A hollow space opened up inside me. A moment later, Sophie swayed into the kitchen, wrapping her arms around Noah from behind. “It’s been so long since I’ve had your cooking.” Ever since my diagnosis, I’d had a severe stress reaction whenever I saw Sophie. Noah had forbidden her from coming to our apartment. But now, he was letting her fingers trail over his skin. He even playfully tapped her nose with a familiarity that was both intimate and utterly devastating. “This is nice,” she purred. “It feels just like the old days.” Under the warm, orange glow of the kitchen lights, they looked like they might kiss at any second. Soon, the fragrant smell of food filled the air as they sat down at the table. “I’ll go get Kathy,” Noah said, starting to get up. “Don’t,” Sophie said, grabbing his wrist. “It’s so late. She hasn’t made a sound, she obviously doesn’t want to see me. I really don’t want her to have another meltdown.” Noah hesitated for a second, then sat back down. It was a silent agreement. Sophie smiled, then pouted playfully, asking him to feed her the soup. “You used to always bring it to my bed and feed me whenever I got drunk. Ever since you got a girlfriend, I barely feel like you care about me at all!” Noah sighed, a mix of fondness and exasperation on his face, and began to feed her, one spoonful at a time. “You know how Kathy is with her illness. I know it’s been hard on you lately.” “It’s okay. Now that she’s all better, we can go back to how things were,” Sophie said, a triumphant glint in her eyes. I remembered how she was always a part of our life, a third wheel who always needed to be cared for. I had protested more times than I could count, but Noah’s response was always the same. “Sophie’s like a sister to me. She was spoiled growing up. You should be more understanding.” My anger had slowly curdled into numbness. And then, one day, I was diagnosed. Looking back, those dark, difficult days were the closest Noah and I had ever been. Just then, Buddy, our cat who was always sneaking out, slipped back into the apartment. He meowed a few times, looking for me, before the smell of food drew him to the table. “Ugh, it’s filthy!” Sophie shrieked, batting at Buddy as he tried to jump up. Noah grabbed the cat and dropped him unceremoniously on the floor. “Where’s your mom? Didn’t she feed you?” he muttered, his voice laced with annoyance. Then he raised his voice, shouting towards the bedroom. “Kathy! What kind of tantrum is this? You’re not even feeding your own cat now?” “Get out here! Sophie’s already upset about her breakup, and you have to pull this stunt now to bully her?” The anger in his voice grew with every word. He had bought Buddy for me to help with my anxiety. I adored that cat. But now, I could only float helplessly beside him as his stomach rumbled. Buddy seemed to sense me. His fur stood on end, and he let out a frightened hiss. In his panic, he leaped, knocking over a bowl of soup. It splashed all over Sophie. She screamed. “All I did was ask you to spend a few hours with me today! Why does she have to be so petty?” Noah grabbed a glass and hurled it in the cat’s direction. “Stupid animal! Get out!” He glared towards the bedroom door. “You can tell your mother that if she doesn’t come out and apologize today, she can forget about me sleeping in the same bed with her!” “Kathy! I know you can hear me! My patience is wearing thin!” I stood right in front of him, trying desperately to explain. But no one could hear me. Buddy scrambled into a corner, terrified. A thousand words were trapped in my throat, but the only one that mattered was “I’m sorry.” Noah carried Sophie to the bathroom to clean up. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes,” she cooed. “I want to wear one of your shirts.” Steam billowed out from the bathroom, filling the apartment with a thick, suggestive air. When Noah came out, he pulled out his phone and opened our chat. “I was a little harsh earlier, but Sophie really is innocent in all this.” “Come on out. Stop playing hide-and-seek with me. I’m really tired tonight.” “There’s nothing going on between Sophie and me. You have to stop being so paranoid.” He sent a stream of voice messages as he walked toward the bedroom. He knew that whenever I had an episode, I would hide. Sometimes it would take him hours to find me. “I brought you your favorite cupcake. If you don’t come out soon, the frosting will melt.” He flicked on the bedroom light, his gaze sweeping over the empty bed. He sighed, pressing the voice record button with one hand while the other rested on the closet door handle. My non-existent heart began to pound. What would he do if he saw my body? Would he be sad? Or would he be relieved? As his hand turned the handle, my heart was in my throat. I could see half of my own body as the door swung open. But Noah’s attention was still on his phone. He continued his voice message barrage, and without even looking down, he reached in and pulled out the very shirt I had wrapped around myself. I wanted to scream, to tell him to stop, but no sound came out. The closet door clicked shut, plunging my body back into darkness. I looked at the cupcake on the nightstand, its frosting slowly liquefying in the warm air. A wave of regret washed over me. He had promised we would always eat cake together. I sat on the edge of the bed, imagining Noah beside me, telling me to make a wish. Soon, Sophie emerged from the bathroom, her hair dripping wet. The shirt was short, barely covering her, and the damp fabric clung to her curves, leaving little to the imagination. “Since Kathy doesn’t want to come out, can I dry my hair in your room?” she purred. Noah frowned, his eyes flicking to the unanswered messages on his phone. But he still carried her to the bed. He was so gentle as he dried her hair. I felt a disorienting sense of déjà vu. When he used to do that for me, was he thinking of Kathy, or was it always Sophie? “Noah,” Sophie began, her voice suddenly serious. “To be honest, she’s not good enough for you.” The sound of the hairdryer stopped. Sophie looked up, her eyes filled with a predatory hunger. “You two are from different worlds. Are you really going to throw your whole life away for her, just because she saved you that one time?” “You’ve already given up so much for her! Forget the fact that she’s mentally ill now—even if she wasn’t, do you really think your parents would ever let you marry her?” Noah stood frozen, his expression unreadable. Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck. “Just think about it. How much money have you lost because of that woman? Your parents are furious. Our families, on the other hand… we’re a perfect match. A true power couple.” She was right. I was just an ordinary girl. I met Noah when he was working his way up from the bottom of his family’s company. Like all the other female employees, I had a crush on him from afar. Three years ago, during an accident on a construction site, I pushed him out of the way of a falling chandelier. Things just happened after that. I never expected him to ask me out. In the beginning, we were happy. But Sophie’s constant interference led to more and more fights. I still remembered her warning: “A girl like you is just a toy for Noah. Don’t get any ideas.” Looking at them now, so close, they did look perfect together. Sophie was the one who could stand by his side for the rest of his life. Maybe my death could put him back on the right path. It would be worth it. I glanced at my body in the closet. It was good. No more episodes. No more being a burden. But then, Noah pushed Sophie away. “Stop talking nonsense. You’re like a sister to me.” “But I love you!” Sophie’s voice became a desperate shriek. “Am I not even better than that pathetic wretch?” “That’s enough!” Noah snapped, unplugging the hairdryer. He told her to get out. “This isn’t something you can just decide. Feelings don’t work that way,” he said, his voice strained. “I do love her. And her condition is almost completely managed. We’re about to have a normal life together. I’ll handle my parents. I’m about to be financially independent anyway. I’ve already bought a house. I’m going to propose when the time is right.” A sharp pang went through my soul. I had asked him about Sophie countless times. He always gave vague, evasive answers, just telling me to wait. I always thought I was just a dalliance for him, or maybe just an obligation he felt because I’d saved his life. If he had said those words to me, just once, when I was alive… maybe my illness would never have gotten so severe. Sophie, refusing to give up, tore open the front of the shirt. “Then say it to my face! Tell me you feel nothing for me!” Noah scrambled to cover her with the blanket. “How many times do I have to tell you? I only see you as my sister! You know I had a sister who died! It was my fault! I wasn’t watching her, and she ran into the street!” Sophie froze, staring at him in disbelief. “So… everything you’ve ever done for me… it was all just to make up for what happened to your sister?” “You could see it that way,” he said quietly. Even though I couldn’t cry, I felt my spectral eyes begin to burn. All this time, I had never truly believed him about Sophie. The memories of our countless fights flooded my mind, all because I had pushed him, again and again, for an explanation. I wanted to hold him, to tell him I was sorry. But everything I had seen, everything I had felt… the pain was real. A wave of grief and regret washed over me, so heavy it felt like it was weighing down my very soul. Noah left the bedroom and began to search the apartment, checking all the places I used to hide. “Kathy, please come out. I’m sorry, okay? I really do want a home with you, but I can’t live like this, walking on eggshells every day, terrified that one wrong word will set you off.” His assistant called. As he took the call, his brow furrowed deeper and deeper. He sighed, sat on the sofa, and opened his laptop. I could see the urgent messages about a project in crisis. I hadn’t had a chance to just look at him like this in so long. Fine lines had appeared at the corners of his eyes, and the dark circles were too deep to hide. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You’re already so tired, and you still had to take care of me. Take care of yourself from now on. I’m not worth it.” I knelt beside him, my hand passing straight through his body. He seemed to sense something, a sudden chill perhaps, and glanced in my direction. Just then, a scream echoed from the bedroom. I jolted. Sophie must have found my body. But when Noah rushed in, she was clutching her wrist, tears streaming down her face. “Kathy just ran out of the closet and stabbed me!” “But I’m already dead!” The blatant, absurd lie was almost comical. Noah’s furious gaze fell on the open closet door. From his angle, he could only see the lower half of my curled-up body. “That’s it! Get out here and apologize!” he roared. “Don’t you dare use your illness as an excuse again! You don’t get to hurt people!” When I didn’t move, his voice rose to a terrifying pitch. “Kathy! I have given you enough chances! If you continue with this ridiculous behavior, I swear I am going to lose it!” With that, he reached in to drag me out. I threw myself in front of him, screaming “Don’t touch me!” but it was useless. I didn’t want him to see me like this, even in death. But I could only watch, helpless, as his hand closed around my wrist. There was a dull thud as my body, like a pale, broken statue, fell out of the closet and onto the floor. The world seemed to fall silent in that instant. Noah stared at his own hand in disbelief, clearly shocked by the cold, rigid feel of my skin. Sophie started shouting beside him. “She’s faking! She stabbed me, and now she’s pretending to be unconscious so she won’t get in trouble!” She moved forward, grabbing Noah’s arm with her “injured” hand. “Noah, I’m so scared… but she’s your girlfriend. For your sake, I won’t call the police. Just make her get up. Stop messing around in the middle of the night.” Noah’s brow furrowed, his eyes fixed on my still form on the floor, a storm of emotions churning within them. “Kathy, stop it.” “I know you’re angry that I was with Sophie, but hurting her was going too far!” “Get up. We’ll talk this out. I won’t hold it against you.” My soul crouched down beside my body. I could see my own skin, pale and waxy from asphyxiation, my lips already turning a dark shade of blue. I looked terrifying. Noah waited a few seconds. When I didn’t move, he finally knelt down. He gave my shoulder a gentle push. “Kathy?” My body swayed with the movement, as stiff as a frozen side of meat. “Stop pretending,” he said, a note of irritation creeping into his voice. “I have a lot of work to do. I have a crucial meeting early tomorrow morning…” He shook me again, this time with more force. But my body remained limp and rigid. Suddenly, Noah’s hand froze. His gaze locked onto my face. He reached out and placed his warm palm against my cheek. One second. Two. Three. His expression began to shift from annoyance to confusion, then to dawning horror. “Why… why are you so cold?” “Kathy?” he whispered, his voice trembling slightly. No response. “Kathy!” he shouted, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me violently. “Wake up! Don’t you dare scare me like this!” My body lolled back and forth like a marionette with its strings cut, my head hanging at an unnatural angle. His voice was cracking. “Wake up! I said wake up, do you hear me!” He pulled me into his arms, holding me tight against his chest. My head rested on his shoulder for a moment before sliding limply off. “This isn’t right… this isn’t right…” Noah’s voice was a choked, broken thing. He started patting my cheeks. “Open your eyes, Kathy. Open your eyes and look at me!” It was as if reality finally crashed down on him. He stopped all movement, his body going rigid. Then, with a shaking hand, he reached for the space just under my nose.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “389970”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

They said the girl Sebastian was after this time had a long-term boyfriend who was struggling financially. Sebastian didn’t care. He took what he wanted, consequences be damned. The girl fought like a cornered animal, refusing to yield. The night he finally had her, fireworks lit up the sky over the ocean, a celebration that lasted until dawn. The next day, a river of expensive jewelry flowed to her family’s doorstep as if it cost nothing. Mrs. Gable, our housekeeper, told me all this when she came to deliver fresh clothes to me at the psychiatric hospital. The words caught in my throat, and I coughed up a mouthful of blood before collapsing. When I woke up, Sebastian was standing by my hospital bed. It was the first time I’d seen him in six months. His voice was calm, almost detached, as he warned me. “Nina, if you promise not to cause her any trouble, I’ll let you come home. You can have everything that comes with being Mrs. Archer again.” Finally, I gave a small, defeated nod. Just before I passed out, I’d learned that my brother’s latest investment had failed, leaving him drowning in debt. It was Sebastian’s money that had kept his name from being blacklisted, that had saved him from total ruin. It was just an affair. For my brother, I would stop fighting. 1 The driver was taking me home when we were rear-ended. The car flipped onto its side. The driver was knocked out instantly, and I was severely injured. As the sirens wailed in the distance, I drifted back to consciousness for a fleeting moment. Even then, my first instinct was to fumble for my phone and call Sebastian. It rang for a long time before he finally answered. I swallowed the metallic tang of blood rising in my throat and managed to whisper, “Sebastian, I…” His voice was clipped with impatience. “Didn’t I already send the driver to get you? I told you, I’m busy. Nina, can you just be reasonable for once?” Suddenly, the line was filled with noise. And a familiar voice. A girl’s desperate scream tore through the receiver. “Sebastian, do whatever you want to me, but why did you have to hurt him!” Sebastian’s voice was smooth, but his words were laced with ice. “Sienna, I told you. If you dared to accept his proposal, I’d make sure he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.” So that was her name. Sienna. The fragile little flower he was protecting so fiercely. And I suddenly remembered why her scream sounded so familiar. It was the same sound of things shattering, the same sound I had made the first time I discovered Sebastian was cheating, when I had smashed everything I could get my hands on. Sebastian had a talent for driving people mad. On the other end of the line, Sienna was sobbing, begging him to spare her boyfriend. Just before I lost consciousness completely, I heard her plea change. “Please… be gentle…” Her cries morphed from furious curses into soft, broken moans. When I woke up again, Sebastian was sitting on a sofa not far from my bed, idly playing with his phone. He noticed me looking. He hesitated, then reached out as if to check my temperature. I turned my head away. My voice was a raw croak. “I’m fine.” A cold smirk touched his lips, and he retracted his hand without a second thought. “Nina, you just got out, and you’re already staging a car crash? Isn’t it time to stop?” My mind went blank. “I’ve told you many times, no one will ever threaten your position. You are my wife, Sebastian Archer’s only wife.” He leaned back, his voice dripping with condescension. “What do you gain from competing with some young girl who’s barely out of college? Getting yourself all banged up like this?” So that’s what he thought. That this was all a pathetic ploy for his attention. A game. I opened my mouth, but the words felt hollow and useless. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “It won’t happen again.” I knew I had no right to argue. Not anymore. My submission clearly pleased him. My brother called later to tell me that Sebastian had already paid off next month’s installment on his debt. See? As long as I was invisible, as long as I knew my place, Sebastian would take care of everything. “If this is too painful for you, Nina, just leave him,” my brother said, his voice strained over the phone. “Divorce him. I’ll figure out the money.” My hand holding the phone started to ache. I’d heard what had happened. Everything our family owned had been seized and auctioned off. The cars, the houses—all gone overnight, and it still wasn’t enough to fill the hole. My brother had been beaten by debt collectors until he was spitting blood. It took only three days for him to go from our sprawling riverside mansion to a damp, dark basement apartment. They said that when Sebastian found him, my brother was curled up on a child’s bed, his eyes shut, his face pale, with dried blood on his lips. The worn blanket was too short to even cover his feet. A cup of instant ramen sat untouched on the floor beside him. We had lost everything. We had nowhere left to go. And now Sebastian was offering us cars, houses, and money. All I had to do was be blind. All I had to do was let him and his little flower have their perfect love story. In our situation, who was I to refuse? I forced a smile I didn’t feel. “It’s not painful. I just have to be blind. I can do that.” After I was discharged, I tried to be a model wife. I stopped asking where Sebastian was going or what he was spending. When he was drunk after a business dinner and needed a ride, I gave the driver Sienna’s number. When he said he was craving my homemade seafood chowder, I calmly called Sienna and had her deliver it. When he complained that his new custom-made cufflinks didn’t match any of his suits, I had Sienna contact his personal tailor. This went on for three months. Then, one day, Sebastian called me. It was so unusual I almost didn’t answer. He said he was coming home for dinner tonight. 2 After we ate, as I was mechanically laying out his suit for the next day, he grabbed me, pushing me down onto the bed. “Nina, you’ve been so good lately,” he murmured, his breath hot against my skin. “It’s almost not like you at all…” A trail of kisses fell across my face. The scent of gardenia, Sienna’s signature perfume, filled my senses, clinging to his skin, his clothes, everything. The room grew warmer, and the cloying fragrance intensified until I felt a violent wave of nausea rise in my throat. I forced it down. But as he moved over me, lost in the moment, he whispered her name. Sienna. My mind went white. My fingers clenched the pillow until my knuckles were bone-white. In the next second, a strength I didn’t know I possessed surged through me. I shoved him off. I scrambled to the bathroom and collapsed over the toilet, dry heaving. Sebastian followed me. The desire in his eyes vanished the moment he saw me. He leaned against the doorframe, a frown creasing his brow. His voice was laced with annoyance. “What’s wrong with you?” I couldn’t answer. The only sound was the wretched gagging that echoed in the small room. His patience wore thin. “Go to the hospital tomorrow and get it checked out,” he said, his voice cold. The sound of his car roaring away into the night stole any hope of sleep. I curled into a ball on the edge of the bed, trying to fight the sickness coiling in my stomach, but it was useless. I got up and started rummaging through the drawers, desperate for some kind of medication. Instead, tucked away in the back of a cabinet, my fingers brushed against a cheap pearl necklace, the metal clasp already tarnished and faded. The cold metal felt searing hot in my palm. I remembered the year Sebastian had nothing. We were twenty-two. To teach him a lesson, his family had cut him off completely, forcing him to start from the bottom. The rich young master who used to spend millions a month was suddenly earning a pittance, wearing cheap clothes, and living in a cramped employee dorm. It broke my heart to see him like that. I secretly gave him half of my allowance. Under the moonlight, he’d held me, his voice thick with emotion. “Nina, you’re so good to me.” To buy me a birthday present, he took on every part-time job he could find, working until he was dizzy with exhaustion. When he finally handed me the pearl necklace, his face was flushed. “The quality of these pearls can’t compare to the ones in your closet… Nina, if you don’t like it, you can just say so…” I didn’t say anything. I simply took off the brand-new designer necklace I was wearing and put on his. I wore that cheap string of pearls for years. It became his get-out-of-jail-free card, a reminder of a time when his love felt real. Snapping out of the memory, I walked to the balcony, the necklace clutched in my hand. With a single, decisive motion, I flung it into the night. It landed somewhere in the flowerbeds below, swallowed by the darkness. Two months later, an unexpected guest appeared at my door. Sienna. She was dressed in the latest chic designer suit, an expensive watch on her wrist. The earrings she wore were the very ones Sebastian had paid a fortune for at an auction a few weeks ago. I knew then that she had accepted his obsessive, possessive love. And like so many women before her, she had come to tell me to get out of the way. “He doesn’t love you anymore. There’s no point in you holding onto this position.” She looked me up and down, a smug smile on her face. “And I need the title of Mrs. Archer to wash away the stain of being the other woman.” But now, I needed that title too. All I had left was my brother. I could give up anything else, but not this. When I didn’t respond, a flash of hatred crossed her face. She slammed her hand on the table and stood up. “Nina, why couldn’t you just control your husband? Why did you let him drive me and my boyfriend to a dead end?” Her voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “I’m like this because of you! Because you’re pathetic! It’s all your fault!” “If I can’t be happy, then you and Sebastian, the two people who ruined my life, don’t deserve to be happy either!” She lunged at me, throwing her entire weight onto me. My hip slammed into the sharp, metal-edged corner of the dining table. The pain was so intense it stole my breath. I tried to push her off, but before I could even exert any force, she threw herself backward, crashing to the floor and taking the plates and cutlery with her. I turned just in time to see her clutching her stomach, a crimson stain rapidly spreading across the fabric of her dress. She was… pregnant? Mrs. Gable’s screams echoed in my ears as Sebastian’s frantic shouts came from the entryway. The next second, a sharp, vicious slap struck my face. The force was so great I could taste blood. “Nina!” he roared, his face a mask of fury. “I thought bringing you home meant you’d finally learned your lesson. I can’t believe you’re still the same manipulative, spiteful person you’ve always been!” A bitter, acidic feeling rose in my throat, thick with the taste of blood. My voice was a hoarse whisper. “I didn’t push her…” He didn’t listen. He scooped Sienna into his arms and ran out the door. The man who was always unflappable, even at the negotiation table, was trembling. A week later, my brother called. “Nina, can you ask Sebastian why he suddenly unlinked his card from my repayment plan? If it’s too much trouble, then just… forget it.” 3 I mumbled a quiet “okay,” knowing how proud my brother was. He would never have called me if he wasn’t completely desperate. When I called Sebastian, he answered almost immediately, as if he’d been waiting for my call. “What card? Oh… that one. I thought it had been compromised, so I unlinked it. Is there a problem?” His tone was casual, but his words were a hammer blow to my heart. My hands twisted the hem of my shirt. I forced myself to speak. “But… my brother’s payment is due. Sebastian… can’t you just… care about me again, just this once?” The old nickname I used for him felt foreign on my tongue. The line went silent on his end. After a moment of rustling, a different voice came on. It was Sienna. “Nina, don’t you know the company is tight on cash right now? You and your brother are like two bottomless pits. No matter how much money he gives you, it’s never enough. You’re going to drag him down.” Tight on cash… This morning’s headline flashed in my mind. “CEO SEBASTIAN ARCHER BUYS LOVER MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR MANSION AND LUXURY CARS!” So that was why they were tight on cash. An endless bitterness spread across my tongue, a swarm of tiny insects gnawing at me from the inside out. “Sebastian has put me in charge of this,” Sienna continued, her voice dripping with satisfaction. “If you can manage to please me, he’ll naturally take care of your brother’s debt.” I didn’t hesitate. “Okay.” “I’ll text you an address. Come see me tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what to do.” I never imagined the address she sent would be my childhood home. Standing outside, looking at the familiar walls, felt like stepping into another lifetime. The peach tree we had planted in the yard was in full bloom. I remembered planting it with Sebastian. He had asked me, “Do you know the language of the peach blossom?” I shook my head. He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear, his hot breath sending shivers down my spine. “It means, ‘I am your love’s willing captive.’” A spring breeze rustled the leaves, pulling me back to the present. I gave a bitter, self-mocking smile. I walked into the yard. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the sun illuminated the furniture inside, casting a warm glow through the white sheer curtains. And I saw them. Two bodies, tangled together on the chaise lounge my mother had loved more than anything. Sebastian’s breathing was heavy, his voice a low murmur of seduction and warning. “Alright, but you promised you wouldn’t go too far.” Sienna laughed, pushing playfully at his shoulder. “You gave me the house. Why do you still care so much what I do in it?” Gave her the house? I lost control. I stormed inside. “You really gave her this house?” Sebastian sat up, slowly draping a robe over his shoulders. “Yes. The paperwork is being processed.” His words buzzed in my ears. I flew at him like a madwoman, my fists pounding against his chest. “Why would you give it to her! You promised me! You promised that if I behaved, you would give this house back to me!” “Sebastian, why her? Why!” He grabbed my flailing wrists and shoved me hard onto the sofa. It was soft, but the impact sent a dull, throbbing pain through my abdomen. “She lost a child. This house is my compensation to her,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “If you had been the one to lose a child that day, I would have compensated you too.” “And Nina,” he added, his eyes cold. “Don’t forget why you’re here today.” In that instant, I forgot how to cry, how to scream, how to hate. By the time my senses returned, Sienna was dressed. “Nina, I haven’t really decided how to punish you,” she said, looking down at me. “Why don’t you… get on your knees and beg me.” Her condescending gaze ignited a fire of humiliation inside me. But I knew I couldn’t refuse. The room fell silent. Then, there was a soft thud. It wasn’t the sound of my knees hitting the floor. It was the sound of my spine, straight for twenty-six years, finally shattering. Sienna smiled. “I don’t have all day to sit around with you. This is your house, you should know where the security cameras are. If I check the footage later and I don’t see you kneeling, well… I’m afraid I won’t be able to help your brother.” With that, she took Sebastian’s arm, and they left. The pain in my abdomen grew worse. It was so bad I couldn’t stand up straight. Every time I tried to rise, to ease the cramping, the security camera in the corner would twitch, a silent reminder from the person watching on the other end. If I ran, if I stood up, my brother was finished. As night fell, I felt a sudden warmth spread between my legs. In the faint moonlight, I saw that my pants were soaked in blood. Terrified, I called my brother. I was sobbing, telling him I thought I was dying, that I was bleeding so much. He came. He was still wearing his work uniform. He scooped me into his trembling arms and ran towards the ambulance. “Nina, don’t sleep! Open your eyes and look at me!” “Nina! Stay awake!” Just before they pushed me into the operating room, my vision blurred, but I saw him. Sebastian. It was the first time since we were married that I had ever seen him look so panicked. The man who was always meticulously put together, down to the last hair on his head, was so frantic he had put his jacket on inside out. 4 The moment the operating room doors swung shut, Marcus slowly turned his gaze to Sebastian, who was still reeling from the shock. “Sebastian! What have you done?!” “I told you, if you didn’t love her anymore, you should have let her go! We would have paid the money back! Why would you do this to Nina?!” “Are you happy now?! Are you satisfied, now that you’ve broken her?!” Marcus’s fist connected hard with Sebastian’s jaw. Sebastian didn’t fight back. He just kept asking, his voice hollow, “What’s wrong with her? What happened to her?” He had seen all the blood. In all the years he’d known Nina, he had never seen her so hurt. Marcus didn’t know what was wrong either. In that instant, guilt and self-loathing washed over him. If he hadn’t failed, if he’d just been content with the money and assets he had, Nina would never have had to endure any of this. She could have remained the proud, untouchable princess she was meant to be. She would have had the strength to walk away from Sebastian. His clenched fist went slack. In that moment, Marcus realized that he was just as much to blame for all of this. “Family of Nina Archer? Is the family of Nina Archer here?” The operating room doors opened. Sebastian, snapping out of his daze, started to move forward, but Marcus shoved him violently aside. “I am. I’m her brother.” “I’m… her husband…” Sebastian mumbled. The nurse shot Sebastian a look of pure contempt. “You’re her husband? Don’t you have any common sense? Don’t you know a pregnant woman needs to be kept calm and free from stress?” “She suffered a severe blow to her abdomen, and combined with extreme psychological distress and emotional volatility… this child can’t be saved. We need to perform a D&C.” “Here is the surgery consent form. Someone needs to sign it before we can proceed.”

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For the three years I’ve been invisible, I thought Declan couldn’t see me. So I endured the shame of my nakedness, endured the nights he brought other women home while I could only hide in a corner. After they’d left, he would always tell me, “Thea, just wait a little longer. I swear I’ll develop the antidote.” I believed him. Until the night of his celebration party. He was drunk, and I heard him tell his friend: “The antidote? I’ve had it for ages.” “She’d never guess that in this entire world, I’m the only one who can see her.” 1 Declan’s new project had won a global award. By the time he came home from the celebration party, it was already late. Apparently, the party wasn’t enough. He brought his friend, Liam, back with him and pulled out a bottle of vintage red wine. I hid in the corner. Liam filled both their glasses. “Declan,” he asked, “Thea’s not around, right?” Declan loosened his tie, his tone dripping with contempt. “Her? She’s so prim and proper. When she knows another man is here, she just hides away, all too aware of her own nudity.” I froze. I couldn’t believe those words had come from his mouth. He was the one who had told me he didn’t want me standing naked in front of another man. Liam lowered his voice. “It’s been three years, man. You can’t keep her invisible forever. When are you planning on…” Declan cut him off. “What’s the rush? I made her invisible precisely because I didn’t want to be tied down by marriage so soon. I’ll give her the antidote when I’ve had my fun. I’m going to marry her, eventually.” Antidote? My heart seized. An icy dread exploded through my soul, shattering everything. “She’s so gullible and sweet,” Declan continued, his words slurring slightly. “She believes every word I say. I told her no one could see or hear her, so now she communicates with me by writing everything down.” “She’d never guess that in this entire world, I’m the only one who can see her.” “Sometimes, when I don’t feel like dealing with her, I just pretend I can’t see what she’s written. You have no idea how desperate she gets.” “And you know what? Watching her cry, completely bare… it’s far more interesting than my research.” Liam took a sharp breath, then let out a low whistle. “Damn, man. That’s cold.” “Seriously. The way you guided her into drinking the invisibility serum… and she still thinks it was an accident, probably still blames herself for it! She’s so easy to fool. But it’s been three years. Hasn’t she suspected anything?” Declan’s eyes were hazy with alcohol. “Suspected? Not a chance. I used to just fool around outside. Now I bring women home, and after they leave, I just have to spin some sweet little lies and she actually thinks it’s all her fault.” “Having her watch while I’m in bed with someone else… it’s a hell of a thrill.” The two of them looked at each other and burst into laughter. 2 These words, every last one, were like daggers plunging into my phantom heart. I hadn’t drunk the serum by accident. And he could see me the entire time. Of course. Why hadn’t I realized it? Declan was a celebrated genius. He had created the serum. If he wanted to, he could easily see through its effects. He said he would develop the antidote as soon as possible. But I had waited for three years, never knowing he held my freedom in his hands all along. My pain, my guilt, my shame… to him, it was all just a game, the antics of a clown he was manipulating. The air grew heavy with silence. Not long after Liam left, the doorbell rang. A moment later, a woman’s saccharine voice floated into the room. “Dr. Archer, why’d you call me over so late?” “You were looking forward to it, weren’t you?” Declan didn’t waste any more words. Within three minutes, the sounds of panting and moaning filled the bedroom. This was the twelfth woman he had brought home in the last two months. Tonight’s was a minor actress named Jennie, who had been blacklisted after offending someone important. I walked into the room and stood by the bed. Declan’s gaze shot directly to where I stood, a look of cruel amusement in his eyes. The woman beneath him pouted. “Dr. Archer, you’re distracted again!” He didn’t speak, just moved with more force. But his eyes found me again. Countless times in the past, I had felt his eyes on me, a fleeting sensation I always dismissed as a delusion, an illusion born from my own suffering. Or maybe, I had foolishly thought, it was proof of our deep connection, of our love. It was none of those things. He was enjoying the show. It was disgusting. 3 I don’t know how much time passed before the movement on the bed finally ceased. Jennie purred, “Dr. Archer, it’s the middle of the night. Can’t I just stay here tonight?” Declan never let them stay. Once he was satisfied, he would kick them out. “Get out.” “Do you have to be so cruel? It’s not like there’s a lady of the house here…” “Don’t make me say it again.” Jennie dressed sullenly. As she was leaving, her eyes landed on something and lit up. “Can I have this?” I followed her gaze. It was a ring. The engagement ring Declan had proposed with three years ago. The day after he proposed, I drank the invisibility serum. Declan refused her. “That belongs to my fiancée.” Jennie scoffed. “You’re so devoted, Dr. Archer. But your fiancée has been gone for years. What’s the point of keeping the ring? What difference does it make who you give it to?” She moved closer, her hand reaching for his arm. He shook her off. “Compared to her, you’re not even worthy.” Jennie’s face flushed with indignation. “At least I wouldn’t just leave you without a word and let the whole world laugh at you! I know how to appreciate a great man like you, Dr. Archer. I’m a thousand times better than she ever was!” Back then, Declan had told me the serum was dangerous. If the world knew of its existence, the consequences would be catastrophic. So, to everyone else, my sudden disappearance made it look like I had abandoned him. “You have no idea how much I like you, Dr. Archer…” Jennie persisted, climbing onto his lap and reaching for the ring. Declan shoved her onto the floor. “Get. Out.” That was his way of saying he never wanted to see her again. 4 Declan leaned against the headboard and lit a cigarette. He held the ring in his palm. “Thea, are you here?” “I told you,” he murmured to the empty air, “none of these cheap women could ever compare to you.” “The only person I’ll ever marry is you.” In the quiet after, he always made these pledges of loyalty. I used to be so lost in his sweet words that even as he brought home woman after woman, I would blame myself, believing my condition had driven him to this. I truly believed I was the only one he loved. But now, hearing the cruel truth from his own lips, I finally understood what a masterful performance it had been. He hadn’t been driven to anything. This was who he had always been. The affairs had started long ago; he’d only recently become brazen enough to bring them into our home. “Thea, I love you so much. I miss you.” In the past, I would have burst into tears, professing my own love for him. Now, I just crouched on the floor, watching him with cold, empty eyes. As the cigarette burned down to its filter, a flicker of panic crossed his face. “Thea, just wait a little longer. I will develop the antidote. I will marry you.” I couldn’t stomach his performance any longer. I left the bedroom. He didn’t seem to dwell on that flicker of panic. His life continued as usual, day in, day out. My heart had turned to ash. I began to search for a way to save myself. He wouldn’t keep the antidote at home; it had to be at his lab. And besides the antidote, I needed the original research data for the serum. As a young prodigy, Declan had countless inventions to his name. He was meticulous about saving the raw data for all of them, successful or not. Every day, after he left, I would search his cluttered study. 5 I had to be careful not to arouse his suspicion, putting everything back exactly where I found it and always listening for his return. The progress was slow. Hearing a noise from the living room, I quickly left the study. Declan was home earlier than usual. He stumbled, kicking over the trash can. He looked around the room, his brow furrowed. Clothes were scattered on the sofa, clutter littered the floor, and a visible layer of dust coated the coffee table. “Thea, why haven’t you cleaned up these last few days?” He was still pretending he couldn’t see me, calling my name out into the empty space. When I didn’t respond, he took out a notepad and pen and placed them on the table. “Thea, you haven’t been on your best behavior today.” “If something’s bothering you, write it down for me.” Looking at his smug, knowing face, I finally spoke, my voice a phantom whisper he could hear perfectly well. “It’s been three years. Where’s the antidote?” He instinctively started to reply, then caught himself. “What’s wrong, Thea? Write it down for me.” A cold laugh escaped me. I wrote the words on the paper. As soon as he read them, he put on his well-rehearsed apologetic expression. “I know you’re anxious. I’m anxious too. But being anxious won’t help.” “Invisibility… think about what a monumental, incredible achievement that is in the history of science! You accidentally drank my only sample before I had even perfected the formula.” “That’s why the antidote is so difficult, Thea. Please, just wait a little longer, okay? I will keep my promise to you.” Those were the words that had filled me with guilt, that had made me wait, and wait, and wait. Declan glanced at his watch. “I came home early to tell you that my mentor and a former colleague are coming to stay the night. I need you to cook a few dishes and get the guest room ready.” “And clean this place up. Don’t let them think I live in a pigsty.” They’d be laughing at him, not me, I thought. When he returned that evening with his guests, the apartment was still a mess. “Professor Albright, you…” Declan froze at the door, too embarrassed to let them in. 6 The man behind him, his former colleague, teased, “Declan, it’s been a while. Is this how you welcome us?” The old professor, a man named Albright, just laughed heartily, trying to smooth things over. “Declan has probably just been too busy lately to tidy up.” Declan seized the opportunity, frantically gathering the piles of clothes and clutter from the living room and shoving them all into his bedroom. Then, remembering something, he tiptoed to the kitchen. Of course, I hadn’t cooked. Not only that, but the dishes I had used over the past few days were still piled on the counter, and the fridge was nearly empty. “Declan, didn’t you say you were going to let us sample your cooking?” Hearing his mentor’s question, Declan turned, his eyes locking directly onto mine. I knew what he was asking. He was asking why. We had started dating in college and moved in together after graduation. He was useless when it came to housework. He’d had his parents to take care of him his whole life, but as he’d said, “If I still live with my parents at my age, having them do everything for me, what would people think?” I was an orphan with few friends. He was my entire world. So, to allow him to focus completely on his research, I had given up my own promising academic career to take care of him. I had never once disobeyed him. Not even during these three invisible years. He was asking why I was no longer taking care of him, no longer listening to him. But he had to pretend he couldn’t see me. He whispered, “Thea, are you there?” I just stared back at him, silent. He was getting agitated. “Thea, what is wrong with you?” So this is what it felt like, all those times he had pretended not to see me. “Declan, what are you doing?” His colleague, Ryan, appeared at the kitchen door. Declan quickly shut the door. “Sorry, I’ve just been swamped. We don’t have much food. Let’s go out to eat.” “Go out? Declan, I just got off a long flight. I’m exhausted. And the professor is not young. You were the one who invited us to stay, said you were going to cook. If we’d known, we would have just gotten a hotel! We have a conference early tomorrow, I wanted to get some rest.” 7 Declan’s face flushed with embarrassment. He couldn’t cook. He didn’t even know how to turn on the stove. “I’m so sorry, it completely slipped my mind. I’ll order something in, it’ll be quick.” Ryan grumbled but accepted. “Fine, fine. But seriously, eating takeout here is no different from being in a hotel.” Declan showed them to the two guest rooms. They weren’t cluttered, but I hadn’t cleaned them in days, and they were covered in a thin layer of dust. His guests had to make their own beds. In the morning, as they were leaving, Ryan was still complaining. Professor Albright didn’t say anything, but he looked displeased. The moment the door closed behind them, Declan slammed it shut. “Thea! Get over here!” I remained on the sofa. “What do you think you’re doing?! I told you, I haven’t made the antidote! What is your damn rush?!” “Have I mistreated you these past three years?! You’re in this state, and I’m still feeding you, still giving you a place to live!” “All I ask is that you do some housework, cook some meals, and you can’t even handle that for a few years?” “Thea, with this attitude, I’m starting to seriously reconsider whether I want to marry you at all.” I had to admire him. He could say all of that without a trace of shame. “I have a conference for the next few days. I’ll be staying at a hotel. Before I get back, you’d better have this house cleaned up!” Only that last sentence got a reaction out of me. The moment he slammed the door and left, I ran to the study. Finally, hidden in the very back of a bookshelf, I found it: the complete data logs for the invisibility serum. Declan would be at his conference for the next few days, which meant he wouldn’t be going to his lab. This was my chance. If I missed it, I didn’t know when I’d get another one. 8 Declan always said it was too dangerous for me to go out while I was invisible. But I had to take the risk. Night was safer than day. In the dead of night, I stepped out of the apartment. For the first time in three years. Even invisible, I was acutely aware of my nakedness. The shame of it made every step an agony. Thankfully, the lab wasn’t far. The passcode was still the same: my birthday. How ironic. I didn’t dare turn on the lights. I found a flashlight and searched the lab in the dim beam. My guess was right. The antidote was here, hidden away. And just like the serum, it was colorless and odorless. That’s why I had drunk the serum so unsuspectingly all those years ago. I dipped a finger in and touched it to my tongue. I looked down. My body flickered. Once, twice. It was the antidote. It was real.

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After forcing Felicity into the French maid outfit one more time, a line of text scrolled into view before my eyes: 【That damn villain is so shameless, always finding new ways to humiliate our heroine!】 【It’s okay, just wait until she reunites with her tycoon father and becomes a business magnate. She’ll destroy the villain and his entire family!】 【Can we get a tutorial on how to skip all the villain’s scenes and just watch the sweet moments between the hero and heroine?】 The text faded, and my hand, which had been unbuttoning Felicity’s dress, froze. She blushed, but her eyes were a pool of icy calm. “Not going to finish what you started?” I took a deep breath and began re-fastening the buttons I had just undone. “You can go.” 1 Felicity stared at me, baffled. “What did you say?” My gaze dropped, tracing the soft curve of her chest, the pale skin of her waist, all the way down to her wrists hanging by her sides. The delicate lace trim on her cuffs looked like snowflakes that had gently landed on her skin. I had spent a long time picking out this outfit for her. The top was perfectly tailored, accentuating every line of her body without being overtly revealing. In fact, with Felicity’s cool demeanor, it exuded an air of refined elegance. But according to those comments, she was supposed to be feeling utterly humiliated right now. She was supposed to believe I was degrading her. The thought suddenly made the whole thing feel pointless. I set down my camera. “I said, you can go. I don’t feel like shooting anymore.” I’m currently running a startup with my friend, Sophie. She designs the lingerie and boutique outfits, and I handle the photography. Felicity herself had personally agreed to my request to model this new piece for a photoshoot. She yanked the bunny ears from her head, her thin lips pressed into a line of simmering annoyance. “What’s your problem now, Jasper? I already agreed to let you take the pictures. What more do you want?” Just then, the floating text, which had vanished, began scrolling furiously again: 【What is wrong with this guy? The heroine already swallowed her pride for him, what’s he trying to pull now?!】 【He’s just racking up her hatred for him. The man has a death wish.】 【Don’t worry, everyone. This villain eventually jumps off the 18th floor. It’s a really gruesome death. :)】 2 The 18th floor! Because of Felicity? A shiver ran down my spine. I subtly put some distance between us. My voice was softer now. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. It just seems like you’re not really into this photoshoot. I don’t want to force you to do something you don’t want to do.” Felicity looked stunned. A flicker of disbelief crossed her face. I suppose I’d always been so relentlessly persistent with her that my sudden concession felt strange. “Really? That’s it? You’re not planning some other twisted game?” I shook my head quickly. “No, I’m not.” She studied me, her expression unreadable. After a long moment, just as I thought she wouldn’t say anything else, she pushed the bunny-ear headband into my hand. Her voice was a little hoarse. “I’m going to go study, then.” After Felicity left, the tension finally drained from my body. More comments drifted past my eyes: 【You really think the villain would let the heroine go that easily?】 【This is just a strategic retreat. He’s probably thinking up a new way to torture her.】 【Remember last time? She refused to go to the amusement park with him, so in revenge, he fired her mom. Her mom was crying secretly as she left with her bags.】 Reading that, my fingers tightened into a fist. That’s not what happened at all. The reason I fired her mother, our housekeeper, so forcefully in front of Felicity was because I had found her cancer diagnosis papers right before. Her mom didn’t want Felicity burdened with massive medical debt, and she especially didn’t want to disrupt her during her master’s defense. She was determined to keep it a secret. So when I found out, I immediately contacted the best oncology team and urged her to get admitted for treatment. The whole firing scene was just an act to help her keep the secret from Felicity. Just yesterday, her doctor told me her surgery went well and she’s recovering nicely. She should be discharged any day now. 3 In the dead of night, I woke up, parched. I headed downstairs to the kitchen for a glass of water. As I passed Felicity’s room, I saw her light was still on. An image of her involuntarily surfaced in my mind: sitting at her desk, back ramrod straight, her long fingers turning the pages of a book, her lips slightly pursed in concentration. Then, the memory of this morning’s comments hit me like a splash of cold water. I snapped out of it, shaking my head hard. Just then, I heard soft footsteps in the hallway. I ducked into the stairwell at the corner, peeking out. I saw my brother, Finn, wearing pink pajamas and carrying a glass of milk, knock on Felicity’s door. And then, new lines of text appeared: 【Ahhh, the hero is finally here! He’s so adorable, like a little ray of sunshine.】 【Sob… he’s the only one in this whole house who actually cares about our heroine.】 【My maternal instincts are kicking in, I want to have his babies!】 Felicity opened the door quickly, seemingly unsurprised to see Finn. She pushed her black, half-rimmed glasses up her nose and took the milk from him with practiced ease, murmuring a thank you with a blush creeping up her ears. When their fingertips brushed, the scrolling comments went into a frenzy about how they were “shipping them so hard.” Finn’s voice was bright. “Flick, will you come to the amusement park with me this weekend?” Felicity paused, not answering right away. She just tilted her head back and drank the entire glass of milk. 【What’s wrong with the heroine?! Why hasn’t she said yes to our sunshine boy yet!】 【Calm down, calm down. Our girl is the cool, reserved type.】 【Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!】 Seeing her silence, Finn’s lip jutted out in a small pout. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay. I can just go by myself.” Felicity leaned against the doorframe, bending slightly closer to him. “Who said I didn’t want to? I was just thinking… you get motion sickness. I’m wondering if Dramamine would help with the 3D rides.” Watching their intimate exchange, my heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand. A sour, heavy feeling settled in my chest. When I had asked Felicity to go to the amusement park with me, all she said was that she didn’t want to waste time on such childish things. Now, not only did she agree to go with Finn in a heartbeat, she was also thoughtfully considering how the 3D attractions might make him feel sick. So it was never about wasting time. It was about not wanting to waste her time on me. 4 Back in my room, staring at the 99+ notifications of comments going wild, the burning sensation returned to my eyes. So, in this sweet romance novel, I was nothing more than the universally despised villain. And my non-blood-related younger brother, Finn, was the hero of this world. Felicity was his destined partner. Then… what did all my years of affection even mean? Felicity had been sickly since she was a child. To help her get stronger, I often forced her to eat vegetables and proteins she hated. Later, in high school, she started working the graveyard shift at a gaming cafe after her evening classes to earn tuition money. She’d be dozing off in class the next day. When I found out, I went behind her back, quit the job for her, and had my father set up a fund to cover her education all the way through university. Only after reading those comments did I realize. In all those moments I thought I was doing what was best for her, in her eyes, I was just being coercive and insulting. So much so that one day, she would want revenge enough to ruin my family. If that’s how it was, then I was done. I would stop loving her. I spent the next few hours gathering all the gifts Felicity had given me over the years and packed them into a cardboard box. Then I tossed it into the storage room. They weren’t really gifts, mostly just little things she’d handed me offhandedly. But I had treasured them for years. 5 Felicity and I were in the same graduate program. We even had the same advisor. I was just a year behind her. The next day, after we finished our work in the lab, Felicity was still organizing data, showing no signs of leaving. This time, I didn’t wait around for her like I usually did. I packed up my things and walked straight to the door. “Jasper.” Her voice stopped me. I turned, my expression distant. “What is it?” She walked over to me. “Are you leaving now?” “Yeah.” I made a move to leave, but she grabbed my wrist, her grip firm and unyielding. “It’s dark out. I’ll walk you home.” “No, that’s okay.” Felicity looked down at me, her eyes dark and inscrutable. “What kind of tantrum are you throwing now? Is it because I went to the amusement park with Finn? Are you jealous?” More text floated into my vision: 【Is this villain ever not annoying? He makes the heroine coddle him over every little thing.】 【She’s only offering to walk him home because she needs to buy Finn a cake from that bakery on the way.】 Ah, so that’s what it was. My heart twisted, a sharp, acidic pang. I should have known. Growing up, Felicity always called Finn by his nickname, Finny. But she always, always called me by my full name. That was the difference. I pulled my wrist free. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. And it’s your business who you go to the amusement park with.” Felicity let out a soft laugh, as if she could see right through my facade. “Still say you’re not jealous?” I was speechless. There was no point in arguing. I just turned and walked away. 6 I didn’t expect Felicity to get home before me. When I walked in, Finn was standing beside her, waving a slice of strawberry cake at me with a triumphant smirk. “I mentioned yesterday I wanted strawberry cake, and look! Flick got it for me today.” I shot him a flat, indifferent glance and tried to walk past. But as I passed, Finn suddenly grabbed my arm, his nails digging into my skin. I instinctively tried to shake him off, but he used the momentum to throw himself to the ground. The delicate cake splattered across the floor. Finn’s eyes turned red as he started to wail. “Brother, I was just asking if you wanted some cake. Why did you have to push me? I know I’m not Mom and Dad’s real son, and I know you’ve always hated me for taking your place as the young master of this house for so many years, but I really didn’t mean to!” Felicity rushed to help him up, then turned to me with a thunderous expression. “That’s enough, Jasper! Apologize to Finn!” I looked at her in disbelief. “Are you blind, Felicity? He grabbed me first!” I pushed up my sleeve, revealing the angry red marks on my arm, some spots already broken and bleeding. Felicity faltered for a second, but Finn just whimpered again. “I… I guess I didn’t realize how hard I was grabbing. I’m sorry I hurt you, brother. It’s all my fault, all my fault…” Tears welled up in his eyes. Felicity’s voice softened as she comforted him. “It was an accident. It’s not your fault.” My own eyes burned with unshed tears, my voice raspy with indignation. “Felicity, I’ve had a dog for less time than I’ve known you, and even it knows to wag its tail at me! But you?” Her face instantly turned to ice. Her expression was utterly cold. “Jasper! I am not your dog. I am a living, breathing person!” Her voice was sharp enough to draw blood. The heat that had just subsided in my eyes surged back. Felicity stared at the tears pooling in my eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but in the end, she remained silent. At that moment, the comments scrolled frantically across my vision again: 【Yes! Our heroine is finally fighting back! Don’t be afraid of that villain! Once you inherit your tycoon dad’s fortune, the Clark family won’t even be worthy of polishing your shoes!】 【The hero is so kind, omg. He just wanted to share cake with his brother, what did he do wrong?!】 【Someone give me the villain’s social media handle. I want to cyberbully him.】 After reading the comments, I turned and walked upstairs without another word. They were right. Once Felicity found her real family, the Clarks would be nothing to her. We couldn’t afford to cross her. 7 A few minutes later, there was a knock on my door. Assuming it was the housekeeper, I called out, “Come in.” When I looked up, I was met with a pair of deep, captivating eyes. It was my childhood friend, Roxanne. Even though it was the middle of a sweltering summer, she was wrapped in a camel-colored trench coat. I walked over in confusion and touched her forehead. “Roxy, are you sick?” Her ears flushed red, and her gaze on me seemed to shimmer. Then, she squeezed her eyes shut as if gathering all her courage and threw open the coat. My jaw dropped. I saw the bell collar around her neck. The micro-mini skirt that barely covered anything. The long, pale expanse of her legs. A size XXS maid outfit?! Roxanne looked down at me, her voice low, cool, and impossibly sexy. “I can wear this stuff too. Stop looking for someone else, okay?” My phone buzzed. It was a text from Sophie: 【EMERGENCY! Roxanne heard you were going to use Felicity as a model and took off with my latest design!】 My face went hot. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Roxanne. At that exact moment, my bedroom door was thrown open again without warning. Felicity stood there, tall and straight. And she was wearing the exact same outfit I had originally prepared for her. My mind went completely blank. The comments exploded, the notification hitting 99+. 【What the hell is happening right now!?】 【wiping drool from my keyboard】 【Holy… talk about a hellish showdown!】

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The eighth time I caught Sheriff cheating, I didn’t scream or cry. I simply handed the girl her coat and said calmly, “Use the back door.” She shot me a terrified glance and practically fled. Sheriff, meanwhile, leaned back against the headboard, watching me as he lit a cigarette with slow, deliberate movements. “The kid’s new to this. Don’t scare her,” he said, smoke curling from his lips. “She’s not like you. I don’t want her getting hurt.” He took another drag. “It’s her birthday today. I’m staying with her tonight, so don’t wait up.” I lowered my eyes and gave a soft acknowledgment, not bothering to argue. After all, it seemed Sheriff wasn’t aware of one crucial detail. That young girl was HIV-positive. 1. Used condoms littered the floor, and the air hung thick with a faint, cloying scent. I put on a mask, opened the windows, and let the room air out. I didn’t spare him another glance. He, however, watched me with amusement, blowing smoke rings. “Not threatening divorce today? Finally come to your senses?” My back was to him. My fingers paused on the windowsill before pushing the window open further. “Yes,” my voice was light. “I’ve come to my senses.” Sheriff let out a short, humorless laugh. “About time,” he said, getting up languidly and starting to dress. “In our world, this is how marriages end up. Everyone plays their own game. It’s better you understand that. Saves us both the embarrassment.” I turned and watched him button his shirt. Four years of marriage, and he was still devastatingly handsome. That roguish, carefree air about him could still make a young girl’s heart flutter. “Are you sure you’re not coming home tonight?” I asked. “I’m sure.” He fastened his belt, giving me a sideways glance. “Why, is today some special occasion?” I shook my head. “Just asking.” He shrugged and picked up the watch from the nightstand—a limited edition Patek Philippe I’d given him for his birthday last year. “Oh, right,” he said, pausing at the door. “We’re out of condoms. Pick some up when you have a chance.” “Alright.” The door clicked shut. I stood by the window for a while longer, watching his headlights cut through the darkness and disappear down the tree-lined drive. Then, I picked up my phone and dialed a number. “He’s gone,” I said. “You can start the cleanup.” Five minutes later, three people in full hazmat suits entered the room. They worked efficiently, gathering the scattered condoms, wiping down every surface with a special disinfectant, and stripping all the bedding to seal it in biohazard bags. The woman in charge nodded at me. “It’s all taken care of, Ms. Thorne. Rest assured, there’s no risk of contamination.” “Thank you,” I said. “This bedroom, especially. It needs to be completely sanitized.” “Understood.” I stepped out of the room and closed the door. The soft hallway light spilled onto the dark hardwood floor. On the wall hung our wedding portrait. In it, I was radiant in my white dress, my smile shy and full of joy. Sheriff had his arm around my waist, his gaze tender. We were inseparable then, deeply in love. Now, that same wall was covered in tacky hearts drawn with different shades of lipstick by his various women. The same women who had cost me two pregnancies, leaving me unable to conceive again. I gave the photo one last, placid look before turning and heading downstairs. On the living room coffee table sat a cake box. I took out the complimentary candle, stuck one in the cake, and lit it. Sheriff only remembered that today was his little fling’s birthday. He had, as usual, forgotten that it was also our fourth wedding anniversary. And my birthday. The flame danced. I stared at it for a long moment before blowing it out. The truth was, I had been planning to file for divorce. But not anymore. I wanted his billion-dollar inheritance. I wanted all his money, and all his power. 2. Sheriff didn’t come home for five straight days. But his new girl, as if given his blessing, sent me texts and videos with clockwork precision. 【He says I’m the kind of person he’s always truly wanted.】 【He says he got tired of a stay-at-home wife like you a long time ago.】 【He’s not coming home again tonight. Are you cold sleeping all alone?】 I didn’t reply to a single one. I just took my medication on time, went to my check-ups, slept soundly, and had my assistant archive the screenshots as usual. On the sixth night, Sheriff called. I was at the hospital, waiting for test results on a bench in the hallway after a round of exams. His voice on the other end was hoarse, laced with the breathless fatigue of recent indulgence. “Seraphina,” he said my name. “Someone got pictures of me and Aria. There’s an interview tomorrow. I need you to come to the office and help clear her name.” I was silent for a beat. “Clear her name of what?” “Just say it was a misunderstanding. That she’s just a student I’m sponsoring, and you were there at the time,” he paused. “You know how it is. She’s young, she can’t handle this kind of public pressure.” I looked down at the faint needle mark on the back of my hand. “Alright,” I said. He audibly relaxed. “You’re always so understanding,” his tone softened. “I’ll come home tonight to spend some time with you. It’s been a while since we…” “It’s not a good time for me,” I said flatly, cutting him off. “It’s that time of the month.” There was a moment of silence. “…Fine,” he sounded disappointed, but quickly switched back to his charming tone. “Well, get some sleep. Don’t overthink things.” After hanging up, I stared at the dark screen and felt a sudden urge to laugh. He thought I was saving myself for him. He had no idea I was just disgusted by him. The next day’s interview was held in the lobby of the corporate headquarters. The press turned out in droves, their cameras all pointed at the “model couple.” I linked my arm through Sheriff’s, my makeup flawless, my smile warm and gracious. When asked about the rumors, he instinctively glanced at me. I took the microphone for him. “It truly is a misunderstanding,” I said with a smile. “Miss Aria is a student my husband sponsors. She hasn’t been well lately, so he’s been looking after her a bit more. Someone with ill intentions took those photos, and things got blown out of proportion. I hope everyone can refrain from over-analyzing.” Someone from the crowd pressed, “Mrs. Thorne, are you saying you don’t mind at all?” I turned to Sheriff, my eyes filled with nothing but trust and devotion. “Of course, I trust him completely.” I felt his grip on my wrist tighten. Halfway through the interview, his phone buzzed with a message. The color drained from Sheriff’s face almost instantly. He shot up from his seat without even looking at me. “Sorry, something urgent has come up,” he said to the host, already turning to leave. I remained seated, microphone in hand, as a stir went through the media. Someone shouted, “Mr. Thorne, is it about Miss Aria? We heard she was hospitalized?” His stride faltered for a second. Then he walked out without looking back. I was left alone, sitting under the brightest lights, to clean up his mess and continue playing the part of the doting, supportive wife. After it was over, my assistant asked cautiously, “Ma’am, are you alright?” I stood up, smoothed my dress, and smiled. “I’m perfectly fine.” And I truly was. Because I knew he had just given me another push toward the finish line. He didn’t come home that night. He just sent a single text: 【Her fever is high. I’m at the hospital. You go to sleep.】 I replied with one word: 【Okay.】 Then, after a moment’s thought, I sent another: 【My mother isn’t feeling well. I’m going back to my hometown tomorrow. I’ll probably be back in a month.】 【Do you want me to go with you?】 【It’s nothing serious. I can handle it.】 【Okay.】 After sending the message, I let out a breath of relief. I put my phone aside and continued to review the new report that had just arrived. On it, a few words were written with stark clarity. —Incubation period over. Now infectious. 3. The next morning, I packed a suitcase and left the villa. As the car pulled out of the tree-lined drive, I glanced in the rearview mirror at the house I had lived in for four years. The morning mist hadn’t yet burned off, casting a greyish-white glow over the entire garden. The garden was filled with red roses. He had them flown in from France years ago, all because I had once mentioned I liked them. The golden boy of New York’s elite had spent months with me, planting every one of those nine hundred and ninety-nine roses by hand. He had even stayed up late revising the layout nine times to ensure it was perfectly beautiful. I had laughed at him then. “You’re a grown man, why are you more particular about this than I am?” He had leaned down and kissed my forehead. “Because this is our home.” Our home. I looked away and leaned back against the seat, closing my eyes. Now, he brought home an endless parade of lovers, and I was the only one left to tend the roses. Our home had long since become their home. I didn’t go to my hometown. I drove directly to a private wellness retreat in the suburbs. The doctor was already waiting for me. “Ms. Thorne, based on the current data, there are no signs of infection on your end,” he said, flipping through the report. “But to be absolutely certain, it’s best you avoid any close contact with anyone for the next month.” “I understand,” I nodded. “As for Mr. Thorne…” he trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished. “Just continue to monitor the situation,” I finished for him. “Let me know the moment you have any results.” I checked into a private cottage at the far end of the retreat. My days became simple and routine: check-ups, medication, reading, and walking. It was like I was patiently waiting for a countdown to end. On the seventh night, Sheriff called me. It was the first time he had proactively contacted me since I left. The line was noisy, sounding like he was at a business dinner. “Where are you?” he asked, his tone impatient. “My hometown,” I replied calmly. “Why haven’t you been answering my messages?” he sounded annoyed. “I haven’t been feeling well the last couple of days, probably just exhausted. When are you coming back?” “I’m not sure,” I said softly. “I need to see how things go with my mother.” He was clearly unhappy but managed to keep his temper in check. “Fine. Just take care of yourself.” Before he hung up, he added, “By the way, Aria is feeling better. She’s out of the hospital. She doesn’t know anyone in the city, and I didn’t feel right leaving her in a hotel, so I let her stay at the villa for a few days. She’s in your bedroom, so don’t be surprised when you get back. And don’t overthink it.” I just said, “Mm.” Of course I wouldn’t overthink it. After all, that was the place I had chosen for them. Four more days passed. This time, it was his assistant who called me. His voice was frantic. “Ma’am, something’s happened to Mr. Thorne.” My fingers tightened around my phone. “What’s wrong with him?” “He had a high fever all last night. We brought him to the hospital this morning, and the doctors… the doctors are saying it’s a bit complicated. They’re asking for family to come as soon as possible.” I was silent for a beat. “Which hospital?” The assistant gave me the address. It was the same one Aria had stayed at. “I see,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” After hanging up, I sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window at the quiet lawn. The sun was bright. Too bright for something terrible to be happening. The doctor knocked and entered. “Ms. Thorne,” he said, seeing me. “Are you heading out?” “Yes.” I stood up. “To see my husband.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but in the end, he only said, “Please be careful.” I smiled and put on my mask. “Don’t worry.” I value my life more than anyone. 4. As the car entered the city, my phone lit up again. It was a message from Sheriff. 【Where are you?】 I stared at the two words for a long time before replying. 【On my way.】 【I feel awful.】 【The doctors are with me.】 He must have been truly scared. In the past, whenever he was sick, I was always the one by his bedside. Giving him water, medicine, staying up all night. He was used to me always being there. This time, he could only reach out to me through a screen. I didn’t reply again. The hospital reeked of disinfectant. His assistant was waiting for me at the entrance, his face even paler than I had imagined. “Ma’am,” he said in a low voice. “The doctors have done a preliminary examination on Mr. Thorne. They’re recommending… further specialized testing.” I nodded. “I know.” When I pushed open the door to his room, Sheriff was leaning against the headboard, an IV drip in his arm. He had lost some weight, and his complexion was terrible. The moment he saw me, he visibly relaxed. “You’re here.” In that instant, the dependence in his eyes was almost instinctual. I walked over and set my purse down. “What’s wrong?” “I have no energy,” he frowned. “My head hurts. The doctors think it might be an infection.” He said it casually, as if talking about a common cold. I tucked the blanket in around him, my movements as gentle as always. “Don’t worry,” I said softly. “You’ll be alright.” He looked at me and suddenly reached out, grabbing my wrist. “Seraphina,” his voice was hoarse. “This must have been hard on you.” I looked down at the hand gripping mine. His fingers were long and elegant. They had held my hand through crowds countless times before. “We’re husband and wife,” I said. Only then did he seem to relax, slowly closing his eyes. Not long after, the doctor came in and asked to speak with me outside. The hallway was long. Before he handed me the report, he gave me a look. “Ms. Thorne, the results are in.” I took it, my eyes falling on the most crucial line. —Infection Confirmed. I was calm. So calm it was almost surprising, even to myself. “Does he know yet?” I asked. “Not yet,” the doctor said. “In situations like this, we recommend that the family informs the patient.” I nodded. “I’ll do it.” When I returned to the room, Sheriff was still asleep. The afternoon sun cast a warm glow on his face, making him look peaceful and innocent. As if nothing had happened yet. I sat by his bed and watched him for a long time. Then, I softly called his name. “Sheriff.” He opened his eyes. “Hm?” I looked at him, my voice as gentle as ever. “The doctor said you have a serious illness.” He froze. “What kind of illness?” I didn’t answer immediately. I just slowly, deliberately, placed the report in front of him.

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On New Year’s Eve, I ran into Steven Constantini at an upscale restaurant near the office. I was there late, closing a deal. He was there with his secretary, enjoying a candlelight dinner. Our eyes met across the room. The smile vanished from his face, replaced by a deep frown—a silent warning. As I choked down glass after glass of wine I couldn’t refuse, enduring the predatory gaze of my client, the night sky outside suddenly exploded with the New Year’s fireworks he’d arranged just for her. The brilliant flashes reflected in my eyes, searing my heart. After finally securing the last contract of the year, I calmly made a phone call. “Mom, I’ve agreed to break up with him. Please arrange for me to go abroad next week.” 1 I walked aimlessly down the street, still on the phone. The last night of the year was exceptionally cold. A freezing rain fell, and the wind cut straight to the bone. The midnight bells began to chime, followed by cheers from the passersby. I looked up and saw a line of text scrolling across the massive screen of the Constantini Industries headquarters. “To the most beautiful and capable rising star at Constantini Industries, Lyla. Happy New Year.” Even on the first day of the new year, her name was inescapable. The envious murmurs of the crowd carried through the phone. My mother’s voice was laced with fury. “That’s outrageous! I’m going to have a word with Arthur.” “Don’t bother, Mom. I’m leaving anyway.” I ended the call, my voice flat. The crushing weight in my chest wasn’t as suffocating as it used to be. But seeing the two-hour wait time on the rideshare app sent a spike of irritation through me. A jarring honk broke the night’s quiet. Steven’s car was shadowing me, keeping a steady, close distance. Lyla leaned out from the passenger seat, waving enthusiastically. “Josie! Are you heading home?” “Yes,” I answered evenly. She let out an exaggerated sigh of pity, practically melting against Steven. “Oh, the wait for a ride tonight is going to be ages. We’re going your way, but it’s such a shame Steven bought me so many gifts. The back seat is completely full, otherwise we could have given you a lift.” I stopped and peered through the car window. I could just make out a massive bouquet of flowers occupying most of the back seat. Before I could get a better look, a suit jacket was thrown hard against my face. I caught it instinctively as Steven’s sneer cut through the air. “Cover up that reek of alcohol. It’s disgusting. I don’t want you getting a complaint filed against the company because you stunk up someone’s car.” The heavy fabric of the jacket stung my cheek. I watched his taillights disappear down the street. Then, I took the jacket—the one I had personally ironed for him, now carrying the scent of another woman—and tossed it into a nearby clothing donation bin. It was three hours later when I finally got home. The house was brightly lit but empty. He must have gone out again. I thought I was used to it. But when the steam from the hot shower fogged up the bathroom mirror, revealing the ghost of two handprints, pressed intimately together, the alcohol in my stomach churned violently. I retched, a bitter mix of bile and tears. By the time I emerged from the bathroom, the sky was beginning to lighten. Two unread messages were on my phone. One was a flight confirmation. The other was from Steven. 【Something came up. Not coming home.】 I scrolled up. Our conversations over the past year were practically nonexistent. Mostly just his terse, two-word reply of “I’m busy” after I’d left a storm of hysterical, unanswered calls. I opened Lyla’s social media, a familiar, masochistic ritual. As always, a perfectly curated nine-photo grid greeted me. Nine hundred and ninety-nine roses, the New Year’s fireworks… and in the center, a mirror selfie of her and Steven in a tight embrace. I recognized the place. It was Steven’s property on the west side of the city. In the corner of the mirror, I could see the Zootopia sticker we’d brought back from a movie date. It was now soaked through, a limp, pathetic smear against the glass. Utterly sickening. Steven didn’t come home for the next few days. The housekeeper was on holiday, leaving me to drift through the vast, empty house like a ghost. Only the timely arrival of takeout deliveries reminded me that time was still passing. Cajun shrimp, Szechuan noodles, ghost pepper wings… When the fifth spicy takeout box appeared on the table, I finally snapped. I swept everything into the trash, took a picture, and sent it to Steven. 【Stop ordering. I’m not the one who likes spicy food.】 His call came almost immediately. His voice was a husky, post-coital rasp, laced with annoyance. “Are you pulling that hunger strike nonsense again? Fine. Just don’t call me when you end up back in the hospital.” Lyla’s playful, conciliatory voice chirped in the background. “You should just try it, Josie! Steven and I tasted them all, they’re super delicious!” “Ignore her,” Steven grumbled. “She can eat it or not.” I pressed my lips together, fighting the urge to ask the humiliating question. Steven, you remember I have stomach problems and need to eat regular meals. Do you also remember it was spicy food that put me in the hospital in the first place? The words died in my throat. All I managed to say was, “I’ll order my own food.” “Hah, order your own?” he repeated, his tone dripping with disdain before he scoffed. “Josie, you don’t want food. You just want money, don’t you?” 2 “Josie, you and your mother are only after my family’s money, aren’t you?” The mocking voice from a year ago merged with the present, hitting me with the same devastating force. A tear splashed onto the dining table. When I came back to myself, the line was dead. A bank notification showed a transfer of fifteen thousand dollars. It was followed by a voice message from Steven. “Five thousand for food, ten thousand for your trouble. Lyla’s bra strap fell into the sofa cushion. Find it and bring it to her at work on Monday.” I moved the couple’s throw pillows from the sofa and found the black strap tucked deep in the crevice. Steven and I had picked out this sofa together at a furniture store. I had fallen in love with it the moment I saw it. He had tested its firmness and grinned in agreement. “Perfect size. We should get a couple of throw pillows, too. Make it a little more… comfortable for us.” The words of lovers in their honeymoon phase, always tinged with a playful heat. I had playfully scolded him, and he had just laughed. We went on like that, picking out one piece after another, building the home of our dreams. But now, looking at the things I had so carefully chosen, sharing the same space with him and another woman… all I felt was a deep, nauseating revulsion. Since I was leaving, I might as well throw it all away. I worked from dawn until dusk. Eight years of a relationship, reduced to five boxes of junk and a single suitcase. After confirming that not a single trace of me was left in the house, the knot in my stomach finally began to loosen. Only one thing remained. I took a photo album from the bedside drawer. Inside were two hundred and seventy-nine pictures, each one torn to pieces and then painstakingly taped back together. From our high school graduation, through college, to moving in together and starting our careers, the photos chronicled our entire youth together. The last picture was from New Year’s Eve last year. We were raising our glasses under a sky full of fireworks, celebrating our seventh anniversary. Three days after that photo was taken, at a family dinner, my widowed mother and Steven’s divorced father announced they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together. Steven’s expression never changed. He agreed. I was happy for them. But when we got back to our apartment, he tore that last photo to shreds and threw it in my face. “Josie, you and your mother are just alike. You’re parasites, just after our money. ‘Bringing the families closer’? Don’t make me sick.” I stood there, stunned and helpless, as he unleashed his fury. We had both learned the news at the same time. I thought he had genuinely accepted it. I took out every single photo. Along the carefully taped seams, I tore them apart again. Then I threw them all into the boxes of junk. 3 The next time I saw Steven was at the first morning meeting after the holiday break. He sat at the head of the table, with Lyla perched beside him, whispering and laughing intimately in his ear. Our relationship was a secret at the office. In the past, to avoid suspicion, the most intimate we ever got was a shared, knowing smile across the room. My gaze fell on his hands, resting on the table. On the middle finger of his left hand, where a simple silver band—the match to my necklace—should have been, was now a gold ring set with a green diamond. A brilliant, flashy couple’s ring, identical to the one on Lyla’s hand. A gentle nudge from my colleague brought me back. “Don’t feel bad, Josie,” she whispered sympathetically. “We all know what kind of tricks she used to get where she is. You’re the real top seller in our hearts.” Her words made me look up at the screen in a daze. Today’s meeting was the annual review. The number one spot for sales performance was proudly displayed with Lyla’s name—someone who wasn’t even in our department. A single project had knocked my twenty-seven deals down to second place. Steven’s explanation was that the profit from that one project far exceeded the others. But that was the project I had stayed late on New Year’s Eve to close. The contract I had placed on his desk this morning, along with the bra strap. He had seen it with his own eyes. He knew exactly what I’d had to endure to get that signature. My pen slipped, tearing a gash across the paper. The sound was jarringly loud in the tense silence of the room. After the meeting, Steven called me into his office. We stood in stubborn silence, neither of us willing to speak first. Steven’s face grew darker by the second. He tapped his fingers impatiently on the desk, the ring on his finger flashing, making my eyes ache. I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Is there something you need?” “Don’t you have anything to ask me?” Our voices overlapped. I paused, then laughed. Ask him what? Why he stayed out all night on our anniversary? Why he gave my project to someone else? Or how much longer he intended for us to torture each other? None of it mattered to me anymore. My resignation letter, submitted to HR yesterday, had been specially approved by his father, bypassing him completely. My last day was today. My luggage was already packed in the trunk of my car. I could drive straight to the airport after work. I continued calmly, “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.” Steven stared at me, his expression grim. “Where’s my gift?” It took me a second to realize he was talking about my anniversary gift. We always made each other something by hand. With the way things had been, I assumed it was an unspoken agreement to skip it this year. “I forgot,” I said, offering a weak excuse. His face hardened, and he yanked at his tie in frustration. “Josie, can’t you have a little empathy? Isn’t the money I give you enough? Do you really have to make a scene over this?” “Lyla is all alone in this city. I spent New Year’s with her out of basic human decency from the company. And she needs that bonus more than you do.” He paused, then added awkwardly, “If you really want the bonus that badly, I can just give it to you.” With one sentence, he invalidated all my hard work. After our fight last year, I had thrown myself into my job, working insane hours, pulling six-figure commissions for months on end. I wanted to prove to him that I wasn’t after his family’s money, that I could make more than enough on my own. But I still remembered the condescending look on his face back then. “That money,” he had said, “didn’t it all come from my family in the end?” Afraid of seeing that same contemptuous expression again, I just shook my head. “No, thank you. Is there anything else?” He made a frustrated sound, almost a growl. “No.” 4 As I was about to leave, a red string bracelet was tossed from behind the desk, landing by my feet. “If you don’t like it, just throw it away.” Steven’s voice was flat, a strange mix of offering and command. I looked down. The red string was clumsily woven, not particularly attractive, with a single, rather stingy-looking gold bead strung on it. It really wasn’t something to like. But I didn’t want any more complications. I bent down and picked it up. “Got it.” Tossing it in the trash outside would be just as easy. The moment I opened the door, I saw Lyla pretending to be busy but secretly watching the office. She greeted me with a sweet smile. “Josie, did you and Steven fight because of me? I’m so sorry. I just mentioned offhandedly that I wanted that project, I never thought he’d actually give it to me.” Her eyes flickered to the bracelet in my hand. Her smile froze for a split second before returning. “I was wondering why Steven was being so cheap, taking back the little gold bead that came with our rings. So it was a peace offering for you.” “When we bought the rings, the salesgirl said this little bead was a part of our love story. I guess it’s fitting that he gave it to you.” “Lyla!” Steven’s flustered voice came from inside before I could say a word. Lyla fluffed her hair, casually revealing her own large gold ring. “Steven’s calling me. I’ve got to go!” As the door clicked shut, I took the simple silver-band necklace from around my neck and threw it, along with the red string bracelet, into the nearest trash can. When I got back to my department, the acrid smell of spicy food hit me. An HR representative was awkwardly handing out afternoon snacks, and everyone looked less than thrilled. “What’s going on?” My team members swarmed me, finally having someone to complain to. “Josie, isn’t she just trying to piss us off?” I followed her gaze to the snacks on the table: extra-spicy snacks and double-sugar milk tea. And then I saw Lyla’s message in the group chat. “Mr. Constantini said the top seller gets to choose the celebration snacks, so I just ordered what I like. Don’t be so bland, everyone. Life is better with a little extra spice and sweetness.” No wonder everyone looked miserable. Our department worked the most overtime. A few bites of this, and half the team would be sick. “Throw it all out,” I announced. “Whatever you guys want for an afternoon snack, it’s on me.” “Josie for president!” I smiled as they cheered. I was going to miss my colleagues more than I would ever miss Steven. We had worked together for five or six years. I couldn’t tell them I was leaving, so this would have to be my farewell. As soon as the workday ended, my mother called. She asked if I had told Steven I was leaving. I said no and made her promise that if he asked where I was, she would say she didn’t know. I could hear Arthur’s apologetic voice in the background. “Josie, my dear, it’s Steven who has wronged you. I apologize on his behalf. Please don’t blame him. The boy is not having an easy time either.” Don’t blame him? I couldn’t. Steven and I were in the same class for all three years of high school. My mother was our homeroom teacher. Back then, the Constantini family wasn’t wealthy yet. Arthur was always busy chasing deals, and Steven was a problem student at the bottom of the class. I remember after a parent-teacher conference in our first year, Steven had a huge fight with his mother in the hallway. “To Dad, all you say is ‘take care of yourself.’ To me, it’s just ‘study hard.’ What else do you do besides laundry and cooking? You’re useless! If you can’t help, can you just shut up with all your pointless nagging?” Later that day, on her way home, his mother was in a car accident. She died at the scene. My mother, afraid he would spiral, took him into our home to live with us. I could understand Steven’s guilt and his inability to accept his mother’s death. But this past year… who had it been easy for? When Arthur and my mother decided to separate because of his cold ridicule, he sent them off to live abroad. When I tried to break up with him, he pointed his finger in my face and sneered, “What? Your mom took your place gold-digging in my family, so now you get to walk away scot-free? Don’t think it’s that easy.” Over the past year, any sympathy I had for him had been worn down to nothing. Tap, tap, tap. A knocking on my car window startled me. I turned to see Steven, his mouth moving. His voice was muffled through the glass. “My car’s in the shop. We’ll ride home together for the next few days.” 5 I rolled down the window, frowning at him. In the past, we would carefully avoid our colleagues every day, meeting in the parking garage to drive home together. But this past year, let alone driving together, he had barely even come home. Seeing my lack of response, Steven leaned on the window frame, his eyes meeting mine. “I said, we’re going home together for the next few days.” “You have more than one car.” My refusal was instinctive. My flight was at ten, my luggage was in the trunk. I had no time to play games with him. “Is it out of your way?” Steven’s brow furrowed, a questioning look in his eyes. “Or are you not going home? Where else would you be going?” Defeated, I unlocked the doors. “Let’s get something to eat first.” “I’m starving too. How about that hot pot place near the old campus?” His casual suggestion surprised me, but it worked in my favor. It was close to the airport, making my escape easier. The drive was silent, except for the rhythmic drumming of the rain. I was plotting my getaway while Steven, in the passenger seat, seemed to start and stop several sentences. Finally, he said carefully, “About the gold bead on the bracelet, that’s not what I meant. It was—” A flurry of message notifications interrupted him, followed by a shrill ringtone. The moment I saw the caller ID, I flicked on my hazard lights. Boldly displayed on his screen were the words “Little Josie.” He answered, and Lyla’s tearful voice came through the phone. “Steven, sniff, the elevators in the building are broken, and now I’m all alone in the office. I’m so scared.” It was just past seven. Most of our department was still at work. And the elevators at Constantini Industries had weekly maintenance checks. But of course, Steven believed her ridiculously flimsy lie. “It’s okay, don’t worry. Wait for me in the office, I’m coming back to get you right now.” By the time Steven hung up, I had already thoughtfully pulled over and unlocked the doors. “You should go.” “What do you mean? You’re not coming with me?” His eyes flashed with anger. We were already almost in the suburbs. If I went back to the city with him, I would definitely miss my flight. “I’m hungry.” “Fine, Josie! You’re really something else!” With a slam of the door, Steven was out of the car and yanking open the driver’s side. “Lyla’s in a real panic. I need the car. You can grab a ride home after you eat, or wait for me to come pick you up after I’m done.” The airport was only ten minutes away. The only downside was the rain. I quickly ran through the contents of my suitcase in my head—just clothes, all my important documents were in my purse. I let him take the car. As my flight was about to take off, my phone buzzed incessantly. “Are you home?” “Did you eat? Want me to bring you back a takeout box?” “I was hungry, so I got my own.” Attached was a picture of two takeout containers of hot pot. Just as the phone started ringing, the flight attendant announced that all electronic devices needed to be turned off. I blocked his number, switched to airplane mode, put on my eye mask, and slept soundly all the way to a new country. … 6 Meanwhile, Steven stared at the unanswered call, a knot of unease tightening in his chest.

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The room was crowded on the day I died, my bitter rival among them. Only my husband William was absent—in Iceland with his mistress and their son, watching the Northern Lights. As I took my last breath, his text lit my phone: 【I married you for the family, but you were a good wife. You took the birth control, never asked for children. If there’s a next life, I’d still choose you. Rest in peace.】 Victoria saw it and laughed coldly. 【You were never fit to be Mrs. Grant. Next life, don’t even compete.】 I never imagined her words would come true. When I woke, we were back at the Grant family lottery, deciding our fates. William said coldly, 【Alice, you drew the short straw. You’ll be the young mistress.】 Without hesitation, I pushed the paper into Victoria’s hand. 【The title of Mrs. Grant suits you better.】 1 Mrs. Grant’s face clouded with confusion. 【Alice, dear, your rivalry over William was the talk of the town for years.】 【Now that fate is on your side, why would you refuse it?】 The Lindens, the Winslows, and the Grants were the three unshakable pillars of the city’s elite. We were equals, each keeping to our own affairs. But Victoria and I had both fallen for the same man: William Grant. To avoid offending either of our powerful families, the Grants had devised what they called the fairest solution, a simple draw of lots. In my past life, when I drew the winning straw, I’d cried tears of joy. I had no idea that victory would condemn me to a lifetime of loneliness and quiet suffering. Given a second chance, I didn’t dare accept this twist of fate. I didn’t want it. I answered Mrs. Grant with a calm I didn’t know I possessed. 【Mrs. Grant, I’m not ruthless enough. I fear I wouldn’t be able to manage a family as powerful and complex as yours.】 【Victoria is known for her decisive nature. She is, truly, a much better fit.】 Seeing my resolve, Mrs. Grant turned to her son. 【William? What do you think?】 William was sitting at the table, meticulously pouring tea, and didn’t even bother to look up. 【It doesn’t matter who I marry.】 Of course. When you can’t marry the one you love, anyone else is just a placeholder. William’s true love was a woman named Jessica, the same one he kept as his mistress in our past life. Jessica sold motorcycles. During his sophomore year of college, a friend dragged William to a biker rally. He saw Jessica, wild and free on her bike, and never forgot her. He thought she was thrilling, different from the polished women of our world. He believed that only with her could he live a life of passion. But the vast Grant empire would never permit him to marry a woman with no connections. He had to accept his fate and choose a bride from either the Linden or Winslow family. Since William didn’t object, Mrs. Grant had little else to say. She simply advised us, 【Settle this between yourselves.】 【Our three families have been allies for generations. We can’t let this cause a rift.】 I understood her concern. Victoria and I had both orbited William since we were children. My nature was softer; I never fought for his attention. But Victoria was no pushover. William, seeing me as the gentler of the two, always showed me a little more favor, a little more care. Victoria felt slighted and targeted me at every turn. Accusing me of cheating on exams, spreading rumors that I was a manipulative little snake, it was all just part of our routine. I had grown used to it, rarely getting angry. Only when pushed too far would I offer a weak, half-hearted defense. Now, living this life again and knowing the truth of William’s heart, I realized we were both just clowns in his tragedy. What was the point in fighting anymore? I nodded calmly. 【Don’t worry, Mrs. Grant. Victoria and I have already discussed it. There will be no trouble.】 Only then did she seem satisfied. 【Good. William’s grandfather is very ill and doesn’t have much time. The wedding will be in three days.】 After leaving the Grant estate, Victoria and I had just found a cafe to catch up when William appeared, with Jessica in tow. He wasn’t here for me. He took Jessica’s hand and stood before Victoria, his expression one of entitled certainty. 【Victoria, since our marriage is settled, there’s something you need to know.】 【You know I love Jessica. Marrying you isn’t going to change that. I’m not leaving her.】 【Unless there’s a major family event, I’ll be living with her.】 In my past life, William had said the exact same words to me. It was the first thing he had ever asked of me. I didn’t want to disappoint him, so I agreed. Back then, I believed his infatuation with Jessica was just a phase. Once the novelty wore off, he would come back to our home, to our life. I never realized how deeply he loved her. And Jessica was not the docile woman she pretended to be. Her jealousy was a poison. Every few days, she would find a new way to torment me, from backhanded insults to staging accidents and framing me to drive a wedge between William and me. The reason William never wanted a child with me was because Jessica had orchestrated the “loss” of their first baby, a fall she blamed entirely on me. William believed her. He made me pay for it with a lifetime of childlessness. A familiar bitterness rose in my throat, but Victoria’s voice cut through my thoughts. She laughed, the sound sharp and scornful. 【William, what century do you think this is? You want to play the part of some ancient emperor with a wife and a harem?】 【Listen to me carefully. If you dare move in with Jessica, I will make sure she can never set foot in this city again!】 2 A shiver ran through William. Victoria was famously fierce, but she had always reserved her gentler side for him. He didn’t know we had both been reborn, so he couldn’t comprehend her sudden transformation. He assumed Jessica’s presence had provoked her and softened his tone. 【Victoria, don’t be ridiculous. Jessica’s pregnant.】 【She needs me to take care of her.】 Victoria wasn’t buying it. She shot a cold look at Jessica. 【She’s a grown woman. If she can’t even take care of herself while pregnant, what business does she have having a baby?】 【She should just get rid of it.】 Jessica’s face went deathly pale. William was beside himself with worry for her. He dropped the pretense, his face darkening with anger. 【Victoria, shut your mouth.】 【Jessica and I have wanted this baby for a long time. We are not getting rid of it.】 Victoria shrugged, completely unfazed. 【Do what you want. But remember this: if you move in with her after we’re married, I have a thousand ways to make you regret it.】 As if disgusted by their very presence, Victoria grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the cafe. But Jessica followed us out alone. She caught Victoria’s sleeve, her face a mask of pitiful distress. 【Miss Winslow, I know you don’t like me, but the baby is innocent. He can’t be born without a father.】 【Please, I’m begging you, don’t push us into a corner.】 I instinctively glanced back at the cafe. Just as I expected, William was watching us, his gaze fixed and intense. A chill went down my spine. This was exactly what happened in my past life. Seven days after William and I were married, he announced he was moving out. I tried to stop him, and then Jessica came to me alone, pleading and apologizing. She had grabbed my arm just like this, then faked a fall down the stairs, creating the illusion that I had pushed her and caused a miscarriage. My heart leaped into my throat. I had to warn Victoria. But before I could speak, Jessica was already repeating her act, tilting her head back and letting her body fall backward. This time, she wasn’t framing me, but after everything, Victoria had become my friend in those final days of my previous life. I couldn’t let it happen. But at the last second, Victoria’s hand shot out, grabbing a fistful of Jessica’s collar. She turned to me, her eyes burning. 【Was this the baby she used to frame you? The reason you could never have children?】 I gave a heavy nod. Victoria’s gaze snapped back to Jessica, a cruel smile playing on her lips. 【To pull a stunt this dirty, you must not want this baby very much.】 【In that case, let me help you out. It’ll save you the trouble of framing me.】 And with that, Victoria let go. Jessica tumbled backward onto the street. A car, turning the corner too quickly, had no time to swerve. The front of the car slammed hard into Jessica’s stomach. From a distance, William sprinted toward us, his eyes a terrifying shade of red. He cradled Jessica’s blood-soaked body, his furious glare fixed on Victoria. 【Victoria, you’re a monster!】 【Someone like you doesn’t deserve to be a Grant!】 【I wouldn’t marry you now if you got on your knees and begged me.】 Then, his eyes found mine, and his voice was filled with an arrogant, unshakeable command. 【Alice, go home and get ready. You’re marrying me in three days!】 Before I could even refuse, the ambulance had arrived. William climbed in with Jessica, not sparing me another glance. As the ambulance disappeared down the street, I turned to Victoria. 【This is what my life was like.】 【Now that you’ve seen it, do you still want to marry him?】 Victoria looked dazed, lost in thought. After a long moment, she finally answered. 【I have one last thing to do. If he disappoints me again, I’ll give you my answer.】 With that, she pulled out her phone and made a call. 【Dad, can you meet me at the hospital…?】 3 I understood Victoria’s hesitation completely. Because I, too, was once that unwilling to let go. William believed Jessica’s lies, misunderstanding me time and time again. My friends urged me to divorce him. But he was the man I had loved since childhood. I just couldn’t bear to leave. So I kept telling myself he was just bewitched, that it wasn’t the real him. Again and again, I convinced myself to forgive him. I knew that when it comes to matters of the heart, you have to find your own way out. No one can do it for you. So I didn’t press her. I just said calmly, 【Alright. Whatever you need to do, I’ll go with you.】 By the time we reached the hospital, Jessica was awake and stable. The moment we stepped into the room, William shielded her protectively. 【Victoria, Jessica lost the baby. I haven’t even settled the score with you, and you have the nerve to show your face here?】 A flash of pain crossed Victoria’s eyes. 【William, I wasn’t trying to hurt her,】 she explained. 【She was trying to set me up. I was just defending myself.】 Jessica immediately began to sob. 【William, no, I wasn’t.】 【I just wanted to apologize to Miss Winslow in private, to beg her to forgive me and stop putting so much pressure on you.】 【But she wouldn’t listen. She called our baby a bastard who didn’t deserve to be born.】 【William, it’s all my fault. I’m not good enough for you. Maybe… maybe we should just end this…】 Panic seized William. He pulled her into his arms, kissing her forehead tenderly. 【Don’t say such foolish things. You’re the only person in the world who is good enough for me!】 He turned back to Victoria, his face a dark mask. 【Victoria, I told you, the wedding is off.】 【In three days, I’m marrying into the Linden family.】 Victoria scoffed. 【William, you really think if you don’t marry me, Alice will just…】 【I will.】 My voice was quiet, but it was enough to make Victoria stare at me, utterly stunned. I didn’t explain myself to her yet. I just continued, speaking to William. 【The Linden family will proceed with the union.】 【But Miss Jessica is unwell, and you probably don’t have the mind for wedding preparations. I’ll handle everything.】 【In three days, you can come directly to the Linden estate to pick up the bride. We can file the marriage license later.】 William was stunned, then a relieved smile spread across his face. 【Alice, you’ve always been the gentle and understanding one.】 I held up a hand to stop him. 【But I have one condition.】 【I saw what happened today. Victoria was telling the truth.】 【So, your Jessica needs to apologize to her.】 Jessica whined, clinging to him. 【William, she’s lying about me…】 William’s brow furrowed, his voice laced with annoyance. 【Alice, I thought you were better than this. I can’t believe you’re just as bad as Victoria!】 I gave a bitter, self-deprecating laugh. 【William, the three of us grew up together. We know each other better than anyone.】 【Why won’t you believe us?】 He snorted with disdain. 【Because I know Jessica even better!】 【Every time we go on a ride, she insists on visiting the local nursing homes and orphanages, buying food and clothes for them.】 【How could someone so kind possibly frame Victoria?!】 【I think the two of you are just consumed by jealousy, ganging up on her!】 【If my family wasn’t forcing my hand, I would never in a million years have considered either of you!】 A wave of disappointment, identical to Victoria’s, washed over me. I shook my head wearily. 【So, you don’t want to marry either of us, is that right?】 【That’s right,】 he said without hesitation. 【You’re lucky to be marrying me.】 【Don’t expect anything more.】 【Behave yourself, and you’ll always be Mrs. Grant.】 【But if you don’t, don’t blame me for what happens next.】 Victoria was simmering with rage, but I held her back. I simply said, 【Alright, I understand.】 【I’ll have the wedding ready. Just don’t be late.】 The moment we were out of the room, Victoria grabbed my arm, her voice a furious whisper. 【Are you insane?】 【I came here to kill my own foolish hopes, not to watch you jump back in!】 【Wasn’t one lifetime of misery enough for you?!】 I closed the door gently behind us before I answered. 【Relax. I said our families could form an alliance.】 【I never said I would be the one getting married…】

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1 Twenty-eight days after my husband passed away peacefully. The woman who had been his rival—a formidable CEO who fought him in the boardroom their entire lives—was found dead in her home, having taken her own life. Her lawyer appeared almost immediately, producing a will she and my husband had signed together. There it was, in black and white: a directive that they be buried together. Their story instantly became the stuff of legend. The world romanticized their lifelong battle, calling them fated rivals, two forces of nature locked in an eternal dance. People said their darkness and their glory, their triumphs and their sorrows, were inextricably woven together. They spoke of the CEO who had never married, finally granted her deepest wish: to be united with him in death. No one remembered me, his actual wife. In their epic tale, I wasn’t even a footnote, not even worthy of being cast as the villain. I drifted through three more years, a ghost in my own life. When I finally closed my eyes for the last time, all I felt was a hollow emptiness. Then, I opened them again, to the deafening buzz of cicadas in the thick of summer. He was smiling at me, asking if I would be his girlfriend. This time, staring into the eyes that had once been my entire world, I slowly shook my head. … The smile on Sebastian’s face froze, replaced by a look of sheer confusion. After a long, heavy silence, he found his voice. “Lia, I need a reason.” “I thought… I thought we were just one step away from this.” “That was your assumption!” I cut him off, my voice sharp. Looking at the youthful, almost innocent features of the young Sebastian, I hardened my heart. “I’ve never thought of you that way. You completely misread the situation.” Without another glance, I turned and fled. The moment I turned, a tear escaped, splashing onto the back of my hand. The sting of it was the first thing that made this new reality feel real. I knew, logically, that this version of Sebastian hadn’t met her yet—Veronica, the woman whose name would be entwined with his for a lifetime. He hadn’t yet done all the things that broke me. But I still couldn’t bring myself to not hate him. The memories of my past life were like a rusted, jagged knife embedded in my bones, each detail a dull, persistent ache. Before he was thirty-six, Sebastian had belonged completely to Lia. He was the boy who would intentionally leave the last three questions on his college entrance exams blank, just because I’d once whispered, “I don’t want to be in a different city from you.” He was the boy who would stay up all night in the dead of winter, his eyes red-rimmed, clumsily knitting me a lopsided scarf and blanket. He was the young man who threw himself into building a startup in his junior year, all so I would never have to envy anyone else’s life. But after thirty-six, Sebastian was cleaved in two. One half remained tethered to his marriage, to his responsibilities. To me, his increasingly pale and silent wife. The other half drifted, uncontrollably, toward Veronica. Toward the woman who was his equal, his rival, his obsession. That was the same year. After eighteen rounds of IVF, I was finally pregnant. He never saw my swollen legs or the puffiness of my face from morning sickness. He was too busy going head-to-head with Veronica. One day, they were fighting over a land deal on the West Side, drinking each other under the table until they had to prop each other up to walk. The next, they were competing for a major client, rolling dice in a smoky bar until the early hours of the morning. Once, during a promotional event at a bar, they even got a fake marriage certificate. They snapped a picture and posted it online, their laughter wild and unrestrained. The day I went into labor, my water broke suddenly. Sebastian, panicked, was lifting me to carry me out the door when his phone buzzed with a text from Veronica. 【This pink diamond necklace at the auction today is stunning. Too bad a certain someone won’t get the chance to outbid me for it.】 Sebastian immediately set me down, grabbed his coat, and bolted for the auction house. I clutched his sleeve, the pain sharp and blinding, my voice trembling. “The baby is coming now. We can’t wait.” “Is one-upping Veronica more important than me? Than our child?” He pried my fingers off, one by one, his voice urgent. “You know how Veronica loves to gloat. If she gets this over me, I’ll never hear the end of it.” He leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to my forehead. “Be good. I’ll have the driver take you. I’ll be back before you know it.” But that delay, those few precious minutes, cost us everything. I missed the optimal window for surgery. Our child died in my womb. Later, he rushed back to the hospital room. He knelt by my bed, clutching my hand, apologizing over and over. He slipped a heavy gold bracelet onto my thin wrist. I stared at the cold, glaring metal for a long time. Then I heard my own voice, dry and raspy. “The pink diamond necklace. The one you abandoned me and our child for. Did you get it?” A flicker of pride lit up his face. “Of course. When have I ever not gotten what I want?” Seeing my unwavering stare, he hesitated before adding, “But… I gave the necklace to Veronica.” “Imagine how infuriating it must be for her? To have the one thing she wants tossed to her like a scrap by her greatest enemy?” I turned my head away and closed my eyes. A single tear slid silently into my hair. A tabloid headline flashed in my mind, one of the many that feverishly shipped their “fated rivals” dynamic. They wrote that a rival is a rival. A rival can never be a wife. Sebastian. In that moment, when you pried my fingers from your sleeve and walked toward her… Could you truly tell the difference between your desire to win and something else entirely? 2 Sebastian’s anxious voice pulled me from my thoughts. “Lia.” He ran to block my path, beads of sweat on his forehead. “Lia, why?” “You… you like me too. I know you do. Why are you suddenly like this?” The boy in his early twenties was not the man who would one day command boardrooms with an unreadable expression. Right now, just the rejection from the girl he loved was enough to make his eyes turn red. He looked like a large, abandoned dog, stubbornly demanding an answer. My heart felt like it was being squeezed by an invisible hand, the ache so intense I could barely breathe. How could this be? How could the Sebastian who panicked at my slightest frown become the man he was in the end? The nightmare of my past life surfaced again. To win a real estate project on the East Side, Veronica had spread rumors that Sebastian was sexually harassing her at work. Worse, at my mother’s sixtieth birthday party, she played a deepfake video of her and Sebastian in an intimate moment. The room erupted. My mother collapsed from a heart attack on the spot. She never recovered. I stormed into Veronica’s office, demanding an explanation, a shred of decency. But Sebastian rushed in and held me back. He gripped my wrist so tightly I thought the bones would shatter. His voice, however, was terrifyingly calm. “You can’t blame Veronica for this.” “It was your mother’s own fault for taking it so seriously. It was fake.” “She knew she had a bad heart. She should have controlled her emotions.” “Besides, business is war. Winning is all that matters. There’s no shame in the methods you use.” I stared at him, a chill seeping deep into my bones. “That was my mother! Sebastian, that was the woman who raised me!” “Your stupid war with her… you’ll use human lives as stepping stones?” My only answer was his silence. As he half-dragged, half-carried me out of Veronica’s company, I finally understood. The scales in Sebastian’s heart had tipped long ago. He wasn’t split in two anymore. He had fallen completely, irrevocably, to her side. Back in the present, the red-eyed boy was still waiting, his face a canvas of anxiety. I lowered my gaze, swallowing the lump in my throat. “There isn’t always a ‘why,’ Sebastian.” “Don’t come looking for me again. From now on, we go our separate ways.” He refused to believe it. His eyes grew redder, his voice laced with a raw, wounded disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘separate ways’?” “We had a plan, remember? I’d start my business, you’d go to grad school, we’d build a life together right here in this city…” His words painted a future for us, a future he recited with desperate hope. But he didn’t know. In that future, he was the only one whose dreams came true. My memory was pulled back to that other crossroads in my past life. Near graduation, his startup was on the brink of collapse, his funding almost gone. At the same time, I received an acceptance letter from my dream university’s graduate program. Everyone around me urged me to give up my studies, telling me the smart choice was to be Sebastian’s supportive partner. “Is a master’s degree really worth more than being the future Mrs. CEO?” “Sebastian needs you right now. You should be helping him.” I held out, gritting my teeth. Until he was hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer, a result of endless schmoozing and a chaotic schedule. He lay in that hospital bed, pale and weak, playing on my sympathy. “Lia, you’re so brilliant. You’d be such an asset to the company.” “If we build this together, we’ll be unstoppable.” And just like that, I surrendered to his sugar-coated words. But when I actually joined the company, my role was cooking, cleaning, and laundry. I was his glorified maid, a job anyone could do, and I never received a single cent for it. Whenever I complained, he would just smile and ruffle my hair. “Your job is to manage the home front, babe. Why would the boss’s wife need a salary?” I saw his disdain for women in business, but I bit my tongue and endured it. Until, years later, Veronica appeared. And that disdain vanished, replaced by an admiration and fascination he couldn’t hide. A sharp pain lanced through my chest, pulling me back to the present. I spoke his name softly. “Sebastian.” He stopped talking, his eyes lighting up as he looked at me. I was about to speak. But a clear, bright female voice from a short distance away interrupted us. 3 It was Veronica. A woman who shouldn’t have appeared for another decade. Sebastian clearly didn’t know her, his expression puzzled. Veronica smiled. “I’m Veronica, an exchange student from A-University this semester.” “Your advisor asked me to find you. The afternoon lecture was rescheduled, and he wanted me to let you know.” Sebastian blinked, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll head over now.” He turned back to me, his gaze intense and pleading again. “Lia, I have to go, it’s urgent.” “But I’ll find you later. We… we’re not finished talking.” He hurried away. I turned to leave as well, but Veronica’s voice stopped me again. “Lia.” The smile was gone from her eyes, replaced by an undisguised hostility. “I came here, to this exchange program, for Sebastian.” “This time, the one who builds an empire with him from scratch, the one who stands by his side through it all, will be me.” I froze, whipping my head around to look at her. And in that instant, I knew. Veronica had been reborn, too. But I didn’t understand. In our past life, she was a titan of industry, her name synonymous with Sebastian’s. Why would she come back only to give all that up? To fight for a role that would inevitably reduce her to a silent, supportive shadow behind a man? My mind swirled with questions, but my face showed only a faint, dismissive smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Sebastian and I are just classmates.” I turned to leave again. My calm demeanor seemed to infuriate her. Her voice rose, sharp and shrill. “Stop acting so high and mighty!” “You only won last time because you had a head start! You know perfectly well he fell in love with me! Don’t you?!” When I didn’t stop walking, she grew desperate. Her words became poisoned needles, aimed to kill. “Remember that time you were misdiagnosed with kidney disease? You saw Sebastian at the hospital getting tested to be a donor, and you were so moved you cried your eyes out, didn’t you?”

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I was a top lawyer with an undefeated record. One day, I woke up inside a novel. The System tasked me with defending a pop star who was also a serial killer, telling me to find his “redeeming qualities” and get his sentence reduced. Instead, when I saw the defendant taunting the victims’ families in the courtroom, I flipped on him mid-trial and submitted the key piece of evidence that had been overlooked. Before the judge’s gavel could even fall, his brainwashed fan club was still outside, screaming about their idol’s innocence. If they wanted to be with him so badly, fine by me. I reported the fan club for illegal fundraising and sent them all off to do hard time. Seeing that I was about to take down everyone else involved, the System shrieked and threw me into a “pampered villainess” novel. 【This time, you’re the older sister of the pampered villainess! Blood is thicker than water, so you can’t possibly turn on your own family!】 【Warning! You are forbidden from using legal means to send the villain to prison!】 The moment the System finished its rant, I turned around to schedule my pampered little sister for a prefrontal lobotomy. If I can’t send her to jail, she can spend the rest of her life locked up as a mental patient. As long as she’s not a danger to society, a slightly dumbed-down sister could be kind of cute! 01 I stood outside the private observation room, looking through the one-way glass at Melody, who was strapped to a bed, writhing. She was screaming, her cries muffled by the rubber guard in her mouth to prevent her from biting her tongue. The doctor stood beside me, holding a surgical consent form. “Ms. Hayes, are you absolutely certain about the prefrontal lobotomy? This procedure is irreversible…” I adjusted my glasses. “Doctor, my sister has suffered her whole life from being too intelligent. It makes her want to hurt people.” “As her sister, I can’t just stand by and watch her walk down a path of crime.” “Just a small incision, and she can become a carefree little angel.” “She’ll stay with us, sweet and obedient, forever. Isn’t that the greatest form of love we can give her?” A burst of static screeched in my head. 【Paige! Are you a monster?!】 【In the original story, Melody frames you, gets you canceled by the entire internet, and you die a miserable death on the street!】 【Your mission is to reform her with love and guide her onto the right path, not turn her into a vegetable!】 I calmly capped my pen and replied in my mind. 【System, you need to think bigger.】 【Melody is a villain because she has the high IQ necessary for complex crimes.】 【I’m solving the problem at its root. A physical rehabilitation is still a rehabilitation.】 【Besides, I haven’t killed her, and I haven’t sent her to prison. In fact, I’m spending a fortune to get her medical treatment. Am I not the most responsible sister in the world?】 My warped logic seemed to short-circuit the System for a full two seconds. 【But… but the rest of the Hayes family is on their way!】 【The eldest, Harrison, is a ruthless CEO. The second, Morgan, is a genius surgeon. The third, Wyatt, is a pop superstar. And don’t forget your parents, who treat you like dirt.】 【If they find out you sent their precious treasure for a lobotomy, they will tear you to pieces!】 As if on cue, a frantic clicking of high heels and an enraged shout echoed from the end of the hallway. “Paige! What do you think you’re doing?!” I turned to see a whole entourage storming toward me. At the head of the pack was my mother, the foundation on her face unable to conceal her twisted fury. Close behind were my oldest brother, Harrison, in a bespoke suit, and my second brother, Morgan, who had clearly rushed over in his white lab coat. My mother charged at me, her hand raised to strike. “You vicious creature! Let Melody go this instant!” I didn’t flinch from the incoming slap. But just as her hand was about to connect with my face, I whipped a thick copy of the Penal Code out of my briefcase. Her palm smacked hard against the leather-bound cover, and she let out a pained shriek. I smiled faintly and tucked the book back under my arm. “Assaulting a lawyer may not be a felony, but I will be suing you for battery and seeking damages for emotional distress.” “Melody’s stay here is quite expensive. Your settlement should cover her medical bills nicely.” Harrison stepped forward to support our mother, who was hissing in pain. His eyes were dark and menacing. “Paige, have you lost your mind?” “Melody can be a bit impulsive, that’s all. How could you have her committed?” “Tell the doctors to stop the procedure immediately, or I’ll make sure you’re disbarred and never work in this city again!” I looked at this domineering CEO, whose brain was filled with nothing but mergers and acquisitions, and shook my head in disappointment. “Harrison, how can you say that about our sister?” “She isn’t impulsive. She’s sick.” I pulled a stack of printed chat logs and surveillance photos from my bag and tossed them at his chest. “Last month, she put herbicide in my milk, said she was ‘helping me pull weeds.’” “Last week, she cut your brake lines, claiming she wanted to ‘test the car’s safety features.’” “And yesterday, she boiled all of Morgan’s lab mice into a soup, saying she wanted to ‘help him build up his strength.’” I let out a sigh, my eyes misting over as I summoned my best performance. “Harrison, would a normal person do these things? This is a clear case of severe antisocial personality disorder!” “If I don’t get her treated now, it’ll be too late when she decides to boil one of us for dinner.” 02 Harrison’s face shifted as he looked at the evidence. They all knew about these incidents. But every time, Melody would just cry and act cute, and they would dismiss it as their “sweet, innocent sister” being playful. Morgan picked up the papers from the floor, his brow furrowed. “Even so, a lobotomy is out of the question! It’s an inhumane procedure!” “I’m a doctor. I have the right to take over my patient’s course of treatment.” With that, Morgan tried to push past me into the room. I took a sharp step to the side, blocking the door. “Morgan, this is a psychiatric hospital, not your operating room.” “I am one of Melody’s legal guardians, and I have the right to decide her treatment plan.” “Furthermore…” I pushed my glasses up, the lenses catching the light. “According to the Mental Health Act, when a patient poses a severe danger to others, their guardian has the right to enforce involuntary commitment.” “I have already secured a court order for compulsory medical treatment. Right now, the law is on my side.” “If you try to force your way in, I’ll sue you for disrupting medical order and report you to the medical board for practicing outside your specialty.” Morgan froze. He hadn’t expected this. The meek, people-pleasing Paige he knew was gone. In her place stood this sharp-tongued, immovable woman. He was so taken aback by my sudden authority that he didn’t dare move. But he was, after all, the “brains” of this world’s cast. He recovered quickly. “Guardian? Mom and Dad are right here. What makes you think you’re her guardian?” Our father, who had been standing silently in the back, finally spoke, his voice heavy with authority. “Paige, you don’t run this family.” “I am Melody’s father, and I am ordering you to stop this farce immediately.” “Otherwise, I will publicly disown you and take back everything you have.” The original Paige would have collapsed into a puddle of tears, begging for forgiveness. She was desperate for their affection. But I’m not her. I’m a legal machine, devoid of sentiment. I looked at my father with mock surprise. “Dad, are you feeling alright?” “Disown me? You can’t legally sever ties with a biological child in this country.” “That’s a statement born of legal ignorance. I suggest you pick up a book sometime.” My father’s mustache trembled with rage. “You… you insolent girl!” “And as for taking back everything I have?” I glanced around at my well-dressed, morally bankrupt family and let out a small laugh. “The apartment I live in? I bought it with my own mortgage.” “My car? It’s provided by the firm.” “The clothes on my back? I bought them with money I earned.” “You haven’t given me a single cent since I turned eighteen.” “You said it was to ‘build my independence,’ then you turned around and bought Melody a fifty-million-dollar yacht.” “So, tell me, Mr. Hayes, what exactly are you going to take back? My non-existent fatherly love?” “If it’s that, I suggest you just throw it in the trash. It’s filthy.” My words hit him like a volley of cannonballs. He clutched his chest, his face turning ashen as he swayed on his feet. Harrison rushed to support him, pointing a finger at me. “Paige! Are you trying to kill him?! Have you no conscience?!” “My conscience is alive and well. It’s your brains that might need a little surgery alongside Melody’s.” I glanced at my watch. “The procedure should have started by now. The anesthetic has been administered.” “Since you’re all here, why don’t you have a seat and witness Melody’s rebirth?” Just then, the door to the room flew open. A young nurse ran out, her face pale with panic. “We have a problem! The patient… she broke free from the restraints!” 03 I frowned. Those were medical-grade restraints for psychiatric patients. Unless Melody had the strength of an ox or was a trained contortionist, breaking free should have been impossible. A second later, I saw her. Melody, brandishing a scalpel, burst out of the room. She was in a patient gown, her hair a wild mess, her eyes filled with raw, murderous intent. “Paige! I’m going to kill you!” she shrieked, charging straight for me. The System screamed in my head: 【Host, watch out! It’s the villain’s plot armor! She gets a power boost in desperate situations!】 My family, however, didn’t look scared at all. They looked relieved. “Melody! Come to Mommy!” my mother cried. “It’s okay, Melody, your brother’s here!” Harrison added. In their eyes, she was just a frightened girl seeking their protection. But Melody ignored them completely. She genuinely wanted to kill me. Faced with the gleaming scalpel, I didn’t back down. I held my ground, even subtly adjusting my stance to be perfectly framed by the security camera. “Melody, put the scalpel down. It’s dangerous.” “I know you hate me for bringing you here, but I’m doing this for your own good.” “Go to hell, you bitch!” she roared, thrusting the scalpel at my throat. When the tip of the blade was just inches from my skin, I moved. No fancy combat skills. Just a precise sidestep and a well-placed foot. Melody’s own momentum sent her flying, and she landed face-first on the hard tile floor. The scalpel flew from her hand and, by a stroke of perfect misfortune, embedded itself in Harrison’s expensive leather shoe. “Aaaah!” Two screams echoed at once. One was Melody’s. She had likely broken her nose and her face was a bloody mess. The other was Harrison’s. The scalpel had pierced the leather and sunk deep into his foot. The scene erupted into chaos. I calmly brushed off my slacks and addressed the stunned doctors and security guards. “You all saw that.” “The patient is extremely aggressive and has even assaulted someone with a weapon.” “If that scalpel had hit me, I’d be a corpse right now.” “This constitutes severe violent tendencies, falling under Article 30 of the Mental Health Act, and requires the highest level of compulsory restraint.” I pointed to Melody, who was still twitching on the floor, then to Harrison, who was bleeding profusely. “See? She even stabbed her own brother. This is a very serious case.” “Doctor, perhaps the initial lobotomy plan was too conservative.” “I recommend we add electroconvulsive therapy to the treatment.” “If we can’t cut out the problem, maybe we can shock it out. It might dry up some of the water in her brain.” Morgan, who was trying to stop Harrison’s bleeding, snapped his head up. For the first time, there was real fear in his eyes. “Paige, are you the devil?” I smiled down at him, my eyes behind my glasses as cold as ice. “No, Morgan.” “I’m a lawyer. And I specialize in putting people back in their place.”

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1 I was born with no immunity, a “bubble girl” confined to a sterile room. My parents visited only in hazmat suits, and our home was ruled by a pathological fear of contamination. When my healthy twin, Rose, wished for a kitten on her fifth birthday, my parents erupted. “A cat could kill your sister!” my father roared. They sanitized everything until Rose, sobbing, swore she’d never want a cat again. My needs were absolute—my every wish was their command. Yet on my eighth birthday, when Rose showed me a family photo taken without me, I simply whispered that I wanted one too. My father snatched the photo and tore it apart. “All this money, every day, just to keep you alive—and you cry over a photo?” Behind her mask, my mother screamed, “Lydia, how can you be so cruel? How could you even be in a picture?” Then, her final blow: “You want a picture? Maybe when you’re dead. Then you can have all you want.” They stormed out. I was left breathless, a crushing weight on my chest—air never felt so thin. … With trembling legs, I knelt and began to gather the scattered pieces of the photo. That’s when I smelled it. A faint, alien scent slithering into my sterile world. My breath hitched. I looked toward the intake vent of the air filtration unit. A thin grate covered the opening. And there, wedged between the grate and its housing, was a tiny corner of a photograph, trembling with the flow of air. My heart began to hammer against my ribs. I crept closer, stood on my tiptoes, and stretched my arm, my fingers straining for the paper. The grate was too high. I couldn’t reach it. Broken. Something was broken. I knew what it meant. My body knew, too. The room began to spin. A dull ache bloomed in my chest, and a coppery, sweet taste rose in the back of my throat. I stumbled to my bed and sat, trying to calm the violent shaking in my hands. I was afraid to press the call button. The last time I’d used it was three months ago, for a blocked IV line. My mother had rushed in, her face etched with exhaustion. “Lydia,” she’d sighed, “you need to be more considerate. Your sister has a fever.” But this was different. I wasn’t trying to make trouble. The machine was broken. The air was poisoned. Still, I hesitated. I was terrified of the impatience in her voice, of hearing her say, “What is it now?” I dragged a chair over, climbed onto it, and wobbled as I reached up again. A wave of sharp dizziness washed over me. I pressed a hand against the wall to steady myself, gasping for air. Black spots danced at the edge of my vision, and a loud ringing filled my ears. I couldn’t do it. I scrambled down from the chair, my finger hovering over the green call button. Then I pressed it. The bell chimed three times before she answered. “Lydia?” It was Mom. In the background, I could hear upbeat music and Rose’s happy laughter. I tried to speak, to tell her the filtration unit was broken, that outside air was getting in. But my throat was closing up. All that came out were ragged, desperate gasps. “Are you crying?” Mom’s voice hardened. “Lydia, I’m with Rose, we’re retaking her photos. You’ve been difficult enough today. Stop throwing a tantrum!” Gasp… gasp… No… not a tantrum… I shook my head violently, a useless gesture she couldn’t see. Her voice was tight with suppressed frustration. “Fine. I know you’re upset. Just be quiet for a little while. I’ll call you back later.” The line went dead. The itching on my skin was turning into a burning sensation. I coughed, a wet, rattling sound, and stared at the bright crimson dot blooming in my palm. I pressed the call button again. She picked up on the first ring, her voice exploding through the speaker. “Lydia! What the hell do you want! I told you, we’re taking pictures!” I opened my mouth, but only a dry, rasping hiss escaped. “Can’t you just let your sister be happy for once?” Her voice was sharp, brittle with exhaustion. “You can’t be in the pictures! How many times do I have to tell you? Can you please just be considerate for once? Can you give your mother one moment of peace?” Beep. The dial tone droned on and on. I slowly reached out and pressed the button to end the call. I didn’t want to make Mom unhappy anymore. Maybe if I wasn’t here, she would always be happy. The room fell silent. My vision blurred. A deep, penetrating cold was spreading through my fingers. I looked down at the photo fragments scattered on the floor. My parents’ faces, torn into pieces. Rose, smiling between them, also shattered. I knelt again, gathering the pieces, my fingers numb and clumsy. I tried to fit my father’s brow with my mother’s eyes. If I had been healthy, would our family photo have looked like this? They were incomplete without me, I thought. But they were happy without me. The cold of the floor seeped into my bones. Clutching the torn pieces of my family, I crawled onto my bed. 2 I was floating. I passed through the wall and into the living room. The front door clicked open, and they were home. For the first time, I saw my mother without her protective suit. She was holding up a gold-rimmed certificate, her face lit with a smile so bright it had no shadows. “Our little Rose is so smart! First in her class!” My father took the certificate, a proud grin spreading across his face. They looked so different from the photos, so much happier without the bulky suits. Rose suddenly stopped. “I want to show Lydia my new doll.” She held it up. “I’ll disinfect it really well.” Mom’s smile flickered, but she quickly forced it back. “That’s very thoughtful of you, sweetie.” She stroked Rose’s hair. “But your sister’s not in a good mood today. She probably cried herself to sleep.” Rose’s lip trembled. “Is it because I showed her the family picture? I’m sorry.” Dad ruffled her hair. “It’s not your fault. Your sister is just… very fragile. It has nothing to do with you, Rose.” I stood right in front of him, trying to explain. No, Dad, it wasn’t that. The machine broke, I couldn’t fix it. And I didn’t cry. He couldn’t hear me. He walked right through me, leading Rose away. “I have to apologize to her,” Rose insisted, pulling away and running to the intercom that connected to my room. “Lydia! I’m sorry!” Her voice echoed into the silent space. “Do you want to play with my doll later?” The me on the bed, of course, didn’t answer. Rose waited a moment, then pressed the button again. “Lydia? Are you still mad?” My soul curled into a tight ball. I wanted to scream, to tell her, I’m not mad, Rose. I could never be mad at you. I’m just… gone. My mother’s voice came through the intercom next, edged with clear annoyance. “Lydia, this is the first toy we’ve ever bought for your sister. Can’t you play along for just a minute?” Okay, Mom. I will. Though I knew they couldn’t see me, I reached out and ghosted my fingers over the doll, then wrapped my arms around my little sister in a spectral hug. Thank you, Rose. The doll is beautiful. All these years, Rose had never had a proper toy. All the money, all the energy, all the attention had been poured into me. I was so sorry. But now, seeing the pure joy on her face as she held her first gift… it made me happy. From now on, you’ll have so many dolls, Rose. I did as Mom asked, then looked up at her, hoping for her approval. She just sighed, her voice heavy with weariness and disappointment. “Forget it. She’s just trying to get attention this way. If we ignore her, she’ll stop.” Dad’s face hardened. “I think we’ve spoiled her rotten!” He stomped over and started pressing the call button repeatedly. “Lydia, are you mute? Answer me! Who taught you to give people the silent treatment when you’re angry?” Rose held her doll up to block him. “Daddy, don’t be mean to Lydia.” Mom pulled his hand away from the button. “That’s enough. She was crying very hard earlier. She’s probably exhausted. Let her rest.” She took the doll from Rose’s hands. “You’re such a good girl, Rose. In a little while, we’ll sterilize the doll and put it in the transfer hatch. If your sister wants to play with it, she can get it herself.” Dad fell silent, turning away to sullenly start cleaning the house. I looked at the little doll sitting in the transfer hatch. What a shame. I’d never get to play with my sister. Rose held up her certificate, asking where to put it. Mom took it and consulted with Dad. Seeing the words “First Place” filled me with a quiet pride. The moment the certificate was taped to the living room wall, I spoke in unison with my parents. “Our Rose is amazing!” 3 That evening, Mom took a photo album from a drawer. Rose snuggled up next to her on the sofa. “What are we doing, Mommy?” Mom opened the album, revealing a few solo pictures of me. “We took an incomplete family photo today,” she said softly, her finger tracing the empty space on the new photograph. “Now, we’re going to put your sister in.” My heart, or what was left of it, gave a little flutter. Mom picked up a pair of scissors, but her hand trembled, hesitating over my picture. “Mommy?” Rose whispered. “I’m just thinking…” Her voice was thick with unshed tears. “How… how do I cut her out so it looks like she was really with us?” I looked at that empty space in the photo and felt a pang of sorrow. It’s too late, Mom. I’m already gone. No matter how many pictures you cut up, you can’t piece together a living daughter. “You and Lydia are twins, Rose. She was supposed to be just like you…” Her voice broke completely. “But she got so sick, and she could never leave that room. We knew she wouldn’t even be with us for many years.” Her words dissolved into sobs. “She could never, ever be in a family photo with us. So please, Rose, don’t be angry that Daddy and I are always thinking about her.” Rose’s eyes were wide and red-rimmed. She reached out a tiny hand to wipe away her mother’s tears. “Why would I be angry about that?” she said, her voice small but clear. “I’m always thinking about Lydia too, Mommy! I worry about her every day at school because she’s always sick. I want Lydia to be with us forever.” Mom pulled Rose into a tight hug, burying her face in her daughter’s small shoulder. After a long moment, she pulled back and managed a watery smile. She picked up the scissors again, her hand steady this time. Rose took a pair of safety scissors and joined her. Together, they worked. Rose carefully positioned the cutout of me in the empty space on the family photo. She was so gentle, as if she were afraid of hurting the paper version of me. “Like this, Mommy?” she asked, looking up. Mom took it, making tiny adjustments, angling my cutout so I fit perfectly in the gap. It looked like I was really there, standing between them, perhaps turning my head to listen to something Dad was saying. Rose held her breath, then let out a tiny “wow.” “Look, Mommy! Now it’s a real family photo!” Mom stared at the picture for a long time, her expression unreadable. Then she carried the patched-together photograph to the door of my sterile room, Rose trailing behind her. They stopped at the transfer hatch. Mom knelt, placed the photo carefully on the sterilized tray, and pushed it through the small opening. “Lydia, your sister and I made a family photo for you. See? You’re right in the middle.” She paused, her voice softer now. “I’m sorry I was so harsh today, honey. I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just… sometimes I get so tired.” Rose leaned toward the intercom. “Do you like it, Lydia? I cut it out really carefully, I didn’t mess up at all!” They waited for a response that would never come. After a moment, Mom sighed. “She’s probably asleep. We’ll check on her tomorrow.” They turned to leave. Mom walked slowly, glancing back over and over. Rose held her hand. “Will she be happy, Mommy?” Her mother’s voice floated back, thin and hopeful. “Yes. She’ll be very happy.” And she was right. I was happy. I was happy to finally have a family photo that looked complete. I wasn’t the monster who could never fit into their lives. I floated to the transfer hatch and looked at the photograph on the tray. In the dim light, the seams were almost invisible. We looked like a real, happy family. Dad’s hand seemed to rest on my shoulder, Mom was leaning her head toward me, and Rose was grinning from ear to ear. The photograph lay there silently, in the shadows of the hatch, waiting for someone who would never come to claim it.

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