“Liam, honey, you need to clear your calendar for this weekend. You’re taking me to that new French place downtown.” I stepped into my husband’s office, expecting the usual quiet sanctuary of his workspace. Liam had always been the picture of the ultimate devoted husband—never a stray glance, always entirely focused on our life together. But today, he was holding the hand of the new intern. My blood ran hot. I marched toward them, my hand already raising to slap her smug face, when a strange, echoing voice vibrated directly in my mind: “Go on, slap me! Hit me hard! The live feed said that as long as this toxic villainess slaps me, the male lead will hate her even more!” “This brainless rich girl is such a cliché. A tiny little trick and she already suspects him.” “Keep throwing your tantrums, honey. I’m the main character here. Your ending is a psych ward; mine is a walk down the aisle.” My hand froze in midair. I stared into the intern’s wide, intensely hopeful eyes. Slowing my momentum, I let my hand drop slightly, gently cupping her soft, youthful cheek instead of striking it. “You have beautiful skin, sweetheart,” I murmured, brushing a thumb over her cheekbone. “No wonder my husband likes it so much. He just can’t seem to let go of your hand.” … Phoebe was visibly stunned. Her innocent little face faltered, completely unprepared for this twist in the script. “Why didn’t she slap me?!” “The feed said the villainess would slap me the second she saw us holding hands!” “If she doesn’t hit me, how is he going to feel sorry for me and start hating her?!” I scoffed internally. “Hit you? In your dreams, sweetie.” Liam let go of her hand, stepping toward me to wrap his arm around my waist. “Charlotte, honey, don’t get the wrong idea. She almost tripped, and I was just catching her.” “Of course I believe you.” I looked up at him, flashing my sweetest, most compliant smile. “Actually, Liam, I have a tiny favor to ask.” “What is it?” “I really like this girl.” I slipped my arm through his, adopting the slightly spoiled, demanding tone he was so used to. “I want her transferred to my office as my personal assistant.” I needed to keep her close, right where I could monitor this bizarre internal frequency of hers. Liam frowned, hesitating. “She’s doing incredibly well in Corporate Strategy. The director specifically requested her for the team.” In my head, Phoebe’s inner voice cheered: “The director never said that!” “The feed was right—the male lead already has feelings for me. He’s making up excuses to keep me near him!” “Poor little rich girl doesn’t suspect a thing. What an idiot.” The irritation in my chest flared hot and sharp. I pushed Liam away. “What is that supposed to mean? I can’t even have one intern?” “That’s not what I meant—” “Then what do you mean?” I demanded, locking eyes with him. Liam looked momentarily lost, his eyes instinctively darting to Phoebe. She stood behind him, looking like a trembling, defenseless deer. But her mind was throwing a party: “Yes! Get mad! The feed is spot-on—the more she throws a tantrum, the more sick of her he gets!” “He looked at me! He’s worried about my feelings! My approval rating is soaring!” I took a deep, steadying breath, swallowing the urge to physically wipe the smirk off her face. “Liam, I’m going to ask you one last time.” I crossed my arms, tilting my chin toward Phoebe. “Yes or no?” I was Charlotte Davenport. My parents had spent my entire life shielding me from the harshness of the world, and in our five years of marriage, Liam had never denied me a single thing. And now he was hesitating over an intern? Unacceptable. Liam looked at me, eventually letting out a quiet sigh. “Of course, Charlotte. Whatever makes you happy.” Phoebe’s mind practically shrieked with panic: “What?! He’s actually transferring me to her? No! If I’m stuck with her, how am I supposed to secure the male lead?” “Wait… the feed says it’s fine. It says this will actually make him feel guilty, and he’ll slowly start to see Charlotte as selfish and unreasonable.” “Yes, exactly! I just need to play the victim. He’ll only pity me more!” Over the next few days, I kept Phoebe under a microscope. Yet, every morning, her first priority wasn’t reporting to me. It was sneaking off to Liam’s office. “He praised my reports today! He said they were better than what the senior analysts put out. Teehee. The feed says his affection level went up by one.” At lunchtime, she would “coincidentally” run into him at the cafeteria. “He asked if I was eating alone and sat with me! He said I have such a great personality, that I’m hardworking, unlike some spoiled heiresses who only know how to spend money.” In the afternoon, Liam would stop by my office under the guise of business. Seeing Phoebe typing away at her desk, he would casually murmur, “Don’t work too hard, Phoebe. Go home early tonight.” “He cares about me! The feed is right—the less Charlotte does, the more my hard work shines.” Sitting at my desk, my fingers tightened around the edges of the lifestyle magazine I was holding, slowly crushing the glossy paper. Technically, Liam hadn’t crossed any lines. No touching, no kissing, no inappropriate texts. He probably genuinely believed he was just being a supportive mentor to a promising, hardworking young woman. But listening to those thoughts day after day made a cold dread settle deep in my stomach. It came to a head on Tuesday afternoon when I went to drop off some files at his office. I saw it in his eyes as he looked at her. A subtle shift. Something unfamiliar. Admiration. And worse—pity. I decided to test him. The next morning, Phoebe handed me a brief. The formatting was a disaster, the fonts mismatched and messy. I took the folder, walked straight into Liam’s office, and tossed it onto his desk. “Look at this. This is your ‘brilliant’ intern? She can’t even align a paragraph. How did she pass her screening?” Liam flipped through the pages, his brow furrowing slightly, but his voice remained gentle. “Charlotte, she’s fresh out of college. There’s no need to be so harsh. Formatting is something she’ll get used to with time.” “He defended me again! The feed says the male lead is officially getting tired of her princess attitude!” Later, I asked Phoebe to make me a coffee. When she brought it, it was lukewarm, drowned in milk, and sickly sweet. I took a sip right in front of her and spat it back into the mug. “What is this? Are you here to work or are you on vacation?” Phoebe’s eyes instantly welled with tears. She lowered her head, her voice trembling. “I’m so sorry, Charlotte. I’ll make another one right away…” “Bear with it. The feed says the more she bullies me, the more cruel he’ll think she is.” Right on cue, Liam materialized at the door. Seeing her red-rimmed eyes, his frown deepened. “Charlotte, it’s just a cup of coffee. Is there any need to raise your voice like that?” I looked up at him. “She can’t even remember how I take my coffee. You call that capable?” “She’s only been here a week. Give her some time to adjust.” Liam’s voice carried a distinct edge of irritation. “Do you always have to be so…” He stopped himself, but I knew the word he wanted to say. “Difficult.” I let out a dry, humorless laugh. Leaning back in my chair, I waved my hand dismissively. “Phoebe, leave us.” Phoebe glanced between Liam and me, then walked out with her head bowed. Liam pulled up a chair next to mine, his tone softening. “Charlotte, what is going on with you lately?” “Nothing.” “You’re angry.” He reached out, wrapping his fingers tightly around mine, locking our hands together. “Is this still about the other day? I already gave you Phoebe, didn’t I?” I looked at him, searching his eyes. Did he really not see what he was doing, or was he just playing dumb? “Let me ask you something,” I said quietly. “Do you think she’s better than me?” Liam stared at me for a second, then chuckled. “What kind of comparison is that? You’re my wife. She’s just an employee. I’m only helping her because she genuinely has potential.” Outside the door, Phoebe’s triumphant thoughts floated in: “He’s absolutely comparing them in his head! The feed says his attraction score just ticked up again!” Ignoring the voice, I kept my eyes locked on his. “Then why don’t you take Phoebe to our dinner date this weekend? You two can discuss all that potential over dinner.” Liam sighed, reaching up to pinch my cheek playfully. “Stop talking nonsense. Why would I take her? My weekend belongs entirely to my wife.” A brief spark of warmth flickered in my chest. But it was instantly snuffed out by the voice outside. “The rich girl is so incredibly gullible. She believes whatever he says. But the feed already predicted it—he’s going to use a work emergency as an excuse, and then he’s taking me to that food truck court I love instead.” My smile froze. “No,” I told myself. “The voices don’t dictate reality. Whatever system she has, it could easily be a delusion.” On Friday afternoon, I did my makeup, put on a new dress, and waited for Liam to finish work. At 5:30 PM, my phone buzzed. Liam: “Charlotte, honey, an unexpected client dinner came up. I can’t make it tonight. I’m so sorry. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” I stared at the screen, the blue light stinging my eyes. I typed out a long reply, then deleted it. In the end, I only sent one word: “Okay.” The next day, I was scrolling through social media when I saw Phoebe’s latest post. There was no caption. Just a single photo: a smoky street-side taco stand under string lights, and across the table, a man’s hands. On his left ring finger was the band I had spent weeks picking out. After that weekend, Liam seemed to sense the distance growing between us. For the next few days, he came home early every night, bringing small gifts and trying to initiate conversation. On Wednesday night, as we lay in bed, he wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Charlotte, I have a business trip this weekend. I have to go to Chicago for three days to close a major acquisition. It’s crucial for the firm.” I nodded against the pillow. “Okay.” He kissed the back of my neck. “Good girl. I’ll bring you back something nice.” The next morning, as I walked toward my desk, I caught Phoebe’s thoughts before I even opened the door. “Oh my god! The feed says he’s taking me to Santorini!” “A cliffside villa! The sunset suite! The exact place Charlotte has been begging him to take her for five years!” “The feed is right—I’m his soulmate. That high-maintenance villainess belongs in an institution.” The ceramic mug in my hand nearly slipped from my grip. Santorini. The honeymoon we had promised each other when we got married. For five years, I had brought it up. He always said he was too busy. “Next year, honey. Let’s wait until things settle down.” And now, he was taking her. My hands shook as I quietly closed my office door. Around noon, I went down to Liam’s office. He was reading through some documents, but he looked up and smiled when I walked in. “Hey. Miss me already?” I sat opposite him, studying his face. This was the man I had loved for over a decade. “Liam,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Do you remember the promise you made me?” He blinked, then smiled warmly. “Of course. Santorini.” “When are we going?” “Sweetheart, I am buried in work right now.” He stood up, walking over to gently stroke my hair. “As soon as things quiet down, I promise I’ll take you, okay?” “As soon as things quiet down.” The same empty currency he’d been throwing at me for years. I forced a smile and said nothing. I was tired of waiting. On Thursday, they left. I stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office, watching his black sedan pull out of the parking garage. I pulled out my phone and texted my closest friend, Piper. “Find me a divorce lawyer. The absolute best in the city.” Her reply came instantly: “??? Are you insane?” “I’ve never been more clear-headed. Just send me a name.” A long pause. Then: “Declan Ross. He’s a partner at Ross & Associates, top-tier family law. He was also our high school class president. Remember him?” I stared at the screen. Declan. The tall, quiet boy who used to leave cartons of strawberry milk on my desk during recess. The next day, I walked into his high-rise office. He was wearing an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, looking far more refined and grounded than he had in high school. There was a quiet strength to him that was entirely different from Liam’s flashy confidence. After listening to my story, Declan didn’t offer empty platitudes. He simply leaned forward. “I’ll draft the petition. We’ll go after everything you’re entitled to.” He paused, his gaze softening. “And my services are on the house.” “Declan, I can’t let you do that—” “Sophomore year, when those three guys cornered me behind the gym trying to take my lunch money, you swung your skateboard and chased them off. I’ve remembered that for ten years.” He tilted his head, a faint, nostalgic smile playing on his lips. “Back then, you told me if it wasn’t for him, you would’ve chosen me. What about now?” I couldn’t find the words to answer. The night the draft agreement was finalized, I saw Phoebe’s feed update on social media. The blue domes of Santorini, the golden Aegean sunset, the infinity pool hanging over the cliffs. The final photo was a silhouette of Liam. He was standing on a whitewashed balcony, looking out at the endless blue. Caption: “Thank you for showing me the most beautiful place in the world.” I stared at the screen for a long, quiet minute. Then, I pulled up Liam’s contact info, attached the draft divorce petition, and sent it. I added a simple message: “I want a divorce.” Before he could reply, I blocked his number. I packed a bag and went straight to my parents’ house. Seeing the exhaustion etched into my face, they didn’t pry. They simply told me to rest and assured me they had my back. I retreated to my childhood bedroom. Sitting in the dark, pulling my knees to my chest, memories of Liam flooded my mind like a projector on loop. Liam at fifteen, waiting for me by the bleachers. Liam at eighteen, setting off illegal fireworks under my window. Liam at twenty-two, down on one knee, whispering that I was his entire world. Liam at twenty-seven, brushing my hair aside, promising we’d go to Greece when he wasn’t so busy. Five years of waiting. Five years of believing him, only for him to take someone else. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from Declan: “Are you comfortable with the terms in the draft?” I replied: “Yes. It’s perfect. Thank you, Declan.” Declan: “Always. Would you do me the honor of letting me take you to dinner?” I thought about it. “Let me treat you instead. To thank you for all of this.” Declan: “I’d love that. Honestly, I’ve been craving a home-cooked meal. It’s been a while since I had one.” Reading his reply, I remembered how his parents had split up during our junior year, leaving him to live alone in a rented studio, often skipping meals before night study. My heart softened. “Come over to my parents’ place tomorrow. I’ll have our housekeeper make us something.” The next morning, my mother knocked and slipped into my room. “You look pale, sweetie. Did you sleep at all?” “I’m fine, Mom.” I paused. “Could we add sweet and sour ribs to the lunch menu today?” “I thought you hated sweet glazes.” “They’re for a friend. He’s helping me through a lot, and I wanted to make sure he has something he likes.” She smiled gently. “Of course. I’ll tell the kitchen.” Around eleven, the doorbell rang. I went to open it. Declan stood on the porch, wearing a charcoal-grey crewneck sweater and dark trousers, holding a basket of fresh fruit. “Thanks for having me.” “Come on in,” I said, leading him toward the dining room. Declan was an effortless conversationalist. Within twenty minutes, he had my parents completely charmed. Then, the heavy front door swung open. Liam walked in, looking disheveled and frantic. He took in the scene in the dining room, his expression darkening into something raw and ugly. “We aren’t even divorced yet,” his voice cracked, hoarse and trembling, “and you’ve already brought him into your parents’ home?”

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I pushed the stroller into the real estate office. The agent asked, her tone a flat, routine formality: “Selling the marital home—does your husband agree to this?” In the stroller, my daughter erupted into a sudden, piercing wail. With practiced ease, I scooped her up with my left arm, steadying her against my chest, and signed the contract with my right. My signature was shaky, a jagged line. My wrist had been throbbing with tendonitis for a solid month now. “I’m widowed,” I said. The man named Devin was still very much alive. He was living just as he always had before we got together—vibrant, reckless, entirely untethered. But as a father, he had died the very day our daughter was born. My phone buzzed. It was Devin. When I picked up, it wasn’t his voice, but a young girl’s. “Oh, Devin, I honestly don’t know how you stand it,” she cooed, her voice dripping with mock sympathy. “You’re this brilliant, celebrated artist, and your wife is so let-down. Look at this place—even a rat would need GPS to navigate this mess. Ugh, is that dirty diapers I smell? Gross…” Then came Devin’s voice, muffled, as if he were pinching his nose in disgust. “She didn’t use to be like this. Ever since the baby came, she just… got lazy.” I calmly handed the signed contract back to the agent. Before the pregnancy, before the labor, I had loved him with every fiber of my being. Now? I hated him with that exact same intensity. … 1 “Mom, I booked the flight.” “Sweetie, are you sure about this? Ten years… that’s a long time to walk away from.” “Sunk costs shouldn’t dictate major life decisions,” I replied, my voice steady. “Okay. The baby doesn’t have a birth certificate yet, right? We’ll register her back here in Boston. She’ll take your last name.” “Yeah. That’s exactly what I was thinking.” When I got into the taxi to head back to the apartment, a strange, crystalline calm washed over me. The intensity of my current hatred was the perfect, terrifying mirror of how passionately I had once loved him. We were the college sweethearts everyone envied. But poetry and grand romantic gestures crumble like ash when faced with the grinding, brutal reality of daily life. I held my daughter close, my exhausted body sinking into the worn cushions of the sofa. How did Devin and I end up here? The day I found out I was pregnant, Devin had been ecstatic. “Fiona,” he’d said, gently cupping my face, “as soon as this busy season wraps up, I’m going to give you the most beautiful wedding.” He had stroked my barely swollen belly, his eyes bright with tears. “Trust me, Fiona. I’m going to be a great dad.” We had been together for ten years, from age nineteen to twenty-nine. I believed him. I believed he’d be a great father, and I believed that a marriage certificate was just a formality we’d eventually get to. So, I stepped back from managing his art studio to focus on a healthy pregnancy. To replace me, he hired a new assistant: Melanie. After that, Devin was always busy. Busy painting. Busy mentoring his students. Busy doing press. Busy organizing galleries. I was always waiting for the “after this is done.” But while I waited alone, Melanie was always there, hovering in his shadow. He missed one prenatal appointment after another. When I called him, it was always Melanie who answered. “I’m so sorry, Fiona,” she’d say, her tone sweet but sharp. “Devin is right in the middle of an interview.” The day my water broke, I was the one who had to call 911. The hospital bag had been packed by Melanie—and it contained nothing but a single pack of diapers and two newborn onesies. She had offered a plastic, apologetic smile when she dropped it off. “I’m so sorry, Fiona. I really don’t know much about babies. Devin was just so swamped, he couldn’t leave the studio, so I had to wing it…” I nearly died on that delivery table, enduring a grueling labor that ended in an emergency C-section. When the nurse finally wheeled me and my baby girl back to the recovery room, Melanie was sitting there, peeling an apple for my mother-in-law, Martha. Martha was beaming. “Oh, Melanie, if only you were my daughter-in-law. You’re so young, so capable!” When they saw me roll in, Martha cast a dismissive glance at my wrinkled, tiny daughter in the bassinet. “Well, I guess when you have a baby at your age, your body just can’t keep up.” I ignored the bite in her words. “Where is Devin? Why isn’t he here?” Melanie smiled smoothly. “Fiona, Devin is deep in his creative zone for the new series. We couldn’t let distractions interrupt his muse, could we?” Martha chimed in, “Exactly. Every woman has babies. Why make such a drama out of it?” She then patted Melanie’s hand pointedly. “And besides, they never actually signed the papers. Don’t call her ‘Mrs. Ward’—it’s not appropriate.” I pretended not to hear, biting my lip to suppress the agonizing throbbing of my fresh incision as I dragged myself back onto the hospital bed. During the hemorrhaging scare in the OR, when the alarms were blaring, a sudden clarity had hit me. People change. The love he had for me once was real. But so was his current, chilling indifference. Devin had found someone who matched his rhythm again. And that someone was no longer me. I was the leftover piece of his past. I checked my phone. Devin had sent only one text, over twelve hours ago: “Just focus on the baby. My mom and Melanie are there with you.” A moment later, Martha and Melanie were grabbing their coats. “Well, now that the baby’s here, I can rest easy,” Martha said. “Melanie, let’s get some dinner.” Melanie’s voice was bright. “Oh, yes! I heard that new French bistro down the street is incredible. Let’s try it!” In the bassinet, my daughter began to scream, her tiny lungs straining, the sound piercing my eardrums. I lay paralyzed on the bed, my body feeling as though it had been shattered, unable to even sit up. The moment she was born, I became a mother—biologically, emotionally, completely. But Devin? He was still the boy lost in his canvases, chasing romantic illusions. As the tears and postpartum bleeding flowed unceasingly, I whispered to myself: “My baby doesn’t have a father.” The night nurse from the next bed over, seeing my struggle, came over to help change my daughter’s diaper. “When they’re this small, they’re either hungry, wet, or dirty,” she said gently. “Do you have any family coming?” I shook my head. “No. Could you recommend a private nurse? I need someone to start immediately. I’ll pay extra.” During my five days in the hospital, Devin never once showed up. When he occasionally remembered my existence, he’d send a brief text: “Fiona, thank you for giving me such a beautiful daughter. Melanie sent me the photos.” Melanie came by every afternoon, fulfilling Devin’s duties as a husband in the most superficial way possible. “Fiona,” she’d say, “Devin has a lecture today, so he can’t make it.” Or, “Fiona, Devin is speaking at his alma mater. The schedule was set months ago; he can’t cancel.” She called me Fiona. Never “Mrs. Ward” anymore. She came daily to report Devin’s schedule, but it was pure performance—a subtle, cruel flexing of power. It made me dependent on her just to know where the father of my child was and what he was doing. She snapped photos of my daughter to send to him, accompanying them with mocking texts she didn’t bother to hide from me: “Devin, she doesn’t really look like you, does she? Haha.” or “Look at her cone-head. She looks like an alien.” I texted Devin: “When are you coming?” Two hours later, his reply came: “Once this gallery rush is over. My mom and Melanie are there. They’ll take care of you.” I stopped texting. You can’t wake someone who is pretending to sleep. I was never going to get his “after this.” The day I was discharged, the wind was biting. I ordered my own taxi. My hired nurse held the baby. We had almost no luggage—just a diaper bag with formula, diapers, and my postpartum mesh underwear. The clothes I wore were stained, smelling of sweat and postpartum discharge. Those five days were the most humiliating, physically devastating days of my life. If Devin couldn’t show up then, he didn’t need to show up ever again. Rage burned in my chest, but I forced it down, reminding myself to breathe. “Don’t get angry, don’t let it consume you,” I repeated like a mantra. “It will dry up your milk. It will make you sick. That only hurts you and the baby.” I was a mother now. I had to be strong.

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My dad was dead drunk again, drowning himself in cheap whiskey because he missed my mom. That was when his phone started to ring. I stared at the screen, my heart stopping at the caller ID: “Wife”. I froze. Mom had been dead for two years. Her number had been deactivated a long time ago. Hands shaking, I swiped to answer. A voice drifted through the line—familiar, yet impossibly distant. “Hello? Is this Lester, eight years in the future? Guess who!” She sounded so bright, so sweet. It was nothing like the fragile, raspy whisper the cancer had left her with before she died. I squeezed my eyes shut and whispered her name. “Helena.” My mom let out a soft gasp, sounding utterly thrilled. “Oh my gosh! Are you… are you Lester’s and my baby?” She lowered her voice to a playful whisper. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. This is your mom, twenty-four years old. You’re actually in my tummy right now! Three months along!” I looked at my dad passed out on the sofa, and then around our dark, cold apartment. I couldn’t let her go through that hell again. After a long, heavy silence, I forced the words out. “Lester is my dad.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “But you aren’t my mother. My mother is Lydia Pierce. Your best friend.” … 1 “Sweetheart, that’s not a very funny joke,” she said. There was a brief pause, her tone still incredibly gentle. “Did your Aunt Lydia teach you to say that? I swear, even eight years from now, she’s still obsessed with practical jokes.” Hearing her call me “sweetheart”—a word I hadn’t heard in two long years—I had to clamp my hand over my mouth to stifle the sob rising in my chest. I couldn’t let her hear me cry. “Hello? Are you still there?” she asked. I took a shuddering breath. “I’m not lying to you. I can prove it. What is the date today on your end?” She gave me the date. I closed my eyes, my mind racing back through the fragmented memories and the diary entries I had memorized. “You’re getting married next month, right?” I asked. “And last week, you ordered a custom bridal jewelry set to go with your wedding dress. It’s supposed to be delivered today.” My mom gasped. “And you still claim you aren’t Lester’s and my baby? Look how well you know our story!” “You’re never going to receive that set,” I said quietly. “Because Lydia… my mother… told my dad she loved it. So he had the jeweler send it to her instead. If you call them, the jeweler will claim there was a shipping delay and offer you a replacement—one that costs half as much. You won’t like it, but Dad will tell you he thinks the cheaper one looks better on you anyway. He’ll pressure you until you accept it. The truth is, my mother wanted to prove she mattered more to him than you did.” Silence stretched over the line. I gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white, my heart hammering against my ribs. Finally, she let out a nervous laugh. “You make it sound so real. Fine, I’ll call the jeweler and check. But if you’re pulling my leg, young lady, I’m calling back to give you a very stern talking-to!” Relief washed over me. “You can call again?” “I have three calls total,” she said cheerfully. Two left. I looked down at my worn-out shoes, telling myself: “That’s enough. It has to be.” “Oh, by the way, you haven’t told me your name yet.” “I’m Hazel,” I whispered. My mom laughed. “See? I knew you were mine. I spent weeks looking through baby-name books to pick out ‘Hazel’!” The lump in my throat grew heavier. I swallowed hard and warned her: “When you call back, pretend you don’t know my dad. Just ask for Hazel.” “Got it, got it,” she said playfully, clearly still thinking this was a game. “Just wait for my call!” The line went dead with a quiet click. I stood there for a long time, the phone still pressed to my ear. When I finally lowered my hand, I wiped my tears and quickly deleted the contact name “Wife” from my dad’s phone. I knew that once my mom uncovered the truth, she probably wouldn’t call back. She would be too devastated, too busy unraveling her life. But there was still a chance. Sudden, violent banging on the front door shook me out of my thoughts. I opened it to find Lydia. Her hair was a mess, her face twisted in a desperate, frantic grimace. She shoved me hard against the wall. “Move, you little parasite!” She stormed past me straight into my dad’s bedroom. “Lester! I need a hundred thousand dollars! Now! The loan sharks are going to break my hand if I don’t pay them by tonight!” My dad, barely conscious from the alcohol, let out a dry, bitter laugh. “Not my problem.” Lydia completely lost it, screaming at the top of her lungs. “You promised you’d take care of me forever! You’re still obsessed with that dead bitch, aren’t you? She’s been dead for two years, Lester! You already ruined my face for her! What more do you want from me?!” My dad sat up, his eyes bloodshot and full of venom. “I want Helena back. I want you to rot in hell for what you did to her.” Lydia burst into a wild, screeching laugh. “Oh, please! Is her death entirely my fault, Lester? Sure, I made sure she walked in on us screwing right there in her father’s hospital room. I knew it would kill the old man. But you weren’t exactly fighting me off, were you? You enjoyed every second of it. When you were on top of me, did you once stop to think about the doctors warning you that Helena’s heart couldn’t take any stress?” “Crack.” My dad lunged forward and slapped her hard across the face. “Get the hell out of my house!” Clutching her reddened cheek, Lydia stumbled out of his room, panting with rage. But when her eyes fell on me, standing frozen in the hallway, a sick, desperate light flickered in them. She lunged, grabbing me by the throat, and began dragging me toward the front door. “Fine. I’ll just hand you over to them instead. They’ll take whatever they can get.” For a second, I didn’t even want to fight back. What did it matter? But then, from the bedroom, my dad’s phone started to ring. My heart flared. I began thrashing wildly, clawing at her face, digging my nails into her arms. Lydia shrieked in pain, but her grip only tightened around my neck, cutting off my air. Thankfully, the ringing had drawn my dad out of the room. When he saw Lydia choking me, his eyes went cold. He stormed over and kicked her hard in the ribs, sending her crashing to the floor. “You never cared about this kid anyway!” Lydia spat, clutching her side as she glared up at him with pure hatred. “Let me do us both a favor and get rid of her!” My dad didn’t even look at her as he murmured, “She is the only thing Helena left behind.” I gasped for air, scrambling up from the floor, and bolted toward the bedroom where the phone was ringing. But my knees buckled, and I went crashing down onto the hardwood. In that split second of delay, the ringing stopped. I missed it. At that moment, the raw pain of my bruised neck, my scraped knees, and the crushing despair of losing my mom all over again hit me at once. I broke down, sobbing uncontrollably. My dad walked right past my shaking body, muttering under his breath, “What is wrong with you?” He picked up the phone and dialed the missed number back. It was just one of his business associates. I forced myself to stop crying. Shivering, I wiped my eyes and sat quietly on the floor, waiting. When my dad hung up and saw me still hovering near him, his brow furrowed. “Why are you still standing there?” He paused, his eyes lingering on my face. A shadow of remorse passed over his features. He walked over to the dresser, pulled a tube of burn ointment out of the drawer, and knelt down in front of me. Images flashed in my mind—of him grabbing me by the shoulders, shaking me violently, screaming that I was a useless piece of trash who couldn’t even keep my mother alive. I flinched, my shoulders tensing instinctively. The cold ointment was smeared onto my cheek, but his words were even colder. “I’m hiring a housekeeper. Stop trying to cook.” He gently rubbed the cream over the raw red scar on my cheek, where hot oil had splattered a few days ago. “If you ruin that face—the only face that looks like hers—I will let Lydia take you. Do you understand?” I nodded numbly. His phone buzzed again. I pretended to look away, but my eyes were locked on the screen out of the corner of my eye. My dad stared at the display, then handed the phone to me, his expression suspicious. “For you?” Since he hadn’t recognized my mom’s voice, I breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s probably my teacher from school,” I mumbled. “You’re busy, Dad. I’ll take it outside so I don’t bother you.” He shrugged and let me go. I kept my pace steady until I reached the backyard, then quickly pressed the phone to my ear. “It’s me.” “What’s wrong with your voice?” my mom asked. She sounded incredibly sad, but there was a thread of genuine worry in her tone. Tears pricked my eyes. “My dad and mom are throwing me a birthday party,” I lied, my voice cracking. “I was just screaming and laughing so much that I lost my voice.” “Oh.” She paused for a long moment before whispering, “Well… happy birthday, sweetheart.” On the other side of the screen, where she couldn’t see me, a huge, goofy smile broke across my face through my tears. When I was three, my dad had ruined my grandfather’s business, freezing all of my mom’s assets to force her to beg him and Lydia for money. To survive, Mom had to work grueling shifts with her fragile health just to support me and pay for my grandfather’s medical bills after his suicide attempt left him with severe brain damage. We were dirt poor back then, but every single year on my birthday, Mom would scrape together enough coins to buy me a tiny cupcake. She always smiled and said she didn’t like sweets, telling me to eat the whole thing. But before my grandfather jumped, he had pulled me aside and whispered that my mom actually loved sweets more than anything. So, I would pout and play coy, refusing to take a bite unless she did. We would end up sharing that tiny cupcake, taking turns until every last crumb was gone. After she died, my dad brought me back to this massive, empty house. But no one ever remembered my birthday again. “Do you believe me now?” I asked quietly. The line went silent for a moment. “That was Lester who answered earlier, wasn’t it? Put him on the phone. I need to hear it from him.” I bit my lip hard. “Why? What do you want? My mom and dad wasted so many years because of you. Are you trying to ruin their lives again?” “I ruined “their” lives?” my mom’s voice rose, sharp with disbelief. “One was my fiancé, the other my best friend, and they were sneaking around behind my back! Lester claimed he was just feeling sorry for Lydia. Let me guess—with my temper, I probably threw a fit, threatened to get an abortion, and called off the wedding. And then your mother, Lydia, swooped in, got pregnant with you, and forced Lester to marry her because he had no choice. Am I right?” Hearing her speak with such proud, misplaced confidence made my stomach twist. I was furious, but I didn’t know how to lie to her anymore. “So, kiddo,” she continued, her voice softening slightly, “even though it breaks my heart to say this to a child… I’m going to forgive Lester. Which means you are never going to exist.” Panic flared inside me, and my brain scrambled for a way out. “You won’t get the chance!” I blurted. “Because my mom doesn’t get pregnant with me until tomorrow.” “What?” “Tomorrow is your mother’s memorial service,” I said, the words spilling out fast. “Dad is going to lie to you. He’ll say he has a major investor meeting and can’t go with you to the cemetery. But he’s actually going to a hotel with my mom.” I quickly rattled off the name of the boutique hotel and the room number. She gasped. “How… how could a child possibly know that?” “Because my dad used to read your old diary out loud to us like it was a joke,” I muttered. In reality, he had read it to Lydia, laughing at how pathetic and naive Helena had been. The silence on the other end was heavy, broken only by her shaky breathing. “Fine,” she finally whispered, her voice trembling. “If what you say is true… I will walk away and let your little family be.” “Will you… will you call me back one last time to let me know?” I asked in a small voice. She let out a dry, exasperated breath. “Fine. Yes. I promise.” The call disconnected. I stood in the yard, staring blankly at the grass. I hadn’t lied to her. Lydia really was going to get pregnant. And three months from now, she would fake a miscarriage during a shopping trip with my mom, claiming she lost the baby while trying to “protect” her. My mom spent years carrying that crushing guilt, doing everything she could to make it up to Lydia. But Lydia secretly told my dad a different story—that my mom had intentionally shoved her down the stairs. My dad harbored that grudge for years. After he finally seized my grandfather’s company, he cornered my grandfather and told him that one of us had to pay for that unborn baby’s life. My grandfather, desperate to protect my mom and me, jumped from the top floor of his office building. Even after that, my dad used my grandfather’s mounting ICU bills to torture my mom. He forced her onto her knees in front of him and Lydia, demanding she bow her head to the floor over and over again until they were satisfied. Mom did it, her forehead bruised and bleeding onto the polished wood. But when she finished, my dad just grabbed her by the throat and sneered, “That old bastard always looked down on me. Why the hell would I spend a dime to keep him alive?” But my grandfather had funded his entire college education and his first start-up. He had always praised Lester’s talent; he had only gently warned Mom that their personalities might not be a good fit. A sharp gust of wind cut through my shirt, pulling me back to the present. I walked inside and handed the phone back to my dad. As I turned to leave, his voice stopped me cold. “What’s this teacher’s name?” he asked, studying my face. “Her voice… it sounded just like Helena’s.” Panic froze my limbs. “Mrs. Miller,” I squeaked out, my voice barely audible. “She’s married.” My dad watched my expression for a second, then let out a harsh laugh. “What are you looking like that for? Some random woman on the phone isn’t fit to breathe the same air as Helena.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Go on, get out.” As he reached for his drink, his sleeve slid up, revealing his forearm. It was covered in a horrifying lattice of thick, jagged scars. Fifty-six cuts in total. He had carved them into his own flesh after finally discovering that Lydia’s miscarriage had been a lie all along. Fifty-six cuts—because Mom had died on May sixth. I retreated to my room, crawled under the bed, and pulled out a notebook thick with layers of clear tape. After my dad and Lydia had finished mocking Mom’s diary, they had torn it into tiny shreds. I had spent nights digging through the trash, collecting every single piece, and taping them back together. Mom never knew I did this. She died wanting to forget her past, but I only wanted to hold onto whatever piece of her I could find. On her eighteenth birthday, she had written: “Lester is such an idiot! He actually worked on a construction site for two whole months just to buy me a birthday present. He’s so sunburnt and has lost so much weight, but he still smiles and tells me it’s nothing. I love him so much.” At twenty: “My boy is amazing. He’s only twenty and he’s already starting his own company! I knew I picked a winner in high school. Okay, so maybe I threw a little tantrum to get my dad to secretly fund his first round of investors… but Lester doesn’t need to know that. I don’t want him to feel pressured.” At twenty-four, when she found out she was pregnant: “I can’t believe it! I never thought I’d be a mom this early. I guess we need to speed up the wedding planning! Lester actually cried when I told him. He loves kids so much; he’s going to be the absolute best father. Thank you for choosing me to be your mommy, my sweet baby.” But just two years later, the handwriting changed. The pen had pressed so hard into the paper it had nearly torn through the pages: “Why? Why? Why did he betray me? I can’t tell Dad. He’ll destroy himself trying to protect me, but Lester already controls the entire company now. I can’t let him ruin everything Dad built. What do I do, baby? You’re still so tiny. Please tell Mommy what to do…” A tear slipped down my cheek, blurring the faded ink. I clutched the tattered diary tightly to my chest. “Don’t be afraid, Mom,” I whispered into the quiet room. “Your baby is going to save you.” To make sure my dad didn’t leave the house and take his phone with him, I had to make a deal. “Dad,” I said, standing at his doorway. “Can you stay home with me today? If you do, I’ll give you Mom’s diary.” His irritable expression froze. “Her… diary? I threw that in the trash years ago.” I held out the taped-together notebook. He snatched it from my hands, running his fingers over the jagged edges of the pages. He fell to his knees, clutching it to his chest, laughing and crying like a madman. I left him alone. Back in my room, I squeezed the little rag doll Mom had sewn for me. She used to buy me beautiful, expensive toys, but after we were kicked out of our home, we had to leave everything behind. So, Mom bought scraps of cheap fabric and taught herself how to sew. Her hands had been so soft, but they were always covered in tiny red needle pricks and swollen cuts. I pressed my face against the doll’s rough fabric. If saving her meant this doll and I would fade away into nothingness, I wasn’t afraid. I was on the verge of drifting off when the sharp ring of his phone echoed down the hall. On tiptoe, I slipped into the study. It was her. In the master bedroom, my dad was completely unresponsive, too drunk and hysterical as he wept over the taped pages to notice me taking the phone. I ran out to the garden, my heart in my throat. “Hello? What happened?” “You were right,” my mom’s voice came through, heavy, exhausted, and thick with unshed tears. “I caught them at the hotel. Just like you said.” She took a shaky breath. “I’m at the clinic right now. I’m getting an abortion.” A wave of pure, unadulterated relief washed over me. “That’s wonderful! I hope you stay far away from my parents now. Oh, and tell your dad to stop giving my dad money. Because of that investment, my dad gets so busy managing your family’s company that he never has time to spend with my mom and me.” My mom gasped, her tone suddenly sharp and furious. “That miserable bastard… he took my father’s company?” She paused, her voice shaking. “What about me? Did I… did I not do anything to stop him?” I rubbed my eyes. “Well, you tried. But you weren’t as smart or as ruthless as my dad.” I smiled, hearing her let out a sharp, angry breath. “But don’t worry. You end up with a nice man named Henry Lockhart. You’ll be very happy with him.” “Henry?” my mom stammered. “How? He… he barely even talks to me.” “He’s been in love with you for a really long time,” I whispered. “He just stayed away because you were with my dad.” It was the truth. When I was five, Henry had returned from living abroad and discovered how terrible our lives had become. He did everything he could to look after us. I remember him holding my mom’s hands, his eyes filled with pain as he said, “If I had known my cowardice would cost you this much, I would have dragged you away from him years ago, no matter what people said.” When my dad found out, he flew into a rage, accusing my mom of cheating on him back in college. He refused to believe her denials and used all his power to bankrupt Henry’s business. Mom felt so guilty, but Henry didn’t care at all. He just smiled, took her hand, and happily worked alongside her at low-paying jobs. Over time, Mom fell in love with him. She had even asked for my permission first, and I had been so happy for them. But before she could tell him how she felt, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. To make sure she could save enough money for my future, she forced herself to say terrible things to Henry to push him away, then crawled back to my dad to endure his endless cruelty. “Hazel. Who the hell are you talking to?” My dad’s voice shattered the quiet of the garden. I spun around, gasping. He was standing on the patio, his eyes bloodshot and wild. “Why did I just hear you say Henry Lockhart’s name? Who is on that phone!” He took a heavy, menacing step toward me. On the other end, my mom heard him screaming. “Is Lester hurting you?” A nurse in the background was already calling her name for the procedure. I knew this was my last chance. I yelled into the receiver: “My dad hates you! He told me to never call a homewrecker like you again!” “Goodbye!” I slammed the end-call button. My dad lunged forward, grabbing my shoulders and shaking me violently. “It was your mother, wasn’t it? Tell me! What did she say? Does she miss me? Tell me!” But mid-sentence, he froze. I looked down at my hands. My fingers were dissolving into tiny, shimmering specks of light, floating away into the warm afternoon breeze.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “516783”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I called off our wedding exactly one week before we were supposed to walk down the aisle. When I broke the news, Leo was hunched over his laptop, editing his junior lab partner Linda’s master’s thesis. His voice carried a mild, practiced irritation. “And what’s your reason this time?” I placed a tube of lipstick—the one I’d found wedged beside the passenger seat of his car—on the sleek wooden desk. Then, I laid down two glossy photographs right next to it. The lipstick belonged to Linda. The photos showed the two of them on a weekend getaway. I looked at him. “Are these two reasons enough?” Leo knitted his brows, tossing out a casual, defensive explanation. “The lipstick must have slipped out of her bag. And the photos? She’s been under an insane amount of pressure with her research lately. I just took her out of town for a weekend to help her clear her head.” I nodded slowly. “Right. So we’re calling off the wedding.” He stared at me for a long, quiet beat, as if trying to gauge my resolve, before turning his eyes back to his monitor. “Whatever you want, Gina.” I knew he didn’t take me seriously. He didn’t believe for a second that I would actually walk away. After all, every time he had threatened to break off our engagement during our past arguments, I was always the one who swallowed my pride, begged for forgiveness, and coaxed him back. He assumed this was just another one of those times. But he was wrong. This time, I was truly done. … 1 Leo didn’t spare me another glance. His focus was entirely consumed by Linda’s draft. “Go get some rest,” he said, his fingers already flying across the keyboard. “I’ll give her back the lipstick tomorrow.” I didn’t say a word. My gaze drifted back to the photos. In them, Linda had her arm draped casually over his shoulder, their cheeks pressed close together. She was sticking her tongue out playfully at the camera. They looked exactly like a happy young couple. The photos had been taken two weeks ago, during the weekend Leo told me he had to travel out of state for an academic conference. It turned out his “conference” was a getaway to help Linda unwind. I remembered bringing up the idea of a short trip myself just last week. He had frowned, sighing heavily. “The lab is absolutely swamped right now, Gina. I physically don’t have the hours. Let’s do it another time.” Though disappointed, I hadn’t pushed. I had quietly waited, holding onto the hope that he would eventually carve out some time for me. Only now did I realize it wasn’t a matter of time. He had plenty of it. He just didn’t want to spend it on me. After a long silence, I finally asked, “Why did you lie to me?” His fingers paused over the keyboard. He looked up, his expression a mix of confusion and irritation, as if my question were entirely absurd. I held his gaze and repeated myself, my voice barely a whisper. “You took Linda to the coast to clear her head. Why did you tell me you were traveling for work?” Leo was always too busy. He was so busy that I had to plan every single detail of our wedding by myself. From the guest list and the catering to the floral arrangements and venue design, I had handled it all. I had even gone to the jeweler to pick out our wedding bands alone. Yet, this incredibly busy man had somehow found the hours to whisk Linda away because she was feeling stressed. A bitter, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest. A shadow of annoyance crossed Leo’s face. “If I had told you the truth, you would have started a fight. Gina, we’re about to get married. Do you really not have even a shred of trust in me? Linda has been crying in the lab because of her research. She was on the verge of a breakdown. I just took her out of the city to help her decompress.” I stared at him. Linda was stressed, so he took her on a trip. Linda struggled with her thesis, so he stayed up late rewriting it for her. He gave all of his precious time to Linda, while leaving me with only one word: “busy”. I nodded, my voice dropping to a faint, hollow tone. “Okay. I understand. I’ll explain things to my parents. You should tell yours. The sooner, the better.” Leo opened his mouth to say something, but his phone buzzed on the desk. He picked it up, and I caught a glimpse of the contact name on the screen: “Linda”. I quietly turned around and walked out of the study, giving him space. Behind me, I heard him play her voice note. “Hey, Leo! How’s my draft looking? I’m so, so nervous—please tell me you don’t think it’s total garbage!” As I stepped out into the hallway, Leo’s gentle reply drifted through the open door. “Of course not. It’s actually really good, there are just a few sections we need to polish…” I didn’t listen to the rest. I closed the door behind me, and a single tear slipped down my cheek, splashing onto the hardwood floor. Six years of my life, gone just like that. The next morning, Leo acted as if nothing had happened. He grabbed his coat, slipping it on as he spoke. “There’s a department dinner tonight, so I’ll probably be home late. Go ahead and sleep, don’t wait up for me.” He didn’t wait for my response before heading out the door. I stared down at my cold bowl of oatmeal, barely tasting it. I sat on the couch for a long time, watching the morning light slowly shift across the living room, before finally forcing myself to go upstairs. After living together for three years, I had accumulated a lot of things. Packing them up was going to be a monumental task. I lost track of time. By the time Leo came home, the bedroom was a chaotic mess of half-filled boxes, and two large suitcases sat open on the floor. He knitted his brows, looking genuinely perplexed. “Where are you going?” My hands froze over a stack of sweaters. I felt a sudden, bitter urge to laugh. Of course. He hadn’t registered a single word of our conversation last night. He probably asked where I was going out of pure, mindless habit. Compared to his hyper-awareness of Linda’s emotions, his concern for me didn’t even amount to a fraction of a percent. I folded a blouse and placed it neatly into the suitcase. “I’m moving out,” I said evenly. Leo fell silent for a moment, as if the memories of the previous night were slowly clicking into place. Then, he let out a soft, dismissive chuckle. “Gina, are you actually serious? Look, if you’re that desperate for a vacation, I’ll carve out some time for us right after the wedding, okay?” I didn’t answer. I just kept packing. His expression softened into one of weary indulgence. “Linda’s lipstick really did just fall out of her bag when I drove her home the other night. I gave it back to her today. She promised me she’d be more careful with her things from now on.” My hands didn’t falter. “Good to know,” I murmured. Seeing my indifference, Leo yanked at his tie, his patience finally snapping. “Are you really going to throw a tantrum over something this trivial?” he snapped, his voice sharp with irritation. “Calling off the wedding? Gina, we are six days away from our rehearsal dinner. Do you have any idea what calling it off right now actually means? You’re an adult. Stop being so incredibly childish.” Of course I knew what it meant. It meant my parents would have to face the pitying whispers of our relatives and friends. It meant severing the six-year thread that bound my life to his. But I couldn’t live like this anymore. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life playing second fiddle to Linda in my own marriage. “It is,” I said. Leo blinked. “What?” I looked him dead in the eye and repeated it, slower this time. “It is worth it, Leo. I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m calling off the wedding. I don’t want to marry you anymore.” Leo stared at me, a cold, scoffing laugh escaping his lips. “Gina, there’s a limit to how far you can push a drama. You’re seriously going to throw away six years of our lives over a stray lipstick and a couple of vacation photos?” To him, it was always just a drama. He had never once stopped to consider the concept of boundaries when it came to Linda. I remembered a night last year when I had too much to drink at a corporate networking dinner. When I called his number, Linda answered. She told me Leo was driving and couldn’t talk. After a heavy pause, I asked if he could come pick me up. He took the phone from her and rejected me without a second thought. “I’m driving Linda home right now. Just call an Uber.” I ended up taking that rideshare home alone, and we had a massive screaming match. But then he coldly uttered, “Maybe we shouldn’t get married after all,” and those words felt like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head, freezing the anger right out of me. In the end, I was the one who crawled back, swallowing my pride to appease him. He was so protective of Linda that he had threatened to call off our wedding dozens of times because of her. But now, when I was the one pulling the plug, he refused to believe it. I looked away, too exhausted to argue. “Fine. Think what you want.” “Gina, can you stop with this toxic jealousy?” Leo pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling a frustrated breath. “Linda is my junior colleague. She’s struggling. What is so wrong with me helping her navigate her research? It’s literally my job as her mentor.” I remained silent. I zipped up my final suitcase and pulled it off the bed. Leo threw his hands up in defeat. “Whatever. Maybe it’s good for you to get out of the house and clear your head. At least then you’ll stop overanalyzing everything.” He turned on his heel and slammed the study door behind him. I quietly stood the suitcase up in the corner of the room. Looking down at the diamond engagement ring on my left hand, I slipped it off my finger and set it on the nightstand. I expected to lie awake all night, but instead, I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. I didn’t wake up until mid-morning, roused by soft, giggling voices floating up from the living room. “Leo, are you sure Gina won’t be mad that you brought me over without asking her first? You guys are literally getting married next week. I’d feel terrible if you two got into a fight because of me.” I had heard that voice countless times through Leo’s speakerphone. But I never imagined he would actually bring Linda into our home. “She won’t mind,” Leo replied, his voice warm and comforting. “Gina isn’t unreasonable. Besides, you’re only here so we can finish editing your thesis drafts.” When I carried my suitcase down the stairs, I saw Linda sitting beside him on the sofa. Their heads were huddled close together over a laptop. Neither of them noticed me standing at the foot of the stairs. “Oh my gosh, Leo, you’re literally a lifesaver,” Linda squealed, gazing at him with open admiration. “If I had submitted my original draft, my advisor would have absolutely shredded me.” “Don’t worry,” Leo said softly. “I’ve got you. We’ll fix it together.” My heart gave a painful little squeeze. I had never seen him display that kind of gentleness. Just last month, I had asked him to look over a marketing proposal I was working on for a promotion. He had barely glanced at the paper before looking back down at his phone. “Gina, this isn’t my field. I don’t have time for this.” He had no patience for me. But for Linda, he was willing to explain things line by line, hour by hour. I let go of the handle, and my suitcase clicked against the floorboard. Both of them snapped their heads in my direction. Leo stood up and walked toward me, his tone defensive yet carefully even. “Linda needed help with the final edits. I figured it would be easier and faster if she just came over here to work.” “How convenient,” I murmured. Linda scampered over behind him, her eyes dropping to the suitcase at my feet. She let out a soft gasp. “Gina… are you going somewhere?” I ignored her. Reaching into my coat pocket, I pulled out a platinum credit card and handed it to Leo. “This is the card your mother gave me for the wedding expenses,” I said, my voice steady and devoid of emotion. “I haven’t spent a single penny of it. I’ll speak to my parents tonight. You should do the same with yours. Let’s not drag this out.” Leo stared at the card, a look of genuine shock crossing his face before it hardened into a bitter, mocking smirk. “Gina, what is this dramatic little performance supposed to prove?” “Nothing,” I said, pressing the card into his palm. “Since the engagement is off, it’s only right that I return what isn’t mine.” “Calling off the engagement?!” Linda gasped, her hand flying to her mouth before Leo could speak. “Gina, you’re calling off the wedding? Why?” I turned my gaze to her, looking her straight in the eye. “I think you know exactly why.” Linda froze, the color draining from her face. Leo immediately stepped in front of her, shielding her from my gaze. His brow furrowed in anger. “Gina, that is enough. This is your own insecurity talking. Don’t drag Linda into your issues.” Watching the outrage burn in his eyes, I paused, and a small, sad smile touched my lips. To him, I was just insecure and petty. He completely ignored his own failure to set boundaries, choosing instead to paint me as the irrational, jealous fiancée. “You’re right,” I said quietly. “I am petty.” I wheeled my suitcase around them and walked out the front door. As I crossed the threshold, Linda’s whimpering voice drifted out from the entryway. “Leo… is she calling off the wedding because of me? I swear the lipstick was just an accident, I didn’t mean to leave it in your car… I’m so sorry…” “It has nothing to do with you,” Leo interrupted, his voice dropping into that familiar, reassuring register. “I know her. She’s just trying to scare me. She’s not going to call off the wedding.” I didn’t look back. I pulled the door shut behind me, letting the heavy click of the deadbolt swallow their voices whole. I took a taxi to my parents’ house in the suburbs. When I walked through the door dragging my heavy luggage, my mother stopped dead in her tracks. “Gina? Sweetie, what are you doing here?” Her eyes fell to the suitcases, and her face softened with immediate concern. She asked, her voice cautious, “Did you and Leo have a fight?” My hand tightened around the handle of my suitcase. I swallowed the lump in my throat and shook my head. “No. It wasn’t a fight. I called off the wedding.” My father walked out of the kitchen just in time to hear me. He stood frozen in the hallway. “Gina, what did you just say? You called off the wedding?” I sat them down in the living room and explained everything, my voice growing softer and more exhausted with every sentence. By the time I finished, my mother’s eyes were glistening with unshed tears. My father remained silent, his jaw clenched in quiet anger. “Mom, Dad… I’m so sorry,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. My mother immediately reached across the table and took my hands in hers. Her voice trembled, but she forced herself to stay strong for me. “Gina, look at me. Your father and I will support whatever you decide. If you don’t want to marry him, we aren’t going to make you. Don’t worry about the guests or the relatives. We will handle them.” A sudden wave of emotion hit me, threatening to shatter the fragile calm I’d kept all morning. I blinked rapidly, fighting back the tears, refusing to let them fall. Upstairs in my old childhood bedroom, I collapsed onto the mattress, utterly drained. My phone buzzed on the nightstand. It was a text from my best friend, Becca. “Gina, is it true? Did you actually call off the wedding with Leo? Tell me you’re joking.” I stared at the ceiling and typed out a brief reply: “It’s true. His business trip last month? He took Linda on a weekend getaway.” Within three seconds, Becca was calling me. She didn’t even say hello before launching into a furious tirade. “Is he out of his mind?! You’ve been working yourself to the bone coordinating with vendors and florists, and he’s out of town playing boyfriend to his assistant?! You spent six years of your life building a future with this man. How could he do this to you? He’s an absolute prick!” By the end of her rant, her voice was shaking with anger and tears. She was crying for me, feeling the injustice of it all more loudly than I could. I forced a small, tired smile. “It’s okay, Becca. Honestly, it’s better this way. I don’t want to marry him anymore.” Before, I had been holding onto the hope that things would change. But now, my heart was entirely numb. The love had simply bled out of it. The night before our scheduled wedding, Leo called me. “Tomorrow is the big day,” he said, his voice casual, as if he were checking in on a grocery list. “What time are you coming back to the apartment tonight?” I stared out the window into the dark suburbia, a quiet, humorless laugh escaping my throat. He still believed this was a game. He still thought I was just throwing a tantrum to teach him a lesson. “I’m not coming back,” I said. There was a brief pause on the line. “Fine,” he sighed. “Your parents’ place is closer to the venue anyway. You can just head straight to the hotel tomorrow morning.” “Leo,” I interrupted, closing my eyes. “I am not going to the venue. I am not getting married tomorrow. I wasn’t throwing a tantrum. I am done.” A long, heavy silence stretched over the phone. When he finally spoke, his tone was clipped, laced with disbelief. “What do you mean you’re not going? Gina, do you hear yourself right now? Is this about Linda again?” He exhaled a long, dramatic sigh, the epitome of a martyr. “Linda and I are colleagues. We work in the same lab. There is absolutely nothing going on between us. I explained the trip to you. Can you please stop making a scene?” A scene. In Leo’s eyes, every boundary I tried to set, every ounce of pain I expressed, was just me “making a scene.” When Linda called him at midnight because her apartment’s kitchen light broke, he had rushed over without a second thought. When I cried about it, he told me I was overreacting. When he chose to drive her across town instead of picking me up from a bar in the rain, he told me I was being dramatic. And now, when I was trying to save my own dignity by calling off a doomed marriage, he called it a scene. I wanted to ask him: “What do I have to do for you to actually hear me?” I took a deep breath. “Leo, I am not—” “Leo!” A feminine voice suddenly chimed in from his end of the line, cutting me off. It was Linda. I glanced at the clock on my nightstand. It was past eleven. She was still at his apartment. Leo muffled the microphone on his phone, but his voice still leaked through as he whispered to her, “What’s wrong?” “Leo, are you sure it’s okay for me to crash on your couch tonight? I don’t want to make things weird,” Linda asked, her voice dripping with sweet innocence. I pressed the red button and hung up. A few minutes later, a text message popped up on my screen. “Linda ran into some massive errors with her dataset. We worked late into the night trying to resolve them, so I told her she could stay in the guest room. Get some sleep, Gina. I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow.” He was still entirely convinced I would show up. My thumb hovered over his contact card. With a few quick taps, I blocked his number. Since he was so absolutely certain of my compliance, I decided to let him experience his perfect wedding day all by himself.

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I have a secret. I was born with the ability to smell what people are feeling. When someone lies, they carry the sour, curdled scent of spoiled milk. When someone is jealous, they smell of the sharp, metallic bite of rusted iron. When someone has a guilty conscience, they carry the heavy dampness of cellar mold. But when someone is in love, they carry a sweet, golden warmth, like honeyed vanilla. I first smelled that sweetness when Garrett and I fell in love. Back then, when he looked at me, his eyes shone as if they held the stars, and he carried that soft, sugary fragrance wherever he went. Then, we got married. I don’t know exactly when it happened, but the sweetness faded. In its place came a thick, choking bitterness. I tried to ask him about it, gently, testing the waters. “Are you doing okay lately? Is something bothering you?” He would only sigh, rubbing his temples. “Just pressure. Providing for us is heavy. The mortgage, the car payments, the endless meetings at the firm – it’s suffocating, Natalie.” I believed him. And my heart ached for him. So, I tried harder to be the perfect, understanding wife. I stopped asking why he came home so late. I stopped questioning the sudden passcode change on his phone. I stopped interrupting his “client dinners.” Until our fifth wedding anniversary. He came through the front door, laughing and talking on the phone, and for the first time in years, I caught a draft of that long-lost sweetness. But the very second the call ended, a suffocating wave of bitterness surged, completely drowning out the sweet scent. … 1 My smile froze on my face. Refusing to believe my own senses, I took a few steps closer. But the bitterness didn’t dissipate. Instead, it grew heavier, crowding my nasal passages. Garrett looked exactly like his scent – heavy, exhausted, silent. Without a word, he kicked off his shoes, set his briefcase on the entryway console, and went straight to the bathroom. The sound of running water filled the apartment. When he emerged, drying his hands on a towel, he made a straight line for the study. “Garrett, today is our…” “I’m tired,” he interrupted, not even looking back. “I need some quiet time in the study.” And with that, he shut the door. Staring at the closed door, I bit my lip, a familiar, unspeakable exhaustion settling deep in my bones. Three years into our marriage, he told me work was too draining and that he needed a space of his own at home to breathe. So, we agreed the study would be his exclusive sanctuary. I wasn’t allowed in without permission. At first, he only spent an hour in there. Then it became three. Eventually, it got to the point where if he was home, he spent most of his time behind that closed door. I sighed, turning back to the dining table. I had cooked dinner myself, warming it up over and over again while waiting for him. The dishes had lost their fresh color; a thin layer of grease had settled over the soup. In the fridge sat a blueberry cake. Garrett had mentioned offhandedly a while ago that he wanted some, so I had spent the afternoon learning how to bake it from scratch. Thinking of the entire day I’d spent preparing, I picked up my phone and opened our chat. “[It’s our anniversary. Can we please just have dinner together first?]” But before hitting send, a strange impulse made me scroll up through our chat history. I let out a soft, self-mocking laugh. Over the last two years, I had sent Garrett 3,542 messages. He had replied to exactly 98. Yet, two years ago, our chat was a dense forest of words. Even seeing a funny-looking cloud was enough to keep us talking for hours. After a long hesitation, I deleted the plea, letter by letter. I sat down alone and picked up my fork. The food, reheated too many times, had lost its flavor. It tasted slightly nauseating as I chewed, but I forced myself to swallow it, bite by bite. It felt as though if I could just finish this table of food, I could swallow some of the humiliation of tonight. By the end, my throat burned with a sour ache. I set down my fork, went to the fridge, and pulled out the cake. I was about to dig in when the study door suddenly swung open. Garrett rushed out, looking like he was in a hurry to leave. But as his eyes swept over the dining table, he stopped. “Don’t eat that!” His sharp voice startled me. My spoon slipped, clattering loudly against the edge of the plate. He strode over and snatched the cake box right off the counter. “You bought this, right? I need to borrow it.” It wasn’t a request; it was an announcement. Before I could answer, he turned and bolted out the door. As the door slammed shut, the draft from the hallway rushed in. And with it, the scent he had left behind. Sweetness. But mixed with it was a sharp, searing heat – the smell of burning anxiety. It was the scent a person only carries when they are desperately worried about someone they love. During our first year of dating, I had gone back to my hometown for New Year’s and ended up breaking my leg. Garrett couldn’t book a train ticket, so he sat in a cramped, freezing overnight bus for twelve hours just to reach me. When he pushed open my hospital room door, he carried this exact smell. It had washed over me, mingled with the cheap tobacco and winter chill of the bus. Back then, it made my heart overflow with joy. But now, that same scent felt like a blunt knife slowly carving into my chest. I didn’t think. Within seconds, I threw on my coat and shoes and slipped out after him. Garrett hadn’t taken his car. I followed him on foot, keeping a careful distance. Several times, if he had just glanced back, he would have spotted me. But he walked too fast, his mind clearly consumed by something else. He had no idea he was being followed. Just past the gates of our neighborhood, he ducked into a 24-hour convenience store. He slid onto a stool right next to a woman with long hair. Her head was bowed, her shoulders trembling slightly. Garrett placed the cake in front of her, gently resting his hand on her hair. His lips moved, whispering soft, comforting words I couldn’t hear. I hadn’t seen him look at anyone like that in years. It wasn’t the look of exhaustion. Or cold indifference. Or obligation. It was the look that used to belong entirely to me – an overwhelming, aching tenderness. I pushed open the glass door of the store, pretending to browse the shelves. Just then, the woman turned her head and buried her face in Garrett’s chest. In that split second, I saw her face. I froze in the aisle, my blood turning to ice. It was Keira. The girl I had been financially sponsoring for nearly ten years. Only last month, as she was preparing to graduate from college, I had asked her where she wanted to start her career. I told her that if she came to Chicago, I might be able to help her find her footing. She had looked down then, her cheeks flushing. “I want to go to the city where the person I love is. I just want to be close to him.” I had admired her courage back then, thinking she was so much like my younger self – willing to travel thousands of miles to an unfamiliar city for the man she loved. But in less than a month, those words had returned to slap me across the face. The person she loved was my husband. The man she had chased across the country was the very same man I had chased years ago. The cold air from the store’s open coolers made my fingers numb. Meanwhile, the scent drifting from their corner invaded my nose in waves. The sweetness was growing thicker. The scent of a honeymoon phase. Suppressing the rising bile in my throat, I took a few steps closer. Finally, Keira’s tearful, aggrieved voice reached my ears. “My supervisor made me work overtime again. It wasn’t even my mistake on the proposal, but she yelled at me in front of everyone. And now she’s making me reorganize three years’ worth of client files.” Garrett cooed to her in a low, soothing voice. “Don’t cry. You won’t have to deal with this kind of unfairness ever again.” Keira looked up at him, her eyes damp and wide. “Really?” Garrett wiped her tears away with an incredibly tender touch. “Starting tomorrow, I’ll have you transferred to my department as my personal assistant. With me around, no one will dare bully you.” My grip tightened on the metal shelf, my knuckles turning white. Two months ago, my own company had worked overtime for two straight weeks to bid on a project from Garrett’s firm. I knew Garrett hated nepotism or favoritism of any kind, so I never breathed a word to him about it. Yet, when he saw my company’s name on the list, he personally disqualified us to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest. The next day, my colleagues looked at me with a mixture of disappointment and resentment. I couldn’t offer a single word of explanation. And yet here, for Keira, all it took was a few tears, and he was ready to abuse his authority to pave a golden path for her. Garrett opened the cake box and pushed it toward Keira. “I knew you were upset, so I brought you this.” The moment the lid came off, both of them froze. Scribbled in uneven icing on the top of the cake were the words: “Happy 5th Anniversary.” Beside the text was a clumsy drawing of two cartoon figures holding hands. Keira stood up abruptly, tears spilling over. “Garrett, what is this supposed to mean? Are you trying to humiliate me? To remind me that I’m just the other woman?” Panicking, Garrett slammed the box shut and threw it violently into the trash can. “Hey, hey, sweetie, of course not. I was just in such a rush to get to you that I grabbed whatever was on the counter. I didn’t even remember what day it was.” “If you don’t like it, we throw it away. I’ll buy you a fresh one tomorrow, okay?” In the trash can, the cake lay tilted against plastic wraps and empty cups. The two cartoon figures were smeared into a blue blur, their outlines ruined. Just like my five years of marriage. But the cake wasn’t what broke my heart. It was the way he held Keira, whispering sweet-nothings, comforting her over and over with boundless patience, as if she were a fragile piece of porcelain. Last month, I had mentioned wanting a specific pour-over coffee from the shop downstairs from his office. I asked for a month, he promised for a month, and he forgot for a month. Finally, he had brought home a bottle of instant coffee from this very convenience store and tossed it on the counter. When I told him that wasn’t what I wanted, his brow had furrowed in irritation. “Natalie, my job is stressful enough. Can you stop picking fights over trivial nonsense?” Back then, I had made excuses for him, convincing myself he was just exhausted. But it wasn’t that at all. The difference between loving someone and not loving them is stark. I couldn’t watch any longer. I turned and walked out into the night. The cold wind bit my face, making my eyes sting. Standing under a streetlamp, I drafted a resignation email to my boss. He was already cold toward me after we lost the contract with Garrett’s firm, and his reply came almost instantly: “[Understood. Please complete your handoff and finish up by the end of the week.]” When I got back to the apartment, I left the cold leftovers on the table. I took a shower, crawled into bed, and stared at the dark ceiling. It was nearly midnight when the front door finally clicked open. Garrett crept into the bedroom. The sweetness on him had vanished, replaced once more by that heavy, suffocating bitterness. But this time, there was a faint, sour tang underneath – the smell of guilt. I didn’t know if he felt guilty for forgetting our anniversary, or for harboring another woman in his heart. The mattress dipped as he climbed in and wrapped his arms around me from behind. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. Things have been insane at work lately, and I completely lost track of the date. Let me make it up to you with a nice gift in a few days, okay?” I didn’t turn around. I just gave a quiet, hollow murmur of agreement. But I knew. “In a few days” meant never. That was always Garrett’s way. When he genuinely wanted to do something, he gave a concrete timeline. Like when he comforted Keira, he said “tomorrow.” For me, it was always the nebulous safety of “some other time.” Hearing my quiet response, the scent of guilt evaporated from him. Within minutes, he fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. Sure enough, by the time I finished my handoff and walked out of my office for the last time, his promised gift had never materialized. On my final day, after picking up the finalized divorce papers from my attorney’s office, I took a cab home. As we drove past Garrett’s office building, a sudden impulse took hold of me. “Actually, could you pull over here, please?” It was a whim; I hadn’t actually expected to run into him. But as I neared the glass lobby doors, I saw Garrett and Keira walking out side-by-side. The young receptionist smiled, teasing them. “Garrett, taking Keira out solo again?” Keira’s cheeks flushed, and she waved her hands. “Oh, don’t say that! It’s just a client meeting.” The receptionist gave a knowing smirk. “Right, right. We get it.” Garrett heard her, but he didn’t correct her. There wasn’t even a flicker of annoyance on his face. Standing outside the glass doors, I let out a quiet, self-mocking laugh. But as I laughed, a tear slipped down my cheek. Garrett was a man so fiercely protective of professional boundaries that he was almost draconian about them. During our first year of marriage, when we worked at the same company, he had told me, “Office romances look bad, Natalie. One of us needs to leave to keep things professional.” So, I had walked away from a career I had spent three years building – one where I was on the cusp of a promotion. I rewrote my resume, took interviews, and started all over again from the bottom. Yet here he was, parading Keira around the office, completely unbothered by the suggestive whispers of his staff. I followed them. They walked a block and entered a small, cozy bistro on the corner. It was a place Garrett and I used to frequent back when we were dating. In those days, the restaurant was tiny, with greasy wooden tables and menus that were frayed at the edges. But it was cheap, the portions were huge, and the food was incredible. Later, the place became trendy. You needed reservations; the lines stretched down the block. Garrett grew to despise it, refusing to take me there ever again. “Is there really nothing else you want to eat? Do we have to waste our evening standing in line for a craving?” Yet now, the hostess recognized him immediately and smiled. “Table for two, Garrett? Your usual spot?” Keira walked inside with practiced ease, as if she had been here dozens of times. Standing on the sidewalk, the air suddenly felt too thick to breathe. He hadn’t hated the hassle of the restaurant; he had just hated the hassle of “me.” Under the shadow of a maple tree, I watched them through the window. The food arrived quickly – a skillet of garlic shrimp, a whole roasted sea bass, and several other signature dishes I knew by heart. Garrett naturally took the wet wipes from the server. He pulled the fish apart, meticulously extracting every bone before placing a piece of fish onto Keira’s plate. Then he peeled the shrimp, dipped them in sauce, and set them in her bowl. Watching this, my mind drifted back to our early years. Those were tasks I had always done for him. Garrett was meticulous, a bit of a clean freak. He hated getting his fingers greasy, hated the chore of peeling shells. So, whenever we ate, I would peel his shrimp, debone his fish, and slide them onto his plate. Our friends used to tease me. “Natalie, if you keep spoiling him like this, you’re going to turn him into a helpless toddler.” I had only laughed. But now I had my answer. Garrett wasn’t helpless. He was perfectly capable of doing the things he disliked – provided the person he was doing them for was someone he actually loved. I pulled out my phone and opened my chat with Keira. Our last exchange was her message about moving to the city of her dreams, followed by a GIF of a winking golden retriever. No wonder it had looked familiar. I realized now it was from a sticker pack Garrett used constantly. My thumb hovered over the keyboard. After a long moment, I typed out a message: “[Keira, I saw you here in Chicago. So you decided to stay after all? Why don’t you come over to our place for dinner this weekend?]” The message sent. I didn’t wait to see their reactions. I slipped my phone into my pocket, turned on my heel, and walked away. Apparently, Keira didn’t tell Garrett about my invitation. Because when the doorbell rang on Sunday, and Garrett opened the door to find her standing there, his entire body went rigid. In the next second, a damp, moldy smell exploded into the hallway, laced with a sharp, panicked heat. Guilt and panic, coiling together. I knew exactly why Keira hadn’t told him. What woman is truly content staying hidden in the shadows forever? When given the chance to step into the light, to claim a space in his home, she was never going to pass it up. While Keira went to the restroom, Garrett grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the corner of the kitchen. His voice was a harsh whisper, laced with accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me Keira was coming over for dinner?” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “You always say you hate hearing about domestic details. So I didn’t bother.” Garrett choked on his words, his brow knitting tighter. “Natalie, you – ” Before he could finish, the bathroom door clicked open. Keira stepped out, her smile sweet and entirely innocent. “Natalie, when are we eating? I’m starving.” I pulled my wrist from Garrett’s grip and reached for the serving platters. “Right now.” The three of us sat down at the table. In the past, whenever Keira visited, she would cling to my side, always insisting on sitting next to me. This time, she naturally pulled out the chair directly beside Garrett. I set the soup bowl down, pretending not to notice. With a pleasant smile, I asked her, “So, Keira, you mentioned before that you were moving to be with the person you loved. How did you end up staying in Chicago?” As the question hung in the air, I felt a strange knot of tension in my chest. I had supported Keira for a decade. I had watched her pull herself out of a mountain village without paved roads, fighting her way to a top-tier university. I didn’t want to destroy her future over a sordid affair. I was going to divorce Garrett, without question. But if she showed any remorse, any sign of realizing her mistake, I wanted to leave her with some shred of dignity. But Keira only looked down, a small smile playing on her lips. When she looked up, her gaze drifted sideways to Garrett. “Because the person I love is here in Chicago,” she said softly, but with absolute clarity. “He begged me to stay. He found me a job, rented me an apartment, even got me a car. He showed so much sincerity… how could I not stay?” As her words fell, the dining room became choked with competing scents. From Garrett, the damp, rotting stench of guilt. From Keira, the sharp, metallic bite of open provocation. And from me? There was no longer any sour ache of heartbreak. There was only the dry, empty smell of cold ash. Disappointment. I smiled faintly and let the subject drop. The rest of the meal tasted like cardboard. When we finished, I was the one who broke the silence. “Garrett, it’s getting late. Why don’t you drive Keira home?” Garrett’s face was dark, but he didn’t refuse. He grabbed his keys in silence, and he and Keira walked out of the apartment. A split second before the elevator doors closed, I saw Keira stand on her tiptoes and plant a quick, mocking kiss on his cheek. It was a declaration of ownership. A victory lap. I let the doors close, turned back into my apartment, and shut the door. I went into the bedroom, pulled out my pre-packed suitcases, and set them by the door. Then, I placed the signed divorce agreement neatly in the center of the dining table. Finally, I opened my laptop and pulled up my email. I attached the blurry photo of them embracing at the convenience store, the clear shot of him deboning her fish at the restaurant, and several photos of them walking into his office building together. Along with a concise, factual report, I sent the package directly to the email of Garrett’s regional director. With that done, I grabbed the handle of my suitcase and walked out without looking back. The night air hit my face as I stepped out of the building, washing away the heavy, bitter scent of Garrett that had clung to me for far too long. Garrett didn’t get home until three in the morning. Keira had clung to his sleeve, refusing to let him leave. First, she said she was scared to be alone, then she claimed she heard strange noises in her apartment, then she begged for just thirty more minutes. Thirty minutes turned into hours. By the time Garrett’s patience finally wore thin, the sky was already graying. On the drive back, Garrett felt nothing but exhaustion. Managing Keira was becoming increasingly demanding; she always seemed to want more. By contrast, he thought, Natalie had never been like this. She was always reasonable, always understanding. Even if he stayed out all night, she would only send a gentle “Stay safe” text and leave the porch light on. When he turned the key in the lock, he frowned out of habit. The entryway was dark, the living room pitch-black save for the amber glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds. “Natalie?” he called out. No response. He fumbled for the light switch. When the room flooded with light, he froze. The dining table was a mess of dirty dishes. The remnants of dinner had congealed into white grease, and a dark stain had soaked into the tablecloth. There were dried sauce drops on the hardwood floor, and a small clump of rice lay abandoned nearby. This wasn’t like Natalie. She couldn’t stand a messy house. Even when she had a fever, she would force herself to put everything in its place. The faint guilt he had felt for coming home late was instantly replaced by irritation. His job was exhausting enough; he didn’t want to come home to a disaster. With a cold face, he marched toward the bedroom to demand an explanation. The door was cracked open, the room dark. He pushed it open and flipped the switch. The bed was made perfectly. The duvet was pulled tight, without a single wrinkle to suggest anyone had lain there. “Natalie?” Still nothing. He checked the bathroom – empty. He stood in the middle of the quiet apartment, suddenly struck by how vast and foreign the space felt. The subtle scent of Natalie’s lavender fabric softener was already fading. He walked back to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, and that was when he spotted the document resting beside a plate. Frowning, he picked it up. The bold, capitalized letters at the top hit him like a physical blow: “DIVORCE AGREEMENT.” Garrett stared at it, a wave of disbelief washing over him. Natalie wanted a divorce? Over a missed anniversary dinner? Over a cake? It made no sense. He let out a harsh, dry laugh and tossed the paper back onto the table. He pulled out his phone and dialed her number. “We’re sorry, the number you have dialed is currently unavailable…” He hung up and opened Messages. “[Natalie, what is this nonsense? Where the hell are you at this hour?]” The message failed to send. A glaring red exclamation mark appeared, followed by a small line of text: “Message not delivered. You have been blocked by this contact.” Garrett stared at the red circle, paralyzed. Then, a hot, uncontrollable anger flared in his chest. They had argued before, but Natalie was always the one to back down first. This time, she had gone too far – actually signing divorce papers. He made up his mind right then: he would wait until she came crawling back, apologizing, before he would even consider forgiving her. With that thought, the fire in his chest subsided slightly. He went to bed, tossing and turning until dawn before finally falling into a fitful sleep. The next morning, he was jolted awake by his phone. It was the assistant to the regional director, Mr. Campbell. “Garrett, Mr. Campbell wants you in his office immediately. We have a highly urgent matter to discuss.”

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I have always been able to see the red strings. They are thin, glowing threads of fate, anchoring one soul to another. When two people share a deep, intimate bond, a line appears between them. Jack and I were high school sweethearts. For eight years, a single, vibrant crimson thread ran from my chest straight to his, steady and unbroken. For his twenty-eighth birthday, we planned a weekend trip with our closest friends to hike the rugged backcountry of the northern ridges. Jack was an avid outdoorsman, the kind of guy who lived for the trail. He had shrugged off my suggestion of hiring a guide, his voice full of easy confidence. “A guide? Come on, babe. I’ve hiked this route six times. I could lead us to the summit with my eyes closed.” But midway up the mountain, he vanished. Without him, we didn’t know the trail, and the weather turned in an instant. A sudden, violent storm triggered a massive mudslide. My best friend, Beth, went over the edge of a ravine trying to pull me to safety. I was left curled beneath the freezing roots of a pine tree, my limbs completely numb, my jacket soaked through with blood. When I finally opened my eyes, I was staring at the sterile white ceiling of a hospital room. The doctor told me I was pregnant—just two months along—and that the baby was gone. Then the search-and-rescue team delivered the final, crushing blow. They had found Beth’s body. She had been pierced by a fallen branch. It was a horrific, agonizing way to die. My heart felt shattered into a million jagged pieces. I lay there, weeping hysterically, drowning in a grief so heavy I couldn’t breathe. That was when Jack finally showed up. He rushed to my bedside, throwing his arms around me, his voice cracking with emotion. “I’m so sorry, Leah. I’m so sorry I’m late…” I froze in his arms, staring at him. Why? It had only been twenty-four hours. But the red string on his chest had split. There were now two of them. 1 “Where were you?” His hand, which had been gently wiping the tears from my cheek, faltered for a fraction of a second. He recovered quickly, offering a seamless explanation. “I got a text saying my dad had a heart attack. I panicked, Leah. All I could think about was getting to him. I forgot to tell the rest of the group before I ran down.” “In the backcountry?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. “Since when is there cell service up there?” A shadow crossed his face. “There was a weak signal. Did your phone not have one?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t believe a single word. I kept my eyes locked on his chest. The deep, blood-red string was mine. But the other one—the pale, rose-pink thread—who did it belong to? Did that new connection have something to do with why he abandoned us on that mountain? The door clicked open, and a police officer walked into the room. Seeing that I was conscious, he gently asked me to come down to the morgue to identify Beth. The basement of the hospital was freezing, colder even than the rainy night on the mountain. Beth’s face was pale and ruined, barely recognizable. But I knew the small, dark mole right on her collarbone. “It’s her,” I choked out. The officer nodded sympathetically. “Do you have any contact information for her next of kin?” I shook my head, my throat tight. “She… she didn’t have anyone else.” We had grown up together in the same orphanage. I was her only friend, her only family. With trembling hands, I pulled the white sheet back over her face. I reached down, took off my own shoes, and slipped them onto her bare, cold feet. She had always hated the cold. She couldn’t go to the other side without shoes. Jack patted my back, his touch light and detached, like an outsider observing someone else’s tragedy. “I know you’re angry with me,” he whispered, sounding defensive. “But I had my reasons. I’m hurting too, Leah.” Ignoring my silent resistance, he lifted me up and carried me back to my room. He wiped my face and my feet with wet wipes, throwing away one damp tissue after another. I stared at him, feeling as though I was going to cry until my eyes ran dry. “Jack,” I asked, “do you think Beth will be happy in her next life? Do you think she’ll get a mom and dad who actually love her?” “And the baby… do you think our baby will hate me for not protecting them?” “Stop overthinking things,” Jack replied, his voice distracted as he stared down at his phone. “They’re gone. Dwelling on it only makes it worse.” He typed out two quick replies, then slid his phone into his pocket and stood up. “I have some urgent stuff to handle at the office. Call me if you need anything.” I watched his retreating back. As soon as the door clicked shut, something possessed me. I swung my legs out of bed and walked out of the room barefoot. The sharp pebbles on the pavement cut into the soles of my feet, leaving faint smears of blood behind me, but I couldn’t feel the pain. I slipped into a taxi and followed Jack’s car. The surroundings grew increasingly familiar. We were heading toward the Northside university district. Jack’s car pulled up near the gates of the state college. Standing there was a familiar, slender figure. It was Sadie. The girl I had been financially sponsoring for the last six years. She took a few quick steps and threw herself directly into Jack’s arms. I dug my fingernails deep into my palms, praying this was just a horrific nightmare. How could it be her? I had funded Sadie’s education since she was a young girl in middle school. Beth and I had treated her like a younger sister. Every summer and winter break, she would come to the city to stay with us. I had paid her tuition, shown her the world outside her impoverished town, and helped her build a life here. And this was how she repaid me. She clung to my husband, the pink line on her chest glowing with a sickening intensity. Jack reached down, gently stroking her hair. “Be good, Sadie. Leah and Beth had an accident. I won’t be able to come see you for a few days.” Sadie looked down, playfully twisting his fingers. “Fine. I understand. But can you at least stay with me today?” She pouted, her eyes wide and pleading. “Alright, get in, you little troublemaker,” Jack murmured, his voice thick with affection. The car sped away. By the time my taxi driver realized what was happening and pressed on the gas, they were already gone. I paid the driver, stepped out, and sat on the curb, completely numb. I pulled out my phone and scrolled through my chat history with Sadie. She had always treated me like an older sister, sharing her secrets and crushes. She had told me she was in love with someone. I had even given her advice on how to win him over. The restaurant they went to? I had helped her pick it. The amusement park tickets? I had bought them for her. The concert tickets? I had stayed up late to secure them. With my help, she had systematically crawled her way into my husband’s bed. I opened her social media profile. Her latest post was a blurry photo of two hands locked together. [He promised that if we kept our Snapstreak alive for 520 days, I’d finally say yes to being his girlfriend.] [On day 519, he was deep in the mountains with no cell service. But he actually abandoned his hiking group and ran all the way down the mountain just to get a signal and save our streak.] [Now I know he truly loves me.] So that was the truth. He had abandoned us in a storm, leading to a miscarriage and the death of my best friend, all for a Snapchat streak. A tear slipped from my cheek, hitting the screen and accidentally liking Sadie’s post. A second later, a private message popped up from her. It was a cute sticker of a puppy hugging a heart. [Leah, I heard about the accident. I’m so incredibly sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.] I didn’t reply. My phone’s battery died, and the screen went black. The cold night wind whipped around me, making my head spin. I felt like I was back on the muddy slopes of the mountain. I used the last of my strength to crawl back to the hospital. Jack never came back that night. The next morning, he walked into the ward carrying a bag of breakfast. Then, as if suddenly remembering something, he tossed the bag straight into the trash can. “Sorry, babe. I totally forgot you hate celery.” I caught a whiff of the sweet, synthetic orange scent on his clothes, and a wave of nausea hit me. The red string connecting him to Sadie had deepened into a rich garnet color. Mine had faded to a pale, translucent pink. On his collar, there was a faint trace of peach lip gloss. I knew exactly what they had been doing last night. His phone buzzed repeatedly. He sat on the edge of my bed, legs crossed, ducking his head to hide his smile as he typed. Because of my angle, I could see every word of their explicit conversation. [Sadie: You jerk! I woke up and you were already gone.] [Jack: Sweetheart, Leah is still in the hospital. I have to be here.] [Sadie: I guess your wife always comes first. You made me cry last night and you didn’t even care.] [Jack: Baby, you were crying because it felt so good. You were so loud.] Jack’s fingers flew across the keyboard, his face lit up like a teenager experiencing his first love. When he finally looked up and remembered I was there, he quickly masked his joy with a solemn, serious expression. It was exhausting just watching him act. I didn’t confront him. Right now, my priority was Beth. Once Jack left the hospital, I forced myself out of bed and signed the discharge papers. I spent the day handling the death certificate and the paperwork to close her bank accounts. My chest felt hollow. Just a few days ago, Beth had been holding my arm, excitedly planning our next vacation. How could she just be gone? My phone buzzed with a text from Jack. [Babe, are you okay on your own? I’m meeting up with the guys from the hike to buy them dinner and apologize for leaving them on the mountain.] I didn’t bother to reply. I was at the funeral home, trying to select an urn through a blur of tears, when my phone rang. It was Tyler, one of Jack’s childhood friends who had been on the mountain with us. I answered, but Tyler didn’t speak right away. Instead, I heard Sadie’s giggling voice in the background. Jack had brought Sadie to the apology dinner. Except for me, everyone in his circle already knew about them. “Seriously, Jack, you’re something else,” Tyler’s voice came through, sounding strained. “You almost got us killed for a girl.” Jack let out a defensive laugh. “Come on, man, can we drop it? Do I need to get down on my knees and beg?” “We’re fine, but what about Leah?” another friend chimed in. “She lost her baby, she watched her best friend fall down a cliff. You didn’t see her, Jack. She was clawing at the dirt trying to climb down to Beth until her fingernails were torn off and bleeding. It was brutal. If you had been there, none of this would have happened.” “What do you want me to do?” Jack snapped. “It already happened. Nobody knew a mudslide was coming. It was just bad luck. You can’t pin this on me.” Sadie’s voice drifted over the receiver. “Don’t blame Jack, guys. He’s really devastated too.” “Oh, look who’s protecting him,” Tyler muttered, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “So, when you ditched us on the mountain, did you guys go straight to a hotel? How was the first time, anyway?” Jack let out a low chuckle. “Three times. She cried because it hurt.” The call abruptly disconnected. A moment later, a text from Tyler popped up on my screen. [Leah, if you hadn’t given me your spare rain jacket that night, I would have gotten hypothermia. I owe you my life. I can’t keep lying to you about Jack and Sadie.] I saved the recording of the call. I played it over and over again, letting the words tear into me until the pain gave way to a cold, dead numbness. I took Beth’s urn back to her empty apartment. I sat on the living room floor, staring at our graduation photo on the wall. We had used our very first paychecks to get professional portraits taken. She had such a beautiful, radiant smile. “Don’t worry, Beth,” I whispered to the empty room. “I’m not going to fall apart.” Beth’s memorial service was held a week later. Sadie actually had the audacity to show up. She walked up to me and offered a fragile, dramatic hug. “Leah, please stay strong. You still have me.” She was wearing a scoop-neck dress that barely concealed a pattern of dark hickeys on her collarbone. Her performance of grief was cheap—lots of loud sniffling, but not a single tear. I clenched my fists inside my pockets, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. I didn’t say a word. Right after the eulogy, I noticed both Sadie and Jack had slipped out of the chapel. I followed the quiet hallway until I reached the emergency exit stairwell. Through the narrow crack in the door, I saw them. They were pressed against the concrete wall, kissing with frantic, desperate hunger. Jack eventually pulled back, his breathing heavy, though he tried to look disapproving. “Are you out of your mind? This is Beth’s funeral!” “I don’t care,” Sadie giggled, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Don’t tell me you don’t find this thrilling.” She looked up at him with an innocent, wide-eyed smile. “You little heartless brat,” Jack murmured, though there was no real heat in his voice. “Beth sent you money every month, you know.” “She just wanted to play the saint and feel good about herself,” Sadie sneered. “What does that have to do with me?” Jack grabbed her by the waist, pulling her flush against his body as if he wanted to bruise her. The red string connecting them was thick and vibrant, almost bleeding with intensity. Mine, by contrast, was a faint, ghostly thread. A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over me, and my foot slipped against the doorframe. The sound startled them, and they immediately sprang apart. Jack smoothed his jacket, his expression smoothing into a mask of casual innocence within a second. He didn’t even look flustered as he walked toward me, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “Hey, babe. My cravings got the best of me, so I came out for a smoke. Ran into Sadie on the way.” I didn’t call him out. I just clenched my teeth and forced my voice to remain steady. “I noticed you were gone, so I came looking for you.” He slid the cigarettes back into his pocket. “I’m done anyway. I’ll head back inside first.” As I turned to follow him, Sadie called out to me. “Leah, you saw us, didn’t you?” I stopped. “Saw what?” She blinked at me, her face a picture of youthful innocence. “Oh, stop acting. We were kissing.” “Look at my waist,” she added, lifting the edge of her cardigan to reveal a faint red mark. “He gripped me so hard it left a bruise.” My fingers dug into my palms. “What is your point, Sadie?” “I loved Jack the moment I saw him,” she said softly. “He’s handsome, mature, and gentle. He’s the best man I’ve ever met. I honestly don’t know how you got so lucky.” She let out a soft sigh. “But I really do have to thank you. Thank you for paying for my college.” “Jack told me that when you guys were trying to buy your apartment, you worked three different part-time jobs just to make sure you could still send me my monthly allowance. If it weren’t for you, I’d still be stuck in that miserable little mountain village. I never would have made it to the city, and I never would have met Jack.” “You practically handed him to me, Leah. You really are a wonderful person.” The blood in my veins ran cold. “…Are you even human?” “Think whatever you want,” she said, entirely unbothered. “Oh, by the way, I heard from the doctor that your uterus was badly damaged during the miscarriage. You probably won’t ever be able to have kids again, right?” She reached into her purse and pulled out a plastic stick, holding it up for me to see. Two distinct pink lines. “Maybe your dead baby decided to come to my belly instead.” “I’m pregnant, Leah. I haven’t told Jack yet. How happy do you think he’ll be when he finds out?” With a triumphant smile, she brushed past my shoulder and walked away. That night, Jack didn’t come home. Around midnight, Tyler sent me a video. It was taken at the upscale lounge where they always hung out. Sadie was sitting in the center of the booth, surrounded by their friends, while Jack held her close, kissing her passionately. “Let’s raise a glass!” Jack shouted over the music, his face flushed with joy. “I’m going to be a dad!” He was beaming, entirely untroubled by the fact that our own baby had died just a week ago. While some lives ended, others began. I was the only one left in the wreckage. My phone buzzed with a text from him. [Babe, caught up with some work stuff at the office. Won’t make it home tonight.] [By the way, can you head over to my parents’ place tomorrow? My mom’s back has been acting up, and she could use some help around the house.] I stared at the screen for a long time before typing my reply. [Okay.] And then I added: [I think I’ll stay with them for a couple of days so I can take proper care of them.] [Awesome, thanks babe!] The next morning, I packed my things and moved into my in-laws’ house. Predictably, Jack brought Sadie back to our apartment that very night. The hidden nanny cam I had installed in our living room months ago captured everything in high-definition clarity. I sat on the guest bed at his parents’ house, quietly watching them embrace, kiss, and tear their clothes off. They didn’t even make it to the bedroom. They collapsed onto the living room rug, wrapped up in each other. The red string connecting me to Jack had faded until it was practically invisible. I felt an eerie, profound sense of peace. Beth’s funeral was over. Everything that needed to be done had been done. Now, it was time to settle the debt. The next morning, I drove to the transit station and picked up Sadie’s parents. They were simple farmers who had never left their rural county. When I called them and told them their daughter was in serious trouble, they had boarded the first bus out. “Leah, what happened to our little girl?” her mother asked, her eyes wide with worry. “You’ll see when we get there,” I replied quietly, guiding them into a waiting cab. Then I went back to my in-laws’ house and picked up Jack’s parents. But I wasn’t finished. I created a massive group chat on social media, adding every single mutual friend, family member, colleague, and acquaintance Jack had. When we finally arrived at our apartment, I unlocked the door with my key and quietly led both sets of parents up the stairs to the second floor. The master bedroom door was ajar. Jack and Sadie were lying tangled in my sheets, completely naked. The floor was littered with used wrappers and adult toys. It didn’t take a genius to figure out exactly what kind of night they had shared. After a long, suffocating silence, Sadie’s mother let out a raw, horrified shriek. “Sadie!” The show had finally begun.

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When we were resetting the smart lock on my condo back to its factory settings, the building manager hesitated, looking up at me. “Ms. Foster, are you sure you want to wipe everything? This user, Isla, has administrator privileges. You’re actually registered here as a temporary guest.” I gave a small, tired smile. “Wipe it. Don’t leave a single name.” The night before, my stomach had flared up so badly I was doubled over by the elevator, my hand shaking so violently I couldn’t punch in the passcode. The lock kept flashing: Access Denied. When I called Larry, he kept his voice to a tight whisper on the other end: “Stop messing with the keypad, Natalie. Isla just fell asleep. Her nerves are shot, and the alarm is going to wake her up.” Sweat was beaded on my forehead from the pain. “This is my apartment, Larry.” He paused for two seconds, his tone shifting into familiar reproof. “She’s only staying here for a few days. Besides, don’t you have the code? Don’t make things difficult for her over something this small.” Only later did I discover what “temporary” actually meant. It meant her fingerprint was registered as the primary profile. And me—the person whose name was actually on the deed—was locked out in the hallway, unable to even reach my medication. I looked at the history log on the smart lock app. [11:48 PM: Larry Evans deleted Natalie Foster’s emergency access authorization.] I didn’t call him again. Instead, I prepaid the rest of the renovation loan and contacted my agent to put the condo back on the market. This place, which I had paid for, was no longer mine. And him? I didn’t want him either. 1 The night my gastritis flared up, I had to commute back from the clinic alone. The rain was coming down in sheets, pooling deep at the entrance of our building. By the time I stepped out of the storm, my socks were completely soaked through. When the elevator let me out on the twenty-first floor, I had one hand pressed against my ribs and the other reaching for the keypad. The interface lit up. Access Denied. Thinking I had just miskeyed, I tried again. Slow, deliberate presses. Access Denied. On the third try, the security system triggered, sending a shrill, piercing alarm echoing through the empty hallway. The pain in my stomach was so sharp I had to lean against the wall, my vision blurring. Inside, I heard muffled footsteps. It wasn’t Larry. “Who is it?” Isla’s voice came through the thick door, soft and tentative, sounding startled. I gritted my teeth. “It’s me, Natalie.” The hallway went quiet. She didn’t open the door. A moment later, my phone vibrated. It was Larry. His first words weren’t to ask how I was doing. “Natalie, stop pressing the buttons,” he said, his voice hushed. “Isla just got to sleep. You terrified her.” I leaned against the wall, the cramps twisting so hard I couldn’t stand up straight. “I can’t get inside. The lock says my access is denied.” There was a brief silence on the line. “It’s probably just a system glitch,” he said. “Go sit down at the convenience store on the corner for a bit. Don’t make a scene at the door. Isla’s emotional state is really fragile right now.” I let out a quiet laugh, though my lips felt completely numb. “Larry, my stomach is turning inside out. My prescription is in the kitchen.” His tone softened slightly, but it was still heavy with a simmering impatience. “They have over-the-counter stuff at the store. Just buy a pack to hold you over. I’ve got some things to handle here. I’ll be back late.” I stared at the brass handle. This was my apartment. I had put down seventy percent of the down payment. The mortgage auto-drafted from my account every month. The renovation loan was entirely in my name. Yet another woman was sleeping inside, and I was locked out. He was telling me to buy OTC meds at a convenience store. Through the door, I heard Isla’s hushed murmur. “Larry, should I let Natalie in? She sounds really angry.” Larry’s voice was low but clear through the receiver. “Don’t worry about it. Her stomach gets bad and she loses her temper. I don’t want her scaring you.” I listened to those words, and my fingers slowly slipped off the door handle. So, me crouching in pain in the hallway was just me “losing my temper.” I didn’t knock again. I walked over to the stairwell, sat down on the cold concrete step, and pulled up the smart lock app on my phone. The log took forever to load. When the user list finally appeared, I stared at it. User 1: Isla. Access Level: Administrator. Note: [Isla – Emergency Access] User 2: Larry Evans. Access Level: Administrator. User 3: Natalie Foster. Access Level: Temporary Guest. I stared at the words Temporary Guest for a long, quiet minute. I hadn’t put in the wrong code. I had been demoted in my own home. At 1:00 AM, Larry finally returned. He was carrying a white pharmacy bag, and the faint, sweet scent of the orange-blossom diffuser Isla favored clung to his jacket. Seeing me sitting on the stairs, he frowned. “Why didn’t you go get some medicine?” I looked up at him. “Who changed the passcode?” Larry blinked, caught off guard. “Isla’s ex-husband has been stalking her. She was terrified he’d find her, so I updated the security profile. I forgot to tell you.” Forgot. Such a simple, weightless word. He forgot to tell the owner of the house, but he remembered to register Isla’s fingerprint and assign her administrator rights. He reached down to help me up. “Let’s go inside first.” I pulled away from his hand and stood up on my own. Isla peeked out from behind the door, her eyes rimmed with red. “Natalie, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to take up your space. Larry told me not to open the door for anyone at night, and I… I didn’t know what to do.” Larry instinctively stepped in front of her, shielding her from me. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks. Don’t start on her.” Watching his protective stance, the urge to ask any more questions simply evaporated. Inside, I opened the shoe cabinet. My house slippers were gone. The pair on Isla’s feet was the brand-new set I had just bought for myself. She followed my gaze, looked down, and panicked, trying to kick them off. Larry caught her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. The floor is freezing.” Then he turned to me. “It’s just a pair of slippers, Natalie. Is it really worth making a fuss over?” Just a pair of slippers. Just a security setting. Eventually, I would become a “just,” too. I took the medicine he bought but didn’t open it. In the master bedroom, our framed engagement photo had been moved from the nightstand. In its place stood an aromatherapy diffuser and Isla’s lavender sleep mist. Larry had told me she was only staying for three days. But in the closet, her shoes were already lined up, sorted by season. I opened my phone and pulled up my realtor’s contact. [I want to list the condo. As soon as possible.] She replied almost instantly. [Are you sure, Ms. Foster? I thought this was going to be your home after the wedding.] From the living room, I could hear Larry’s low, gentle voice soothing Isla. [I’m sure.] This place was no longer my home. The next morning, the sound of quiet chatter in the kitchen woke me. Larry was making breakfast. Pumpkin oatmeal. Sweet, warm, slow-simmered. I had suffered from chronic gastritis for years, yet he had never managed to remember that pumpkin always triggered my acid reflux. When he walked out carrying the bowl, he handed it straight to Isla. “You didn’t sleep well. Eat some of this first.” Isla was draped in my cashmere shawl, sitting at the dining table. “Thank you both,” she whispered. “I feel like such a burden.” I stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Larry finally noticed me. “Oh, Natalie. There’s more on the stove. Help yourself.” I walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. My unsweetened Greek yogurt was gone. The shelves were neatly stocked with oat milk and gluten-free bread. I remembered my endoscopy last month. The night before the procedure, Larry couldn’t even remember what time my fasting window started, but he had called to ask if I could grab him a cold brew on my way home. He wasn’t naturally careless. He just didn’t waste his care on me. I pulled open the first-aid cabinet. My stomach medication had expired six months ago. But Isla’s melatonin, anti-anxiety prescriptions, heating patches, and daily vitamins were organized in neat, labeled bins. Larry walked in behind me. Seeing me sorting through the cabinet, he offered a casual explanation. “Isla’s been struggling, and she can’t skip her meds. I wanted to make sure we had everything she might need.” “My prescription expired,” I said quietly. “Did you know?” He hesitated, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Well… you’re always so tough. You usually just push through it.” The words felt like a tiny needle—not a deep wound, but a sharp, localized sting. I clicked the cabinet shut. “Right. I push through it.” Which meant I was always the one who could wait. During breakfast, Isla looked up timidly. “Natalie, do you mind if I use the vanity in the master bedroom for a bit? I have a lot of skincare products.” Before I could speak, Larry answered for me. “Go ahead. Natalie hasn’t been wearing much makeup lately anyway.” I looked Larry dead in the eye. “That vanity is mine.” Larry’s brow furrowed. “I know it’s yours. She’s just borrowing it for a few days. Why are you being so sensitive?” Isla’s eyes welled with tears instantly. “Forget it, I don’t need it. Please, don’t fight because of me.” Larry set his spoon down with a sharp clink. “Natalie, she’s already walking on eggshells here. Can you stop making her feel like a nuisance?” I wanted to laugh. I was the one paying the mortgage. I had picked out the table we were sitting at, the plates we were eating off of. Even the chairs they were sitting on had been paid for with three months of my overtime bonuses. And yet, I was the one making her feel like a nuisance. That afternoon, after Larry left for the office and Isla went to nap, I went into the study to gather my documents. On the shelf next to the desk, there were several new pink storage bins. The labels were printed in neat, clear script. [Natalie’s Spares] I stared at the word Spares. In my own home, my things had been relegated to spare inventory. My phone buzzed with an Instagram notification. Isla had posted a photo. It was a shot of the corner of the master bedroom—the linen curtains, the reading lamp, the ceramic diffuser, all of which I had spent weekends sourcing. Her caption read: [Finally, a little sanctuary where I can sleep in peace.] Larry had liked it. And he had commented: [Rest easy.] I stared at those words for a long time, then took a screenshot and saved it. I opened my laptop and started a spreadsheet. Down payment, monthly payments, renovation loans, furniture, appliances, HOA fees, utilities. I pulled every bank statement from the last three years and itemized Larry’s contributions to the cent. I used to think keeping score was petty. I thought when you were planning a marriage, who spent what didn’t matter. But now I understood: the person who doesn’t keep score is the one who ends up with nowhere to stand. My realtor called to ask if the photographer could come by that afternoon. “Yes,” I said. “That works.” “Does your fiancé know about this, Ms. Foster?” I looked at the final numbers on my screen. “He’s not on the deed.” There was a brief pause on the line. “Understood. We’ll proceed.”

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The state’s largest unlicensed “troubled youth” ranch had finally been raided and shut down by the FBI. Sitting in the cold interrogation room, the director, Gary, smirked as he went down the list of kids who had passed through his gates, describing each of them with casual cruelty. But when he reached one particular name, his smile twisted into something dark and mocking. “This one was the most pathetic,” he sneered. “Twenty-one years old, sent to us just for dating some deadbeat. Her own mother personally requested the ‘maximum correction package’ for her. Said she needed to be broken.” The forensic artist’s pencil hitched. The room fell into a suffocating, dead silence. Gary bared his yellowed teeth, letting out a dry chuckle. “She was a clever little bitch, though. She actually managed to splice a live wire into the generator room’s terminal, rigging up a dial-tone just to make a call. Scared the living hell out of my staff.” “But you want to know the best part? Her mother called us right back. Told us exactly where she was hiding, clear as day.” “We dragged her out and beat her within an inch of her life. And that very night, she hung herself. Survived three years of our program, only to end it all over a failed phone call.” He leaned forward, his eyes locking onto the man holding the sketchpad. “Hey, Joseph. Don’t you think that girl sounds a little familiar?” My father, Joseph—the legendary forensic artist who could reconstruct a human face in six strokes—didn’t look up. He quietly shaded the final line on his paper. “Are you finished?” his voice was flat, hollow. “My youngest daughter is getting married tomorrow. If you’re going to lie to save your own skin, at least make it believable.” Gary laughed until tears rolled down his dirty cheeks. “Oh, I remember her clearly. Even when they cut her down, she was still clutching one of your sketch pens.” …… 1 My father let out a cold, dismissive breath and checked his phone. “Anyone who bothers to look at the records knows I gave my eldest daughter a custom fountain pen on her eighteenth birthday. But she cut ties with this family years ago.” He stood up, brushing the charcoal dust off his sketchpad. “My youngest is walking down the aisle today. I don’t have time to listen to a monster’s fairy tales.” Gary’s eyes filled with pure contempt. “You really are a piece of work, Joseph. So cold-blooded. You let your eldest rot in a hole, just so you could play the doting father to your darling youngest.” My father frowned, looking down at him as if he were a piece of garbage stuck to his shoe. “I have always loved both of my daughters. Neither of them would ever belong in a hellhole like yours.” He flipped his sketchpad around, revealing the face he had just drawn. “Gary Junior. Familiar?” The arrogant smirk on the director’s face vanished instantly. “Joseph! Leave him out of this! My son had nothing to do with the ranch! If you want blood, come after me!” My father snapped his folder shut. “Whether your son is clean is for the DA to decide. I suggest you start talking instead of playing games with me.” I stood beside my father, watching him with quiet admiration. He had always been larger than life to me. He didn’t just draw suspects from a victim’s memory; he had this incredible, almost magical gift of reconstructing a child’s face just by looking at their parents. Gary thrashed against his cuffs, begging, but the detectives in the room ignored him. My father turned to leave, his patience entirely depleted. Suddenly, Gary’s eyes turned bloodshot. He screamed at my father’s retreating back: “Your wife told you she was at Veritas Prep on a study-abroad program, didn’t she? You stupid, blind bastard! Why don’t you go look at what Veritas really is! You destroyed my family, Joseph—don’t think you’re getting a happy ending!” At the mention of those words, I instinctively shrank back, covering my head in terror. But the expected blow never came. I forgot. I’m already dead. Behind the double-sided glass, the lead detectives sprang into action. This ranch was just a branch of a much larger, darker syndicate. Every lead was vital, and the department had brought my father in specifically to crack Gary’s defenses. My father let out a long sigh, stepping into the hallway. His phone buzzed in his pocket. It was my mother, Meredith. “Honey, where are you? Maisie’s ceremony is about to start. You’re the father of the bride—you cannot be late for this.” “I’m on my way,” my father replied, his voice softening. But as his foot cleared the threshold, a desperate, raw shriek echoed from the interrogation room behind him: “That girl had an iris tattooed on her left forearm!” My father froze. His entire body went rigid. An iris. It means hope and protection. He had inked that tattoo on me himself. I remembered the exact weight of his hand, the gentle hum of the needle. He had looked at me and said, “An iris is a shield, Summer. Daddy put it on you, so I’ll be protecting you forever.” Then, his phone screen lit up with a photo Meredith had just sent. He stared at it, and a faint, relieved smile touched his lips. In the photo, a handsome young man was holding up a glass, flanked by my beaming mother and sister. The groom. My sister’s new husband. And the boy I had loved with every fiber of my being. The wedding venue was breathtaking, packed to the brim with high-society guests. Meredith looked at my father with a playful, scolding pout. “You always let your work get in the way of this family, Joseph.” “If you hadn’t been so soft on Summer back then, she wouldn’t have gone down such a rebellious path.” “It’s a good thing we sent her to Oakhaven to get her sorted out. Otherwise, I’d still be blaming you for being an irresponsible father.” I stood in the center of the floral-draped aisle, staring at my mother in absolute shock, my spectral hands clenching into tight fists. Rebellious path? To my mother, my “rebellious path” was refusing to break up with Wayne—who was poor but loved me—to marry the wealthy heir she had handpicked for me when I was twenty-one. I remembered that night vividly. I had wept at her feet, begging her to understand. “Mom, please! That man is cruel, he doesn’t care about me! And I love Wayne!” But Meredith couldn’t tolerate defiance. Her eyes had burned with a manic, red-hot fury as she struck me across the face, her fists raining down on my back. “Everything I do is for you!” she had shrieked. “You ungrateful little bitch! You think you’re grown now? You think you can disobey me? You will break up with him. Tonight.” When I remained silent, she grabbed a paring knife from the counter and pressed it against her own throat, drawing a thin line of real, crimson blood. “I’ll do it!” I had screamed, my heart fracturing into a thousand pieces. “I’ll break up with him!” But the moment the breakup text was sent, Wayne had lost his mind. He sped through the rain to find me and wrapped his car around a concrete pillar. The moment I heard he was in the ICU, I fought to run out the door, but my mother locked me in my room, screaming about parental authority and social standing. In a desperate, reckless bid to see him one last time, I crawled out of my second-story window and jumped. Before Wayne even woke from his coma, Meredith had dragged me back. My escape was the ultimate betrayal in her eyes. Her control was absolute, and my defiance was unforgivable. So, she arranged to have me sent to Oakhaven Academy. When my father returned home from an out-of-town case, all he saw was the dried blood on Meredith’s neck. Blaming me for nearly driving my mother to suicide, he personally drove me to the gates of that hellhole. Neither of them knew that Oakhaven wasn’t a school. It was a slaughterhouse. My spirit trembled violently, nearly swallowed by the darkness of those memories, until my father’s bitter voice pulled me back to the present. “Don’t bring up Summer,” he muttered to my mother. “She clearly wants nothing to do with us anyway.” Meredith’s face hardened. “All because we saved her from ruining her life? We spent a fortune on that academy. How dare she cut us off the moment she turned eighteen? Her program ends tomorrow. You’re going to pick her up, and she’s going to apologize.” I let out a hollow, silent laugh, looking at my sister, Maisie, standing just behind her. Maisie’s face was bloodless, her knuckles white. My mother had no idea. I was never coming home. It was Maisie who had shown my private texts with Wayne to Meredith in the first place. She knew exactly how to trigger our mother’s obsessive control, deliberately painting Wayne as a dangerous predator to turn Meredith against him. And Oakhaven? That was Maisie’s recommendation, too. Beside her, Wayne noticed her pale face and asked if she was alright. Maisie forced a brittle smile, whispering that she was just nervous, and pulled him toward the dressing room. Meredith beamed, waving them off. “Go on, you two. No time for flirting now. Get changed.” The moment the heavy dressing room door clicked shut, Maisie grabbed Wayne’s sleeve, her voice trembling. “Wayne… do you still love my sister?” The air in the room instantly turned to ice. I stood right beside them, staring at Wayne, my heart aching with a familiar, ghostly longing. We had loved each other since high school. Six years of shared dreams, secret notes, and promises of a future. But Wayne didn’t answer. He just let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “Why are you asking me that today, Maisie? It’s our wedding. Let’s not ruin it with dead weight.” But his hands were shaking, and on his wrist, he still wore the cheap leather watch I had bought him for his eighteenth birthday. “I need to know, Wayne!” Maisie demanded, her grip tightening on his jacket. Cornered, the frustration in Wayne’s chest finally boiled over into bitter resentment. “No! I don’t love her!” he spat. “After everything I gave her, how could she just discard me like trash? Six years, Maisie! And she walked away without a single word. She didn’t even show up when I was dying in that hospital bed. She just sent a text calling me a pathetic loser and vanished. Why would I still love someone like that?” A look of smug triumph flashed across Maisie’s face, and she threw her arms around his neck, holding him tight.

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Half an hour ago, an anonymous photo popped up on my phone. My bedroom. My bed. A man and a woman. The moment I pushed the door open, I felt nothing but a strange, terrifying calm. I pulled out my phone and dialed 9-1-1. “Yes, hello. I need an officer at my address. I think my wife is being assaulted.” My wife froze. The guy in my bed went dead pale. 1 It was 3:30 PM, and I was killing time at the office. My monitors were split into three windows: an endless string of backend code, a dense technical document I was pretending to read, and a Reddit thread about mechanical keyboards I had hidden in the corner. My phone buzzed. I glanced down. An anonymous text. No words. Just an image. It was grainy, like it had been taken through the crack of a curtain from a weird angle. But I recognized that bed instantly. The IKEA Malm frame, king-size. The charcoal-gray fitted sheet. The faint grease stain on the top right corner where I’d dropped a piece of pepperoni while eating late-night pizza last month. There were two people on the mattress. A man and a woman. The woman’s back was to the camera, but I knew that sapphire-blue silk nightgown. I bought it for her last Valentine’s Day. It was a hundred and twenty bucks. I remember the price vividly because I had originally picked out an eighty-dollar one, but she said the fabric felt cheap. The man’s face was turned away, his features blurred in the shadows. I stared at the photo for exactly ten seconds. Then I locked my screen, turned back to my monitor, and kept writing my code. Josh, the frontend developer in the next cubicle, leaned over. “Hey man, why do you look so blank?” “I always look blank.” “No, I mean the face you just made looking at your phone. It’s the exact same face you make when the client changes the project requirements at the last minute.” I thought about it. “Yeah. Pretty much.” I stood up, grabbed my jacket off the back of my chair, and walked over to my team lead. I told him I felt sick and was using half a sick day. He took one look at me. “You do look awful. Go home. Get some rest.” I nodded. I took the elevator down, got in my car, and put my home address into the GPS. An eighteen-minute drive. I didn’t turn on the radio. I didn’t have any profound, life-altering revelations. I just drove in total silence, methodically reconstructing the timeline in my head. Three months ago, Claire started working late. Two months ago, she changed the passcode on her phone and enabled Face ID. One month ago, she mentioned a series of weekend “team-building retreats” with her marketing agency. Last week, she was looking down at her screen and smiled. It was a soft, glowing kind of smile. The kind of smile I hadn’t seen directed at me in years. It wasn’t that I hadn’t suspected anything. But I’m a software architect. It’s an occupational hazard—before you declare a bug, you need the system logs to prove it. So, I bought a camera. Nothing high-tech. A twenty-dollar Amazon Prime knockoff disguised as a USB wall charger. I plugged it in facing the living room. Week one: nothing. Week two: nothing. Week three. Wednesday at 2:17 PM, a man walked through my front door. He was about six feet tall, wearing a navy polo shirt, carrying two Starbucks cups in a cardboard carrier. Claire came out of the bedroom to greet him. She was wearing the sapphire-blue silk nightgown. The two coffees were set down on the glass coffee table. Neither of them took a sip. They went straight into the bedroom. The door clicked shut. I was sitting at my desk in the office, watching the playback on my phone, and my expression was exactly what Josh had described—the client just changed the requirements again. Over the next three weeks, the exact same routine played out five times. Always on a Wednesday afternoon. Always the same guy. Always two Starbucks cups. They never drank the coffee. It felt incredibly wasteful. I quietly created an Excel spreadsheet. Date. Time of entry. Duration. Notes. Under the Notes column, I just typed: Didn’t drink the coffee again. Today was Wednesday. But I didn’t get a motion-detection alert at 2:00 PM. Instead, someone else had sent me a notification—the anonymous photo. That surprised me. Not the fact that Claire was cheating, but the fact that someone out there was actively trying to help me. Or, more likely, just wanted to watch the world burn. It didn’t matter. I parked my car in the underground garage of The Waverly. I didn’t take the elevator. I took the fire stairs. Twenty-three floors. It took me ten minutes. By the time I reached my front door, I wasn’t even breathing heavily. I pulled out my keys. I didn’t use the electronic keypad because it beeps when you type the code. I slid the physical key into the deadbolt, turned it silently, and pushed. The door swung open. In the living room, two Starbucks cups sat sweating on the glass table. Untouched. Still a waste. The bedroom door was slightly ajar. I stood in the hallway and took a deep breath. Not because I was nervous. Just because climbing twenty-three flights of stairs actually takes it out of you. Then, I pushed the door wide open. The live feed matched the camera footage perfectly. Claire was propped up against the headboard, her hair a messy halo around her shoulders. The man was lying on his side, his back to the door. The moment the hinges creaked, both of their heads snapped toward me. Four eyes locked on mine. Claire’s face cycled through a masterclass of human panic—confusion, shock, terror, and finally, an ashen, bloodless dread. She completed the entire emotional spectrum in roughly half a second. The man was a beat slower. He froze, his pupils dilating, his mouth falling slightly open. I had seen his face on my screen plenty of times. Square jaw, thick eyebrows, a faint mole near his chin. What the cheap camera couldn’t pick up, I could see clearly now—he took good care of himself. Expensive haircut, no crow’s feet. Probably mid-thirties. “N-Noah…” Claire’s voice broke the silence. She was trembling so hard the mattress shook. “What are you… aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t lunge at the bed. I didn’t rip the sheets off. I didn’t flip the nightstand or throw a punch. I simply took one step backward, out of the bedroom and into the living room. I pulled out my phone. Face ID unlocked. Keypad. Three digits. 9-1-1. Ring. Ring. “911, what is your emergency?” “Yes, hello.” My voice was as flat and steady as if I were reading lines of code. “My name is Noah Evans. I live at The Waverly, building B, apartment 2305. I just came home from work and found a strange man in my bedroom, in bed with my wife. My wife looks absolutely terrified, and I believe she is being sexually assaulted.” The dispatcher paused for three seconds. “Sir, can you repeat that? Are you saying there is an active assault?” “I came home, the bedroom door was open, and a man I do not know is in my bed. My wife’s expression is pure panic. Based on her reaction to my arrival, I have reason to believe she was coerced or forced.” “Okay, sir. We are dispatching officers to your location immediately. Please, do not engage with the intruder. Do not start a physical altercation.” “Don’t worry,” I said softly. “I won’t.” I hung up. I turned back to look at the bedroom. Claire had already scrambled out of bed, clutching the duvet tightly around her chest. Her face was the color of chalk, her lips quivering uncontrollably. “Noah! What the hell did you just do?!” I looked at her. My expression must have been terrifyingly blank, because seeing it only made her panic harder. “You’re crazy! Noah, listen to me, I can explain!” “No need.” I walked over to the living room couch and sat down, finding the most comfortable groove in the cushions. “The police are on their way. You can explain it to them. After all, you’re the victim here.” A frantic shuffling noise erupted from the bedroom. The man was trying to put his pants on. His hands were shaking so violently that he missed getting his foot through the leg hole twice. On the third try, he got them up, but the zipper was still down. He stumbled out of the bedroom, saw me sitting casually on the sofa, and stopped dead in his tracks. “Bro, man, listen to me—” “Zip your pants up first,” I said. He looked down. All the color drained from his face, leaving behind a sickly, grayish green. 2 His name was Trent. I would later see his full name on the police report, but right now, he was just “the guy with his fly down.” After Trent finally managed to yank his zipper up, he stood in the middle of my living room looking like a QA engineer who had just caused a massive server crash—he knew he was at fault, but he wasn’t entirely sure how much it was going to cost him. “Listen, man… there’s a huge misunderstanding here.” As he spoke, his eyes darted nervously between me and the front door, running the calculations. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was weighing his flight risk. Twenty-three floors down. Waiting for the elevator would take at least forty seconds. Taking the stairs would blow out his knees and still take three minutes. And if the cops pulled up while he was running— “Stop looking at the door,” I said, my tone mild. “The precinct is a six-minute drive from here. It’s been four minutes since I hung up the phone.” Trent’s face turned another shade paler. Claire was huddled in the far corner of the sofa, wrapped in the white duvet. Her hair was a mess, and her eyes were already red-rimmed. “Noah, what are you trying to do?” “Nothing. I’m just a concerned husband who came home, thought his wife was in danger, and called the authorities.” “Bullshit!” She leaped to her feet, almost dropping the blanket before snatching it back up. “You—you know damn well that’s not what this is!” “Oh?” I tilted my head slightly. “Then what is it?” Claire choked on her words. This was the first dead-end loop I had designed for her. She only had two options. Option A: Admit it was consensual. That meant confessing to adultery in front of the police, essentially handing me a flawless victory in a divorce settlement. Option B: Play along with my narrative. Which meant Trent was going straight to jail for a very serious felony. Both paths led to a fatal crash. And she had about sixty seconds to pick one. I leaned back into the sofa, reached over to the glass table, and picked up one of the Starbucks cups. I gave it a little shake. Still warm. I popped the plastic lid off and took a sip. Flat White. Not bad. Trent’s eye twitched as he watched me drink the coffee he had paid for. Claire stared at me like she was looking at a ghost. She was shaking from head to toe. “You’re out of your mind,” she whispered. “I’m perfectly rational.” I took another sip. “Do either of you want the other one? It’s a shame to waste it.” Nobody spoke. The living room fell into a suffocating silence for about fifteen seconds. Trent was the first to crack. He took a step forward, lowering his voice, slipping into corporate-negotiation mode. “Look, man, how about this—I cut you a check right now, and we make this whole thing go away. Private settlement.” “How much?” He thought I was taking the bait. A spark of hope lit up his eyes. “Fifty grand. No, a hundred. A hundred thousand dollars.” “Is a hundred grand enough to buy your way out of handcuffs?” The spark died instantly. “What I mean is, if you make a run for it right now, and the cops tackle you in the lobby, you’re going to end up in cuffs. I don’t think a hundred grand covers the legal fees for a sexual assault charge.” The doorbell rang. Trent flinched so hard it looked like he’d been tased. Claire let out a sharp gasp, burying her face in the duvet. I set the coffee down, stood up, and straightened the collar of my dress shirt. I took a deep, steadying breath. And then— I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes until they stung and turned red. I pinched the bridge of my nose hard enough to make it flush. I adjusted my facial muscles: pulling the corners of my mouth down, furrowing my brow, shifting my gaze from icy detachment to barely contained devastation. A one-second compile time. I opened the door. Two officers stood in the hallway. One was in his late forties, heavily built, with the tired eyes of a veteran detective. The other was maybe twenty-two, fresh out of the academy, his hand resting near his body cam. “Noah Evans?” the older cop asked. “That’s me.” My voice trembled perfectly, carrying just the right amount of repressed trauma. “Thank God you guys got here so fast… I—I didn’t know what else to do.” The older cop put a heavy, reassuring hand on my shoulder. “Take it easy, son. Where are they?” I stepped aside, opening up the view to the living room. The visual narrative was compelling. In the center of the room stood a disheveled man with a panicked expression, his shirt buttoned up wrong. On the couch, a woman was huddled in a blanket, weeping softly, her eyes red. On the table, two coffees. From a purely optical standpoint, the scene pointed directly toward one conclusion. The rookie cop looked at Trent, then at Claire, and his jaw tightened. The older cop’s face remained neutral, but his eyes hardened. “And who is this?” he asked, looking at Trent. Trent opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “That’s the man I told the dispatcher about,” I interjected, keeping my voice low and unsteady. “I came home early… opened the bedroom door… and found them in my bed. My wife looked absolutely terrified. I—I wasn’t sure if he had a weapon or if she was…” I let my voice crack and trail off. The universal sound of a man who couldn’t bear to finish the sentence. The rookie cop’s hand drifted toward his utility belt. The older cop’s expression turned to stone. He took a step toward Trent. “Let me see some ID. Now.” Trent stood frozen. “I…” “ID. Right now.” Trent’s hands shook violently as he dug into his pockets. He pulled out a leather wallet and fumbled with his driver’s license, nearly dropping it on the hardwood floor. The older cop took it, glanced at it, and pulled out a notepad. “Trenton Hayes. Thirty-six. Okay, Mr. Hayes. You’re going to come with us.” “Wait! Hold on!” Trent’s voice spiked an octave. “Officer, it’s not what it looks like! We—it was consensual!” He whipped his head around to look at Claire. “Claire! Tell them! Tell them it was consensual!” Every eye in the room zeroed in on my wife. Including mine. Claire’s lips were trembling. She looked at Trent. Then she looked at me. Then at the two police officers standing by the door. She was locked in the loop. She opened her mouth twice. No sound. The third time. “I…” I watched her, my face completely neutral. But in my head, I was counting down. Three. Two. One. “I don’t know him.” Claire’s voice was barely a whisper, but in the dead silence of the apartment, it rang like a gunshot. Watching Trent’s face was like watching a man get hit by a slow-motion train. First, shock. Then, disbelief. And finally, utter, suffocating terror. “Claire… what are you saying?” Claire buried her face back in the blanket, her shoulders heaving. “I don’t know him,” she repeated, her voice muffled. The rookie cop’s face went rigid. The older cop reached to the back of his belt and unclipped his handcuffs. “Alright, Mr. Hayes. Turn around and put your hands behind your back.” “No! You have to listen to me! She’s lying! We know each other! We’ve been sleeping together for three months!” Trent was hyperventilating now. He took a clumsy step backward, his leg clipping the edge of the glass table. The remaining Starbucks cup tipped over. Hot coffee spilled across the glass and dripped onto the expensive rug. I stood by the wall, watching Trent flail and panic as the cuffs clicked around his wrists. I only had one thought. That’s a shame about the Flat White. 3 We took separate cars to the station. Claire rode with the older detective. Trent was placed in the back of the rookie’s cruiser. I drove myself, following closely behind them. Halfway there, my phone buzzed on the dash mount. A text from Josh. Hey man, why’d you bounce so early? Boss said you were sick? I kept one hand on the wheel and used the other to type. Family emergency. What happened? I think my wife got assaulted. Six seconds later, my phone started ringing. “Holy shit!!! Noah! Where are you?! Do you need me to come over?!” Josh was yelling into the mic. “No. I called the cops. We’re heading to the precinct right now.” “Jesus Christ… dude, are you okay?” “I’m fine.” “Don’t do anything crazy, man!” “I’m driving. I’ll call you later.” I hung up. My grip on the steering wheel was perfectly relaxed. The Bluetooth audio automatically resumed the podcast I had been listening to on my commute that morning—an in-depth tutorial on advanced Excel macros. I didn’t turn it off. The precinct was more orderly than I expected. They separated us immediately. Trent was dragged into an interrogation room. Claire was ushered into a small office down the hall. I sat in a hard plastic chair in the corridor, sipping a lukewarm cup of water a uniform had handed me, and waited. Detective Ramirez—the older cop from the apartment—eventually came out and sat next to me with a clipboard. “Mr. Evans. Can you walk me through exactly what happened when you got home?” “Of course.” I organized my syntax. Clear, concise, chronological. “I left the office early today, around 3:40 PM, because I wasn’t feeling well. I arrived at my apartment at approximately 4:05 PM. When I walked in, I noticed two takeout coffees on the table and the bedroom door slightly open. I pushed it open and saw a man and a woman in my bed. The woman was my wife, Claire. The man was a stranger. When my wife saw me, she looked absolutely terrified, and the man panicked. Assessing her reaction, I backed out of the room and immediately dialed 911.” Ramirez scribbled in his notebook. He paused and looked up at me. “You didn’t engage in any physical altercation with the suspect?” “No.” “Why not?” “Because I’m a software engineer.” Ramirez blinked. “I mean, I process things logically. Fighting him wouldn’t have secured the scene.” “Right.” Ramirez nodded slowly, his pen moving again. “Has your wife ever mentioned this man before?” “Never.” “How are things between you and your wife generally?” “I thought they were good.” I injected just a fraction of an ounce of bitterness into my voice. Ramirez stopped writing. He looked at me. It was that specific, piercing gaze that veteran cops develop over decades—the kind that tries to see the code behind the user interface. He stared at my face for exactly three seconds. Then he looked back down at his notes. I don’t know what he saw. But he didn’t press the issue. I finished my statement, signed the paperwork, and went back to my plastic chair in the hallway. My phone buzzed again. Josh: Dude, what the hell is going on? Should I take PTO and come down there? No need. Did she really get…? They’re investigating. Did they catch the bastard? He’s in an interrogation room right now. Fuck that guy. Listen, Noah, if you need anything, the whole dev team has your back. Just say the word. Thanks. Can you order me some Pad Kee Mao? Not too spicy. … I missed lunch. Fifteen minutes later, the door to the interrogation room opened. Trent was escorted out. His face wasn’t just pale anymore; it was the color of wet concrete. He looked like a surgeon who had just lost a patient after a thirty-hour shift. He saw me sitting in the hallway. The look he gave me was so complex it could have been a novel. Fear, rage, indignation, and absolute despair, all swirling together. I gave him a brief, polite nod. His lips parted, but no sound came out. Ten minutes after that, Ramirez called me into his office. “Mr. Evans. The situation has gotten a bit complicated.” “How so?” “The suspect, Mr. Hayes… he is vehemently insisting that the sexual encounter was consensual. He claims they’ve been seeing each other for three months.” “Is that right?” My face arranged itself into a mask of polite skepticism.

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I have always been a deeply cautious, risk-averse person. My mother could watch hundreds of millions of dollars vanish from her stock portfolio in a single afternoon without so much as blinking. My father bought commercial real estate the way normal people bought groceries at a corner store. And my little sister started investing her own trust fund at the age of three, earning herself a reputation as a ruthless shark in the venture capital world. And then there was me. I was the kind of guy who agonized over whether to spend an extra fifty cents for an extra egg on my street-cart breakfast burrito. I lived this life of luxury in a state of perpetual anxiety, constantly waiting for the universe to demand its interest on my unearned good fortune. Until the night of my eighteenth birthday gala, when the “real” son showed up with a DNA test in hand. I let out a massive, quiet sigh of relief. I knew it. How could a cautious, ordinary guy like me actually belong to a multi-generational billionaire dynasty? 1 On the night of the gala, I stood on the elevated stage wearing a custom-tailored tuxedo worth more than a decent suburban home. I felt entirely out of place. “Dad, this fabric is driving me crazy. It’s so itchy. Can I please change into something else?” My father cast a stern, silent look in my direction and gestured for the stylist to touch up my makeup. “Toby,” he said, his voice low and steady. “Just remember, your most important job tonight is to keep your mouth shut.” I pouted, metaphorically zipping my lips, and stared blankly at the sea of high-society guests mingling below. It was a suffocating kind of misery. “Charles, sometimes I seriously wonder if this boy is actually ours,” my mother sighed, swirling her champagne. But before she could finish her thought, the grand double doors of the ballroom were flung open. A young man wearing a faded, twice-washed T-shirt strode into the room. He held a sheaf of papers high in the air, his voice cutting through the classical music. “This is a DNA test! I am the biological son of the Harrington family! You’ve all been lied to by Toby!” The room fell into a dead, stunned silence. Then, a wave of frenzied whispering erupted. “Swapped at birth? I knew coming tonight would be worth it!” “Honestly, I always thought Charles’s boy was a bit odd. Absolutely zero ambition. Last month, my kid asked him to invest in a tech startup, and the boy literally pulled a ten-dollar bill out of his pocket! What is anyone supposed to do with ten dollars?” Hearing their hushed gossip, I swallowed hard. Honestly, it felt amazing. I knew it. There was no way a guy like me—someone who needed a full mental preparation session just to order extra bacon—could be the heir to a historic empire. Looking at the boy standing by the entrance, I felt a sudden urge to run down, shake his hand, and thank him. Before I could say a word, he pointed a trembling finger at me and shouted, “Toby! You never expected me to find this place, did you? You’ve known all along that I was the real Harrington. Why did you hide it?” I blinked, completely baffled. What kind of script was he reading from? I had never seen this guy before in my life. I opened my mouth to speak, instinctively reaching for the tiny notebook in my pocket where I kept track of my daily expenses. My fingers met empty air; tonight’s tuxedo didn’t have room for it, so I had left it upstairs. My lack of response only seemed to embolden him. “My name is Damian. Though, of course, it will soon be Damian Harrington. A person of my rightful standing belongs in this family!” He puffed out his chest, marching proudly up to the stage, and grabbed my wrist with a tight, aggressive grip. “It wasn’t enough for an impostor like you to steal my identity. You even stole the heirloom our father left for me!” He glared at the silver bracelet on my wrist, then looked at my father. This felt entirely wrong. I had worn this simple silver band for over a decade. It wasn’t gold. It wasn’t platinum. How much could it possibly be worth? “This piece is worth a fortune, Toby! You could work a lifetime and never pay it off! If you behave like a good little dog from now on, I might consider letting you off easy.” Damian’s eyes welled with tears, looking as though he were the one who had been deeply wronged. “Are you saying the bracelet on his wrist is stolen from you? And that it’s worth a million dollars?” My father set his glass down. His voice was soft, but it instantly silenced the entire ballroom. “Yes!” Damian stood tall, squaring his shoulders. “Dad, the evidence is right here. Kick him out of the house!” Every eye in the room landed on me. I clenched my fists, wanting to defend myself, but the words caught in my throat. After what felt like an eternity, my father spoke. “Impossible.” He paused, looking at Damian. “I’d believe he had the guts to rob a bank before I believed he had the guts to steal from you.” 2 Damian’s expression crumbled. “Dad, are you seriously protecting an impostor?” He dropped to his knees, tears streaming down his face. “I was taken to some backwater town when I was a child. I had to fight tooth and nail just to get an education and make it to the city. Only when I arrived did I realize someone else had stolen my life. It was you, Toby! You’ve been living in luxury every single day while I suffered. Don’t you feel any guilt at all?” My expression remained neutral, but internally, I was nodding along. To be fair, I had suspected for years that I wasn’t a Harrington. The Harringtons were giants. My mother, Diana, was a Wall Street legend who could lose millions in a bad trade, shrug, and say, “Money comes and goes, but the thrill remains.” My father, Charles, checked his iPad every morning to see if there were any skyscrapers downtown he felt like buying. And Maeve, my sister, was a prodigy who took her pocket money, threw it into clean energy, and tripled her returns in six months. I was the glitch in their perfect system. When I was six, my father gave me a black card. I used it to scrape dirt off my shoes with the neighborhood kids. When I finally realized it held an unfathomable amount of wealth, I immediately returned it to him, untouched. When I was eight, I found a fifty-cent coin on the school playground. I stood in the scorching sun for hours waiting for the owner. When no one showed up, I marched to the local police precinct to hand it in, meticulously detailing the time, the location, and the specific path of the ants crawling nearby. I knew I didn’t fit in. Even among the other wealthy heirs in our circle, I was a running joke. “Toby? The guy doesn’t even know the difference between a Rolex and a Timex.” “I saw him at a charity gala once. He was literally counting the zeros on the auction catalog with his mouth wide open. It was hilarious.” I knew what they whispered. And I agreed with them. I mean, look at me. How could someone like me be a billionaire’s son? My father took a slow sip of his drink and smiled. “Toby literally signs an IOU every time he asks me for ten dollars. If you truly believe he stole from you, you are welcome to call the police. But let me remind you, filing a false police report is a crime.” Damian’s sobbing came to an abrupt halt. He wiped his eyes quickly and handed the DNA report to my father. “Maybe… maybe I misremembered the bracelet. But this paper doesn’t lie.” My mother skimmed through the documents, pinching the bridge of her nose. With a quiet nod to the estate manager, the entire ballroom was cleared of guests within ten minutes. “Charles,” she said quietly. “Explain this. Where did this boy come from?” My father looked genuinely bewildered. To prove his innocence, he insisted on taking the entire family to the hospital that very night for an official, expedited DNA test. Until the results came back, Damian was allowed to stay at the estate. The next morning, we gathered at the long dining table. I was meticulously organizing my plate, placing the salad, the eggs, and the toast in a precise, logical sequence. Experience had taught me that eating in this exact order prevented indigestion and kept me full longer, which meant I wouldn’t get sick and cause unnecessary trouble for the family. Just as I raised my fork, Damian decided to make his move. 3 He picked up his glass of orange juice, tossing it back as if it were a shot of expensive whiskey, and stood up. “Everyone, since I am sitting at this table, it means you recognize me as a Harrington. Therefore, I cannot keep this secret any longer.” Damian took a deep, dramatic breath. He pointed at Benson, our butler, who was in the middle of serving breakfast, and then turned a triumphant glare toward me. “Benson, I heard you with my own ears this morning. You said Toby stole two hundred thousand dollars in cash from the family safe! Toby, what do you have to say for yourself now?” Benson nearly dropped the platter in his hands, waving his arms in a panic. “I never said such a thing! Master Damian, where on earth did you hear that?” Damian slammed his hand on the table. “I am the rightful heir of this family! You should be addressing me with respect! Don’t worry, Benson. If you tell the truth, I personally guarantee you won’t lose your job.” Benson looked on the verge of tears. “Ma’am, Sir… I was simply murmuring to myself. Master Toby’s allowance this month was twenty dollars more than last month, and I was merely wondering if he had enough for his needs. It was twenty dollars, sir! Not twenty thousand!” I looked up from my plate, staring at Benson in sheer horror. How did he know about the extra twenty dollars? I had planned to use that money to splurge on a massive, fully loaded breakfast burrito from the food truck down the street before I got kicked out—one with extra bacon, avocado, and hot sauce. Now my secret indulgence was completely ruined. Damian completely misread my expression. He assumed my silence was a confession of guilt. “Look at him! If he didn’t steal the money, why is he looking so utterly ashamed?” My sister, Maeve, let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Damian, you haven’t even been officially recognized, and you’re already trying to run the household? Also, don’t project your own petty, small-minded thoughts onto my brother.” I nodded in agreement. She was right. I might not be the real heir, but I knew what belonged to me and what didn’t. “You… Maeve! I know you haven’t accepted me yet,” Damian stammered, his voice trembling as he wrapped his arms around himself. “Growing up is a lonely road, but I am willing to bear this pain for the family.” I stared at him, bewildered. He was incredibly theatrical. Frankly, he didn’t behave like a Harrington at all. “Enough,” my father said, wiping his mouth with a napkin. His tone was cold and absolute. “Benson, go upstairs and flip Toby’s mattress.” Benson looked immensely relieved and hurried up the stairs. A few minutes later, he returned, holding a small stack of crumpled bills. “Ma’am, Master Toby had exactly three hundred and five dollars taped under his bedframe. Nothing else.” No one in the family looked surprised. I, however, let out a small gasp. “Wait. How did you guys find my stash?” I asked, my face burning. I thought I had hidden it so well. “You tape money under your bedframe? What are you, a squirrel, Toby?” Damian shrieked, unable to accept that my grand fortune amounted to barely three hundred dollars. “It’s for emergencies!” I defended myself, my cheeks flushing red. “What if the family suddenly goes bankrupt?” “Bankrupt?” My mother nearly choked on her water. “Toby, we are literally on the Forbes list.” My father tossed his napkin onto the table, eyeing Damian coldly. “Do you see? His risk awareness is the highest in this entire family. And you think he stole two hundred thousand dollars?” He offered a chillingly calm smile. “Damian, until the DNA results are officially delivered, you are a guest. Accuse Toby again, and see what happens.” Damian swallowed his words, quickly shutting his mouth. Just as the tension began to ease, my father’s phone rang. “Mr. Harrington, the expedited DNA results are ready.” 4 As expected, my DNA test confirmed I had no biological relation to the Harringtons. Damian strutted back into the living room like a victorious rooster, pointing a finger directly at my face. “You. Get out of our house.” He turned to the housekeeper. “And burn everything in his bedroom. I don’t want any of his cheap, common things touching my space. Mom, I need thirty million dollars. I found an investment project with a guaranteed thirty percent return.” He threw himself onto the Italian leather sofa, crossing his legs arrogantly. “Toby, you’ve spent eighteen years living my life. It’s time to pay it back.” I nodded, quietly pulling my worn little notebook from my pocket. I had been preparing for this day since I first learned to read and write. “I’ve kept track of everything,” I said, showing him the first page. “Over the years, my basic living expenses and education have cost the Harrington family exactly $13,140. I will find a job and pay every cent back to you.” I bowed politely and turned to grab my suitcase. “Wait!” Damian jumped up, grabbing the handle of my bag. “Thirteen thousand? Are you kidding me? This family is worth billions! You must be hiding the rest!” “I—” “Toby, what are you doing?” my mother interrupted, her voice gentle but firm. “This house has dozens of rooms. There is no reason for you to leave.” “Mom…” “Your mother is right,” my father added. “Even if your risk aversion is a bit extreme, it balances the rest of us out perfectly.” “Dad…” My eyes welled with tears as I looked at them. “I’ll do my best to keep up with everyone. I’ll start by ordering that extra egg tomorrow morning.” And so, Damian officially moved into the estate, legally changing his name to Damian Harrington. At his welcome-home party, he paraded around in a bespoke suit, raising his glass to every high-profile guest in the room. “Hello, I’m Damian Harrington. If the family business needs anything in the future, you can come directly to me.” The guests smiled politely, and one young heir joked, “Well, Damian, I actually have a tech venture on the table. It only requires a modest eight-figure buy-in. Interested?” Damian’s eyes lit up. “Oh? That cheap? Bring me the contract, and I’ll sign it tonight.” I reached out, gently tugging at Damian’s sleeve, silently pleading with him to stop talking. An eight-figure sum wasn’t pocket change—it was tens of millions of dollars. An investment of that scale required rigorous due diligence, not a casual agreement over cocktails. “Get off me!” Damian shoved me aside, sending me stumbling. “Toby, you just don’t want me making connections with your old friends, do you? Why else would you ruin my conversation?” My elbow hit the sharp edge of a marble pillar, a dull ache blooming through my arm. Before I could speak, Damian’s eyes widened as if a sudden realization had hit him. “Oh, I get it. Are you afraid I’ll tell Dad that you’ve been quietly selling off our family heirlooms?” I pinched the bridge of my nose, letting out a tired sigh. Damian was at it again. He just couldn’t resist trying to frame me. Why didn’t he ever learn? 5 As expected, Damian’s words acted like a sudden frost, chilling the entire room into absolute silence. “You don’t believe me?” Damian looked around, pulling a sleek smartphone from his pocket. “This time, I have proof.” He tapped the screen and held up a video for the guests to see. The footage showed a grainy figure in pajamas slipping into the study in the dead of night, pocketing something small, and slipping away. While the resolution was low, the silhouette did look remarkably like me. “See? This is the ‘honest boy’ you all adore!” Damian proclaimed, standing tall. “The emerald suite in the safe is a family heirloom worth eight million dollars. I saw him take it with my own eyes!” He pointed directly at me. “And the money he got from selling it is hidden right under his bed.” The room erupted into a flurry of whispers. My father’s hand froze mid-air with his drink. My mother’s brow furrowed as she looked at me. “If you don’t believe me, send someone to check his room right now! Or better yet, let’s all go and see!” Damian challenged. “Benson, go check Toby’s room,” my father said, his face unreadable. Benson nodded reluctantly and walked upstairs. A few minutes later, he returned, holding a neat stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills. It was at least two hundred thousand dollars. Silence descended on the room once more. “See! Caught red-handed!” After three attempts, Damian had finally succeeded in framing me. His voice cracked with manic excitement. “This is the money from the heirloom! The video is here, the cash is here. You have to believe me now!” I parted my lips, but the words felt heavy. “I didn’t do this—” “Save your breath!” Damian stepped forward, raising his hand to strike me in front of everyone. “An impostor like you belongs in the gutter! Why are you still clinging to this family?” But before his hand could make contact, the heavy doors of the ballroom were pushed open. A middle-aged woman in a tailored business suit rushed in, breathing heavily, carrying an exquisite mahogany box. She sprinted directly toward my father, bowing deeply. “Mr. Harrington, I am so incredibly sorry. One of my junior appraisers made an error and accepted an item of yours.”

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