On New Year’s Eve, I spent hours in the kitchen preparing a table full of her favorite dishes, waiting for Lauren to come home. She didn’t even glance at the spread. She just walked past it, heading straight to the bedroom to pack her suitcase. Her voice was cold, almost detached. “I can’t spend New Year’s with you this year.” I didn’t say a word. I just sat down alone and started eating. Right at the stroke of midnight, her first love posted on Instagram. In the photo, Lauren was leaning intimately against his shoulder, the city skyline behind them exploding with brilliant, cascading fireworks. The caption read: “She said as long as I need her, she’ll leave everything behind to be by my side.” I didn’t call her screaming this time. I didn’t demand answers. I just quietly tapped the heart icon to leave a like. A second later, my phone rang. Lauren’s voice was breathless, panicked. “Jesse, please don’t be mad. I promise I’ll make it up to you next year…” I let out a soft, self-mocking laugh. “Too bad we don’t have a next year.” 1 By the time Lauren finally came back, the holidays were long over. In the past, I would have waited for her down in the lobby, eager to help with her bags. This time, I stayed upstairs. Her text popped up: “Where are you?” I took a slow bite of my lunch and typed back: “Come up. I’m eating.” A few minutes later, while I was rinsing my plate at the sink, the front door clicked open. Lauren rolled her suitcase into the kitchen, looking exhausted and out of breath. She leaned against the counter, watching my back. “I haven’t eaten all day. Can you make me some pasta?” Normally, I would have dropped everything to cook for her. But today, I didn’t even turn around. “I don’t have time. Grab something downstairs.” Lauren’s eyes flared with irritation, but she forced herself to keep her voice level. “I know you’re still throwing a fit about New Year’s, Jesse, but can we please not do this right now? I’m genuinely starving.” I dried my hands on a dish towel. “I’m not throwing a fit. And I’m not mad.” She rolled her eyes, clearly not believing me. “Chase was entirely alone in this city during the holidays. Regardless of what we used to be, I couldn’t just leave him like that. It was the decent thing to do.” My voice remained flat. “Right. I get it.” She stared at me, trying to read my face, searching for some crack in my armor. Finally, she let out a weary sigh. “You make this so exhausting. Can you please stop acting like a child?” I looked back at her. “I’m not. You don’t have to explain anything to me.” She stared at me in silence for a long moment before unzipping her suitcase. She pulled out a model airplane and handed it to me. “New Year’s gift,” she said, her tone carrying a familiar trace of condescension. The model had no wrapping paper. The cardboard box itself was dented and creased at the corners—a stark contrast to the beautifully wrapped packages Chase had flaunted on his feed. I didn’t feel a spark of joy, but I kept my voice polite. “Thanks.” And then I went back to cleaning the kitchen. A flash of annoyance crossed Lauren’s face. “That’s it?” she asked, her voice rising. “That’s it,” I replied quietly. Her face tightened into a hard, rigid line. She held her hand out in front of me. “Where’s mine?” The realization hit me, and I felt a brief pang of sheepishness. “Oh. Sorry. I forgot. Tell you what—I’ll Venmo you, and you can buy whatever you like.” I pulled out my phone and sent her the transfer. Lauren’s eyes widened, genuinely stunned that I had forgotten. Exchanging gifts on New Year’s had been our sacred tradition for years. I had never missed it, always spending weeks finding the perfect, thoughtful present for her, even in the years she completely forgot about me. The silence in the kitchen became suffocating. I grabbed my jacket off the sofa and headed for the door. Lauren called after me, her voice sharp with sudden panic. “Where are you going?” “Out for drinks with friends,” I said. I closed the door behind me, shutting out the sound of her calling my name. Ever since I started dating Lauren, I had completely given up drinking because she once mentioned she hated the smell of alcohol. My friends eventually stopped inviting me, labeling me as the guy who was whipped, the one whose girlfriend kept him on a tight leash. But tonight, I just wanted to feel something else. I wanted to drink until I couldn’t think anymore. 2 Three drinks in, my friends were already slapping my shoulder and complaining. “Man, we thought you completely forgot about the guys once you got a girl. You can’t keep disappearing on us like this.” I raised my glass, offering a genuine smile. “I won’t. From now on, whenever you guys plan something, just tell me. I’ll be there.” Looking back, it was embarrassing how much of my life I had sacrificed. I had made Lauren the absolute center of my universe, revolving my career, my schedule, and my identity around her, while letting my own friendships fade to nothing. It was a pathetic, foolish way to live. I glanced down at my phone. A notification showed that Lauren had declined the Venmo transfer. By the time I stumbled back home, it was past one in the morning. I flipped on the living room light, only to find Lauren sitting upright on the sofa. For a second, I thought the alcohol was making me hallucinate. She didn’t stand up to help me balance. Instead, she stared at me with a look of deep, curdled disappointment. “Jesse, can you have some self-respect?” she said, her voice dripping with disgust. “If you’re jealous, just say it. Drinking yourself into a stupor like this only makes me lose what little respect I have left for you.” My head was spinning. I reached out, steadying myself against the back of a dining chair, and slowly sat down. Lauren caught the scent of alcohol and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Didn’t I tell you I hate when you drink?” She took a deep breath, trying to control her temper. “Chase and I aren’t what you think we are. Right now, we are just friends. There is absolutely no reason for you to do this to yourself over him.” I rested my heavy chin in my hand, my vision blurring. “You’re… overthinking it. I didn’t drink because of him. I drank because… I was happy.” Lauren’s voice turned sharp, cutting through the quiet apartment. “Enough! I’ve given you an out, Jesse. What more do you want from me? Don’t push my buttons. I have limits, too. I’m not some saint who can spend forever catering to your insecurities.” My head throbbed, her voice ringing like a siren in my ears. I rubbed my temples, barely able to keep my eyes open. “Don’t get worked up. I’m going to bed.” She let out a long, heavy sigh. Her posture softened slightly, and she reached out to steady me as I stood up. But with the last shred of my sobriety, I stepped back, avoiding her touch. I wobbled down the hallway into the guest bedroom, shut the door, and turned the lock. I ignored the sound of her hand knocking against the wood, closed my eyes, and fell into a deep, uninterrupted sleep. It was the most peaceful night I’d had in years. When I woke up the next morning, Lauren was sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the TV. Her expression was icy, the silence in the room heavy with her anger. I knew she was waiting for an apology. But I didn’t give her one. I simply washed up, grabbed my keys, and walked out the door. 3 I drove straight to my office and handed in my resignation. The only reason I had taken this job in the first place was because the office was just a ten-minute walk from Lauren’s building. Now, that proximity felt meaningless. My manager tried repeatedly to convince me to stay, offering a raise, but I remained firm. Just a few days ago, I had received an email response to an international application I’d submitted on a whim. I was hired. The position was with a firm that had been my absolute dream since college. Back then, I had turned down their initial offer because Lauren didn’t want to relocate. It felt poetic that the dream was still waiting for me, proving it wasn’t too late to start over. After finalizing my resignation, I spent the afternoon transitioning my projects and called a close friend to share the news. He was thrilled for me, though a quiet beat stretched over the line before he asked, “What about Lauren? Is she moving with you?” I let out a dry, humorless chuckle. “No. Just me. We’re pretty much done.” Once my paperwork at the office was finished, I spent the rest of the day gathering the documents I would need for my visa. Both of my parents had passed away years ago; the only things anchoring me to this city were a handful of friends and Lauren. I used to believe that home was wherever she was. But now, I had no home. I was just driftwood, ready to float wherever the current took me. When I finally returned to the apartment, Lauren was getting ready to head out. Her makeup was immaculate, her legs looking impossibly long in a pair of fitted denim shorts. She was carrying a beautifully packaged birthday cake from an upscale bakery. Of course. It was Chase’s birthday. She was on the phone, her voice light and bubbly. “Stop guessing! If I tell you what the surprise is, it ruins the fun. Just make sure you’re ready when I get there.” Someone on the other end said something that made her let out a bright, genuine laugh, showing her dimples. It was a beautiful smile, the kind of easy warmth she almost never shared with me. She was always ready to give him whatever he wanted, yet she begrudged me even a passing smile. The moment her eyes met mine, her expression instantly went cold. She didn’t say a word, looking away with a flicker of annoyance as she slipped into her heels. The heavy thud of the front door closing echoed through the quiet apartment. I knew what this meant: the silent treatment had officially begun. We had played this game countless times before, and it was always sparked by Chase. In the past, I would have panicked, spending the next few days desperately trying to win back her favor, sending text after text even if she ignored them all. Instead, I sat down at the kitchen island, opened my laptop, and started looking up local recipes from the country I was moving to. I figured I should start practicing now. I needed to get used to the taste of my new life. 4 Later that night, as I lay in bed, I scrolled past a post from Chase on social media: “So grateful that through all the twists and turns of life, you’re still the one by my side.” In the comments, Lauren’s best friend, Chelsea, had written: “This makes me want to cry. I’m just so happy to see Lauren happy.” All of Lauren’s friends had liked the post. They had never hidden their disdain for me; in their eyes, I was merely the inconvenient obstacle standing between Chase and Lauren. They believed she would be infinitely happier if I just vanished from the picture. Then I saw Lauren’s own comment on the post: “Everything is exactly as it’s meant to be.” I stared at their public display of affection, feeling absolutely nothing. Beneath Lauren’s comment, another one of her friends had replied: “Shh, don’t post too much. We don’t want Jesse seeing this. You know how he is—he’ll throw a massive fit.” In the past, whenever I had gently asked Lauren to keep some boundaries with Chase out of respect for our relationship, her friends would label me as petty, controlling, and insecure, accusing me of stripping away her basic right to have friends. Lauren had always stayed silent during those attacks, implicitly agreeing with them, before turning around to tell me I needed to grow up and be more secure. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of a reaction. I quietly closed the app, tossed my phone onto the nightstand, and fell asleep. Hours later, the bedroom door slammed open. Lauren stood in the doorway, her face flushed with anger as she shook me awake. “Jesse, your girlfriend is out in the middle of the night and you don’t even care?” she demanded, her voice shrill. “My friends’ boyfriends have been calling them non-stop to make sure they’re safe. And you? Not a single text, not a single call. What is wrong with you?” 5 I stared up at her, utterly bewildered by her sudden outburst. When I used to call her during her nights out, she would snap at me: “I’m not a child, and I’m not a tool to satisfy your control issues. Give me some space, Jesse, I’m suffocating.” Now, when I finally gave her the freedom she had begged for, she accused me of neglect. I truly had no idea what she wanted from me anymore. But I didn’t want to waste my energy dragging up old arguments. I just pulled the blanket up and said quietly, “You were out celebrating with your friends. I didn’t want to ruin the mood by calling constantly. Besides, you were with Chase. Why wouldn’t I trust you?” Stunned silence hung in the room. She looked at me, her eyes wide, clearly shocked to hear me mention Chase’s name with such casual indifference. She quickly recovered, her expression softening into something defensive. “That post… it was just a trip down memory lane. It didn’t mean anything. Don’t read into it.” I shook my head, about to tell her it was fine, but she cut me off, her defensive walls rising. “What? Are you saying I shouldn’t have gone to his birthday? Jesse, we’ve known each other for ten years. Yes, we dated briefly a lifetime ago, but now we are just good friends. It’s his birthday. It would have been incredibly rude of me not to show up.” I nodded, my voice completely devoid of sarcasm. “I understand. Truly. It’s late, Lauren. You should go get some rest.” Lauren froze. She stared down at me, her eyes searching my face, desperately trying to find a trace of hidden anger or resentment. When she found nothing but empty calm, she slowly reached down, attempting to wrap her arms around my waist. I quietly rolled over, pulling myself out of her reach. Without looking back, I asked, “Are you sleeping in here, or should I take the guest room?” 6 A flicker of hurt and disbelief crossed her features. She wasn’t used to me rejecting her affection; for years, I had been the one begging for even a fraction of her attention. With a sharp, angry huff, she grabbed her pillow, stomped out of the room, and slammed the guest room door behind her. Once she was gone, I drifted off to sleep almost instantly. It was amazing how easy it was to sleep when your mind was finally quiet. The next morning, I received a phone call from my old college mentor, Professor Ward. Somehow, he had caught wind of my plans to move abroad. He insisted on hosting a farewell dinner for me, and though I tried to politely decline, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, proposing a small reunion with a few classmates instead. With the invitation extended so warmly, I couldn’t find a graceful way to refuse. But I never expected Lauren to be there. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised; she had been one of Professor Ward’s favorite students, too. What did surprise me was Chase, who was sitting right next to her. It seemed there was no event too personal or exclusive for her to drag him along. When Lauren saw me walk into the restaurant, she immediately caught my eye and gestured toward the empty seat next to her. I pretended not to see, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table instead. They looked perfectly matched, sitting side-by-side. I had no desire to interrupt. Chase met my gaze, giving me a small, smug smile before quickly masking it with a look of polite concern. “Hey, Jesse,” he said, loud enough for the table to hear. “Sorry for crashing your class reunion. I was just feeling so bored at home, and Lauren was sweet enough to insist I come along.” 7 Lauren opened her mouth to speak, looking nervously at me, but the words seemed to catch in her throat. I raised my glass to Chase, offering a polite, easy smile. “If the Professor doesn’t mind, why would I?” I took a sip of my wine and set the glass down. Throughout the dinner, my phone kept buzzing in my pocket. I finally pulled it out to check. They were texts from Lauren: “I only brought him because he was lonely. Please don’t be mad.” “If it really bothers you, I won’t bring him next time.” The final message read: “Let’s drive home together after this, okay?” I cleared my throat, typed a quick response, and hit send: “No need. Go ahead and take Chase home. I drove myself.” I put my phone face down on the table and focused on my dinner, ignoring the subsequent vibrations in my pocket. The rest of the evening passed in a blur of warm nostalgia. Everyone was laughing, sharing stories of our university days. Professor Ward, his cheeks flushed from the wine, stood up and raised his glass directly to me. “Jesse,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Back in college, you were the brightest student in my department. Your dream was always to go abroad, to build a career on the global stage. I was heartbroken when you suddenly decided to stay in the country after graduation.” He paused, smiling warmly at me. “But thank goodness, life has a way of sorting itself out. You’re finally going! You’re finally chasing the dream you always deserved. I couldn’t be prouder of you. Let’s raise a glass to Jesse—wishing you a safe journey, a brilliant career, and a future as bright as you are!” I smiled, deeply moved, and stood up to clink my glass against his, draining it in one go. Across the table, Lauren sat frozen, the color completely draining from her face, as if she had just heard something utterly impossible.

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Theo Prescott drew the Dare: Hand over your phone. The question was simple, cruel, and designed for a crowd: Who in your contacts has received the most ‘I love you’ texts from you? The queen bee of our senior class: 3 times. Me: 972 times. The raucous cheering in the VIP room died instantly. A suffocating vacuum of silence took its place. Kennedy Nathan’s eyes welled with tears. Theo didn’t even blink. He pulled up my contact right there in front of everyone, hit Delete, and then leaned in, a soft, indulgent smile playing on his lips as he coaxed Kennedy. “Is that really worth crying over?” he murmured. “You already knew. I only played house with her for three months. None of those words meant a damn thing.” Those nine hundred and seventy-two I love yous had been sent on a night Theo was blackout drunk. He had crouched on the curb outside a diner, refusing to let his friends pull him up. He just kept his head down, his thumbs flying across the screen, firing those three words to me over and over again. “If I send 999 of them,” he had typed. “The bet is off. We do this for real. Please.” 01 When Theo deleted my number, he didn’t look in my direction. Not even once. The atmosphere in the private karaoke room was eerily quiet. People exchanged complicated glances, their eyes darting toward me with a mixture of pity and morbid curiosity. Kennedy’s soft sobs began to quiet down. “Did you… did you really not like her at all?” Theo reached out, his thumb gently catching a tear on her cheek. He let out a low, breathy laugh. “What are you talking about? I told you, it was just a game.” “Then why did you send her all those messages… You guys were only together for three months.” A microscopic shift occurred in Theo’s expression. His tone cooled, flattening out. “I was wasted. I don’t even remember doing it.” That was all it took. Kennedy was thoroughly appeased. Tonight was the Class President’s birthday bash. After that display, the energy in the room was irrevocably dead. We all forced our way through the cake cutting, and the second it was done, everyone scrambled for excuses to leave, bolting like they’d been pardoned from death row. 02 The venue wasn’t far from my house. I decided to walk, the cool night air biting at my cheeks. As my sneakers hit the pavement, my mind drifted to those 972 texts. Two of them were sent right after we started dating. The other 970 were all sent on the exact same day. The day Theo got drunk. Back then, I didn’t know that my entire relationship was born from a dare. A bet between him and Kennedy. They were childhood friends, running in the same wealthy, country-club circles. He had always loved her, had confessed to her more times than anyone could count. But Kennedy liked keeping him on a leash. She thought a face like Theo’s was too dangerous, too much of a flight risk. She told him he couldn’t give her security. So, six months ago, when he confessed his love yet again, she casually pointed across the classroom to me—the quietest, most invisible girl in our AP Calculus class. “If you really want me,” she had said, “prove it. Date someone random for exactly three months. Don’t catch feelings. The second the clock runs out, you dump her. You pull that off, and I’m yours.” The night Theo got drunk, we had been together for a little over two months. We were at a diner with his friends. One of his buddies was scrolling through TikTok, scoffing at his screen. “Can you believe people actually fall for this manifestation crap? Look at this—it says if you send the person you like 999 ‘I love you’ texts in under fifteen minutes, the universe locks you together forever.” Under the table, Theo squeezed my hand. He took another shot, his face completely unbothered. But the moment we stepped out of the diner, he dropped to a crouch by the curb. His fingers flew across his screen. None of his friends could drag him to his feet. I stood there, looking down at my phone as the screen lit up with notification after notification. I love you. I love you. I love you. I sighed, feeling a helpless sort of fondness. I squatted down beside him, keeping my voice gentle. “Let’s go home, okay? The temperature is dropping. If you stay out in this wind, you’re going to catch a cold.” “Why are you buying into something so childish anyway?” I whispered. “We’re already together.” The harsh, artificial glow of the phone screen illuminated his face. His expression was intensely focused, his thumbs never stopping. “Josie, if I finish all 999 in fifteen minutes,” he typed. “The bet is off. We do this for real. Please.” I was just about to ask him—what bet?—when a voice cut through the night air. “What are you guys doing out here?” For ten minutes, nobody had been able to make Theo stop. But the second that feminine voice rang out, the typing ceased. The last message hovered in his text box, unsent. Kennedy strolled over, her gaze drifting leisurely between Theo and me. “Man, Theo’s being a crazy drunk tonight,” one of his friends groaned. “Nobody can talk sense into him. Good thing you showed up. You’ve known him forever—you give it a shot.” Theo stared at his screen for a second longer. Then, he deleted the unsent text. He locked the phone. The light reflecting in his eyes extinguished instantly. He stood up, his eyelashes lowering, casting long shadows over his cheekbones. “I’m sober,” he muttered. When I instinctively reached out to take his arm, he smoothly, imperceptibly stepped away, dodging my touch. “Let’s go,” he muttered to me. “I’ll take you home.” After that night, he never mentioned those 970 texts again. It was as if the moment had been erased from time. Two weeks later, on my birthday, Theo dumped me. He confessed the whole truth about the bet. I slapped him across the face. He didn’t even flinch. He just stood there, wearing that devastating, bastardly face, and said in a deadpan voice, “Hit me until you feel better. Then we’re even.” 03 The memory severed itself the moment I reached my apartment building. Theo was standing a few yards away. His eyes, dark and bottomless beneath the messy fringe of his hair, were fixed quietly on me. We held each other’s gaze for two agonizing seconds before he looked away. “Oh,” he said, his voice flat. “Took a wrong turn.” I didn’t say a word. I just sidestepped him and kept walking. “Josie.” The faint, unmistakable scent of mint and stale nicotine drifted from his black hoodie. He called out again, stopping me in my tracks. “A month ago… the last time you called me. What did you want to say?” I didn’t answer his question. I only looked at him and said, “We were even the day you let me hit you. From now on, unless it’s strictly about school, it’s best if we pretend the other doesn’t exist.” Theo let out a hollow, self-deprecating laugh. “Right. We’re just classmates who don’t even have each other’s phone numbers anymore. Sorry to bother you, Miss Evans.” His footsteps grew fainter. The streetlight stretched his tall silhouette into a long, distorted shadow against the pavement until, bit by bit, it melted entirely into the dusk. When the cliff-drop breakup happened, I spent days wandering around like a ghost. I spent most of my classes staring blankly out the window. To make matters worse, my period had come early that month. The cramps were blinding, radiating a heavy, dragging pain through my abdomen, triggering a brutal migraine. I had stayed after school for cleanup duty, and by the time I finished, the entire wing was completely deserted. I collapsed onto a desk, paralyzed by the pain. In a state of pure, thoughtless desperation, I dialed Theo’s number. “Hello?” It was Theo’s voice—clear, familiar, sending a pathetic jolt of relief through me. But then, immediately after: “Theo, let me answer it for you, okay?” A second later, the girl’s voice filled the speaker. “Josie, right? Did you need something from Theo? He’s right here beside me. You can just say it, he’s listening.” It was Kennedy. The fog in my brain vanished, replaced by a bucket of ice water. I hung up the phone without a word. I lay my head on the cold desk, riding out the wave of pain until I could finally force myself to stand up and walk out. The campus security guard looked at me in shock as I limped toward the gates. “Still kids here at this hour?” I tried to force a polite smile. I couldn’t make my mouth work. 04 The Class President’s party had been on a Friday night. I genuinely thought the sting of being publicly deleted from his phone would haunt me for weeks. In reality, I woke up Saturday morning and barely thought about it. Monday rolled around. Before first period, I stopped at my usual neighborhood coffee cart near the school for a bagel and a latte. The owner, a sweet older man, peered over my shoulder and teased, “Morning, kiddo! Brought the boyfriend around for coffee again, I see.” I froze. “What?” I followed his line of sight. I ended up staring dead into Theo’s eyes. Kennedy popped her head out from behind his shoulder, beaming. “You guessed wrong, sir! He’s my boyfriend.” The owner looked at me, then at Theo, clearly mortified. Kennedy, sensing the awkwardness and thriving in it, offered a sickly-sweet explanation. “You definitely misunderstood before. That little thing they had going on? It was just a game of Truth or Dare. Totally fake. I’m his one and only.” “Oh, you kids!” The owner laughed nervously, desperate to change the subject. “Well, last time Theo brought me a coffee from your competitor down the street, and honestly? Mine’s better.” Kennedy immediately charmed him. “Of course yours is! I told my dad to order a hundred of your pastries for his corporate office just to let them taste real quality.” The owner waved his hands, entirely won over. “You’re too kind, sweetheart.” That was Kennedy’s superpower. She wasn’t just stunningly beautiful. Despite being born into massive wealth, she played the approachable, down-to-earth girl perfectly. She was bubbly, understanding, and completely magnetic. Half the boys in our senior class were in love with her, and the girls fought viciously for a spot in her inner circle. I grabbed my latte, tapped my phone to pay, and turned to leave. Suddenly, a hand clamped down on my wrist, yanking me backward. Right in front of me was the espresso machine’s steaming wand. A violent hiss of boiling water shot out, hitting the exact empty space where my arm had been a split second before. Theo’s grip on my wrist tightened. His eyes were dark, almost stormy. “Still haven’t fixed that habit of walking without looking?” Kennedy’s smile turned brittle. I snatched my arm back. “Thanks.” Then I walked away, leaving them both behind. 05 The only thing worse than not being able to avoid Theo in the hallways was being forced to sit next to him in AP Bio. I had barely settled into my seat when Theo and his crew walked into the classroom. Catching him in my periphery, I kept my head down, pushed my chair in, and made myself as small as possible so he could slide past me. He slipped into the seat beside mine. For the entire duration, we didn’t exchange a single glance. Kennedy strolled over, leaning heavily against the edge of our lab table. “Theo, the seating chart changes next week. Let’s grab that table by the window in the third row, yeah?” Theo was rhythmically tapping his pen against the black countertop. He didn’t stop. “Sure,” he muttered, sounding completely indifferent. Kennedy turned to me, offering a painfully dramatic sigh as she patted my shoulder. “Oh, Josie. I have the worst news. I just found out everyone else in the class has already paired up. And since we have an odd number of students… it looks like you’re going to be sitting all by yourself for the next two months.” The tapping of Theo’s pen came to an abrupt halt. I didn’t look up. I just kept erasing a mistake on my worksheet and said softly, “That’s fine.” A few minutes after Kennedy flounced back to her seat, Theo suddenly reached over and violently shoved the window next to us wide open. The guy sitting behind us, our varsity track captain, let out a yelp. “Bro! What the hell? You just blew my notes everywhere!” Theo let his heavy eyelids drop, his expression bored. “It’s too suffocating in here.” 06 I was counting the seconds until the seating chart changed. When Friday finally arrived, I let out a massive breath of relief. During the passing period, the entire school was buzzing with a single topic: the new transfer student. “Who transfers in the middle of senior year?” “I don’t know, but I overheard them talking in the main office. It’s a guy, and I saw a glimpse of his file. Holy shit, he is gorgeous.” “Gorgeous how? Better-looking than Theo?” “Honestly? It’s a tight race.” “Wait, if we have a new guy, that makes the class numbers even. Nobody has to sit alone.” I tuned it out. As long as I was far away from Theo, I didn’t care if I was seated next to a serial killer. By the time the final bell rang, the oppressive grey sky had finally broken, unleashing a torrential downpour. It was my turn for homeroom cleanup duty, so I left the building nearly an hour after everyone else. When I reached the main double doors, the rain was coming down in sheets. I didn’t have an umbrella, so I stood in the vestibule, waiting for a break in the storm. Theo and Kennedy jogged into my line of sight. They were sprinting back from the parking lot. Theo had his varsity jacket draped over Kennedy’s head to shield her from the rain. She pulled a few tissues from her bag and stood on her tiptoes, carefully dabbing at his soaked hair. “I am so, so sorry. This is all my fault. I just had to go feed that stray cat near the bleachers, and now you’re freezing.” Theo tilted his head slightly away from her touch. “It’s fine. I got it.” The rain was only getting heavier. The security guard came jangling a massive ring of keys, shooing us out. “Shift’s over, kids. Building’s getting locked. Time to head home.” The bus stop was a solid ten-minute walk from the campus gates. Making a run for it meant getting drenched to the bone. My eyes landed on the small security booth by the front gates. The roof had a slight overhang—just enough space to huddle under and stay dry. I hugged my backpack tight against my chest and bolted into the rain. “Josie.” 07 I thought I heard Theo call my name. But the roar of the rain swallowed it up instantly. I figured I must have imagined it. It was rush hour. The absolute worst time to try and get an Uber. The app told me I was 57th in the queue. I let out a miserable sigh, praying the wind wouldn’t pick up. If the rain started coming in sideways, this little overhang wasn’t going to save me. A moment later, Kennedy and Theo walked over. Theo had apparently dug a spare rain poncho out of his locker. As if on cue, the wind began to howl. Icy, needle-like rain slanted viciously under the awning, hitting my legs and arms. Even with my back pressed flat against the brick wall of the security booth, my clothes were quickly soaking through. Theo looked up, his eyes landing on me. Without a word, he started to shrug off the poncho. He took two steps in my direction. Then, behind him, came the sharp, unmistakable sound of plastic tearing. Kennedy blinked, looking the picture of innocence. “Oh no! I accidentally ripped my umbrella on the gate. Theo, let me wear the poncho, please? I’m so cold.” Theo’s back went rigid. He stood frozen for a few agonizing seconds, his knuckles white as he gripped the plastic. Then, he handed it to Kennedy. “You’re the absolute best boyfriend!” she cooed. “I’ll just wrap the broken umbrella around my shoes so they don’t get ruined. Puddle water is so gross, I can’t bear to let it touch me.” She bundled herself up tightly, fully protected from the elements. Then she turned to me with a brilliant, sympathetic smile. “Do I look like a giant marshmallow?” she giggled. “Josie, you should really press yourself further back against the wall. That way you won’t get too wet.” 08 The sky looked like it was trying to drown the city. My phone screen was slick with rain. My fingers were blue and stiff with cold as I wiped the glass against my damp shirt and unlocked it. Seven people left ahead of me in the queue. I couldn’t stop shivering. I finally just dropped into a crouch, hugging my knees to conserve whatever body heat I had left. Kennedy wrapped her arms around Theo from behind. “If I stand like this, I can block the wind for you. Then you won’t get as wet.” Theo peeled her arms off him. “I’m fine. Just stand on your own so you stay dry.” He stood perfectly still, his eyes locked onto the misty, unrelenting downpour. The rain battered his shoulders, the water sliding down his pale skin and dripping rhythmically from his fingertips. A few minutes later, a sleek black SUV pulled up to the curb. It wasn’t my Uber. It was the Prescott family’s private driver. Theo turned to look at me. “Get in. We’ll drop you off.” Kennedy let out a soft, dramatic sound of disappointment. “It’s already so late. And Josie lives so far out of the way. I really just want a hot shower.” Theo’s eyes snapped to her. “Kennedy. She’s been in our class for three years.” Stung by the sharpness in his gaze, Kennedy forced a tight laugh. “I didn’t say we couldn’t take her! I just never knew my boyfriend was such a bleeding heart for his classmates.” Headlights pierced the rain in the distance. I squinted at the license plate as it approached. It was my ride. I stood up, my joints popping in the cold. “No thanks. My car is here.” Without looking back, I ran for the silver sedan and pulled the door shut behind me. As the car pulled away, Kennedy’s airy voice drifted through the rain. “Well, looks like she doesn’t care much for your charity.” By the time I got home and took a scalding shower, I had two missed calls from an unknown local number. A second later, the same number called again. I answered. Theo’s voice came through the receiver. “I’m downstairs.” I marched over to my bedroom window and looked down at the street. “Why are you here?” “I brought you cold medicine.” “I don’t need it. I can buy my own. Go home. I’m hanging up.” Theo’s tone didn’t shift. “Or, I can just come up to your door.” It was late, and my parents were in the living room watching TV. Panic flared in my chest. I threw on a hoodie and practically sprinted down the stairs. I pushed open the lobby doors. Theo tossed a pharmacy bag at my chest. I caught it by reflex. “Josie,” he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a faint, bitter smirk. “Didn’t you say you just wanted to be ordinary classmates?” He stepped closer. “Do you run away from all your classmates like they’re a plague?” Before I could even process the audacity of the question, he turned and walked away. I stood under the flickering awning light, staring at his retreating back, utterly baffled as to why he was the one acting angry. 09 Monday morning. I walked into homeroom and dropped the unopened bag of cold medicine squarely onto Theo’s desk. Our homeroom teacher had already taped the new seating chart to the whiteboard. Following the diagram, I packed up my things and began migrating my books across the room before the bell rang. Everyone was settled into their new spots by the time the morning announcements crackled over the PA. Our teacher stepped up to the podium, clapping her hands. “Alright, listen up. We have a new student joining us today. Come on in, Kieran.” A guy walked through the door. A collective, suppressed gasp rippled through the room. “Holy shit…” someone whispered behind me. “He’s even better looking than the picture I saw on the counselor’s desk.” The teacher scanned the room and pointed to the empty desk right beside me. “Kieran, you can take that seat. If you have any questions about the syllabus, just ask your partner.” He dropped his bag and slid into the chair. I stared at the side of his face for two full seconds. He looked… intensely familiar. 10 Kieran and I didn’t exchange a single word all morning. He exuded an aura of chilled exhaustion, practically radiating a “Do Not Disturb” sign. The last period before lunch was P.E. Kieran was immediately recruited by the varsity guys to play a pickup game of basketball. I sat on the bleachers a little ways off, my eyes involuntarily tracking him across the court. The longer I looked, the more the pieces clicked together. I didn’t even notice how seamlessly he was passing the ball to Theo. Then, like a lightning strike, it hit me. The day I had my excruciating period cramps. The day I called Theo, only to hear Kennedy’s voice. After leaving the school that day, I was completely drained. I managed to drag myself onto a crowded city bus. The driver slammed on the brakes, and my knees nearly gave out. I would have hit the floor if a hand hadn’t shot out and grabbed my arm. A guy stood up from his seat. “Here. Sit down.” “Thank you,” I had mumbled. My vision was swimming, and I hadn’t even looked at his face. A few stops later, a middle-aged man boarded. He stood directly in front of me, his stomach bulging so far out it threatened to pop the buttons off his shirt. I had to press my spine flat against the window just to avoid touching him. Seeing this, the guy who gave up his seat smoothly maneuvered himself right into the gap between me and the older man. The suffocating smell of stale cigarettes and alcohol was instantly replaced by the clean, sharp scent of pine and fresh laundry. I had gently tugged at his sleeve. He tilted his head down to look at me. I offered him a sincere, exhausted “Thank you” again. He just gave a low “Mm,” turned back around, and kept scrolling on his phone. Now, watching him shoot a three-pointer on the court, I realized that guy was Kieran. Later on that bus ride, the crowd had gotten denser. My eyelids felt like lead, and I ended up dozing against the glass. When the bus stopped a while later, Kieran had straightened up. I assumed he was getting off. I forced myself awake. “Are you tired? You can take your seat back. Thanks for letting me rest.” I had tried to stand, but Kieran just pressed a hand to my shoulder, gently forcing me back down. “Don’t worry about it. Go back to sleep.” I did. I slept through most of the route, waking up groggily a few times, always seeing him standing there, standing guard. By the time we reached the end of the line, the bus had emptied out, and he was gone. 11 I decided I needed to buy Kieran lunch to properly thank him. The lunch bell rang, and I practically jogged over to the gym doors to catch him. He was surrounded by a crowd. Theo tossed a bottle of water to him. “Man, it’s been way too long. Dinner tonight? On me.” Kennedy leaned in, handing Kieran a fresh towel. “Dinner is on us, actually.” She heavily emphasized the us. Kieran caught the towel, wiping the sweat from his neck. “Oh, you two finally made it official? Couldn’t really tell.” I froze in my tracks. It felt like someone had shoved a fistful of wet cotton down my throat. For a second, I literally couldn’t breathe. Kennedy spotted me hovering near the doors. She tilted her head, feigning innocence. “Josie? Are you looking for someone?” Every eye in the group snapped to me. I opened my mouth, struggling to find my voice. “No. Nobody.” I turned on my heel and walked away as fast as dignity allowed. Seeing Kennedy and Kieran chatting so comfortably, with such easy familiarity… it triggered something awful in me. Like emotional PTSD. My hands started shaking. I thought back to the bus ride. The coincidence of it all. My mind went to the darkest possible place. Was it planned? Was he like Theo? Did he like Kennedy too? Was this just another game, another dare orchestrated by her to make a fool out of me? I would never, ever forget the day Theo broke up with me. The utter devastation of him sitting there, telling me it was a prank. I had begged him, reached for his hand, told him not to joke like that. He had yanked his hand away. He said I was delusional. He told me he was doing a chore. “Dating you was literally a homework assignment for me,” he had said. “The three months are up. Assignment submitted. Now let’s be adults about this—how much do you want? What kind of compensation is going to make you go away?” The memory violently pulled me back to the present. I looked down and realized my fists were clenched so tight that my fingernails had drawn half-moon crescents in my palms. Once the panic subsided, only one clear thought remained in my head: Stay the hell away from Kieran Maxwell.

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Since I was a kid, I’ve been able to share my best friend’s vision. To see exactly what he saw, through his eyes. I’d always thought it was a useless superpower. A party trick without a party. Until the night of his wedding, when he vanished. Every shred of evidence pointed to a classic runaway groom—that he’d packed up and fled with a mistress. His fiancée, Patricia, cried like her entire world had crumbled into ash. Even his own parents cursed him, calling him selfish and ungrateful. Our friends tried to console her, murmuring the usual hollow platitudes: “You deserve better. He wasn’t worth it. There are other fish in the sea.” I didn’t say a word. Instead, I closed my eyes and connected to his sight one more time. And what I saw was… The dark, putrid depths of a riverbed. 1 It started when I was about seven or eight. I discovered that if I covered my eyes and conjured his face in my mind, the world would shift. When I opened my eyes, I’d be looking at a reality that wasn’t mine. The first time it happened, I saw a messy, illegible handwriting on a lined notebook. I blinked, pulled my hands away, and looked to my right. There was Wyatt, my childhood best friend, sitting at the kitchen table, struggling with his spelling homework in that exact same messy scrawl. It was thrilling. We spent years treating it like our own secret playground. Whenever the teacher called me to the blackboard to solve an equation I didn’t know, Wyatt would quietly open his textbook to the correct page under his desk, guiding my hand through his eyes. During neighborhood games of hide-and-seek, I always knew exactly which oak tree or dusty basement corner he was hiding behind. During midterms, I’d peek at his answers—though honestly, it didn’t do us much good. We were both mediocre students at best. Two failing grades don’t make an A. I used to tease him, wishing he’d been born a genius so I could at least pass calculus. But we never figured out why I could only connect to Wyatt. Nobody else. Just him. After years of trying to make sense of it, we finally chalked it up to something simpler, maybe even a little sentimental: we were just soulmates of a different kind, bound by a frequency only we could hear. Then we grew up. And Wyatt got his first real girlfriend. I remember him texting me at one in the morning: “Hey, Jesse. Guess what I’m looking at right now?” I closed my eyes. “A cheap motel room,” I muttered into the phone. “And?” “A bathroom mirror. Steam.” “Get specific.” “…Definitely not PG-13.” I snapped my eyes open, my heart hammering against my ribs, and literally fell off my bed with a loud thud. On the other end of the line, Wyatt laughed so hard he sounded like he was choking. I cursed him out, calling him a maniac. But he just chuckled, his voice warm through the receiver. “Hey, you’ve been piggybacking on my eyes for tag and pop quizzes since we were kids. Fair is fair. You still got the guts to spy on me?” From that night on, Wyatt set a hard boundary. Unless he explicitly asked me to, I was banned from logging into his sight. I understood. Love requires privacy. But if I’m being entirely honest, I never liked Patricia. It wasn’t because she was mean. It was because she was too good to him. Devoted to a fault, perfect to the point of clinical. She was the textbook definition of the selfless, long-suffering partner. But to me, a woman who loves without boundaries, who accommodates every flaw without a single flicker of human irritation… it felt unnatural. It defied human nature. I kept my skepticism to myself. Whenever I dropped a hint, Wyatt would just laugh and tease me about being perpetually single. “You’ve never been in love, Jesse. When you find it, you’ll get it. Patricia is the best thing that ever happened to me.” Because he was happy, I swallowed my doubts. Right up until their wedding day. The ceremony Patricia planned was lavish, flawless in its execution. She handled every vendor, every minor crisis, shielding Wyatt from the stress. All Wyatt had to do was show up in his tuxedo and look handsome. Despite my reservations, seeing him smile at the altar made me genuinely happy. I wanted him to have the life he envisioned. That night, after a grueling day of playing best man, I should have collapsed into sleep the second my head hit the pillow. Instead, I tossed and turned, a strange, restless energy humming under my skin. I wanted to see how he was doing. Just a quick peek into his wedded bliss. So, I let myself slip into his eyes. But the perspective was wrong. It was jarring, violent, tilting wildly in the dark. A cold shiver raced down my spine. What is he doing? A second later, Patricia’s face filled his field of vision. It was too close, her features distorted by the proximity. “Wyatt,” she whispered, her voice dripping with something heavy. “I am going to love you forever.” I sat frozen in the dark, my breath caught in my throat, trying to rationalize it. Just some weird, intense wedding-night intimacy, I told myself, my cheeks burning. I quickly severed the connection, feeling like an intruder. But there was a detail I failed to process in my embarrassment. Throughout the entire exchange, Wyatt hadn’t spoken a single word. He hadn’t even breathed. It wasn’t until the next afternoon, when the police knocked on my door to report Wyatt Cooper missing, that the icy reality finally settled into my bones. It wasn’t a romantic wedding night. I had just witnessed his murder in real-time. Wyatt. My brother in everything but blood. I had been right there. I had the keys to his eyes. I could have saved him if I hadn’t been so blind, so stupidly polite. Instead, I watched him die and felt embarrassed. That realization became a physical ache, a self-loathing so sharp it made me sick. 2 Everyone was drowning Patricia in sympathy. The local media painted her as the tragic heroine, the devoted first love abandoned at the finish line. The Nation’s Most Heartbroken Bride, one headline read. Wyatt’s father bowed his head in shame, his voice cracking as he spoke to Patricia. “My son is a coward. I am so sorry for what he did to you.” His mother, consumed by rage and humiliation, disowned him on the spot. “He is selfish. Ignorant. I don’t have a son anymore.” Patricia merely offered a sad, martyr-like smile, shaking her head. “Mrs. Cooper, please don’t say that,” she murmured, her voice soft and trembling. “Wyatt didn’t do anything wrong. He just didn’t love me enough. If running away makes him happy, that’s all that matters to me. You will always be my mother.” Wyatt’s mother clutched her hands, weeping. “You sweet girl. He didn’t deserve you.” Standing in the corner of their living room, my stomach churned. He didn’t deserve her? How could she stand there and put on this grotesque performance? Without a word, I turned on my heel and walked straight to the precinct. Detective Briggs was heading the missing persons case. “Patricia killed him,” I told him, my hands gripping the edge of his desk. “On their wedding night. He didn’t run away. He’s dead.” Briggs stared at me for a long beat, his expression a mix of pity and exhaustion. “Do you have evidence?” The word died in my throat. How could I tell him I saw it through a psychic link? He’d have me committed before I could finish the sentence. “Just trust me,” I pleaded. “She killed him. I know it.” Because a report had been filed, Patricia was called in for questioning. When she saw me sitting in the waiting area, her eyes widened in soft surprise. “Jesse?” “She did it!” I yelled, stepping toward her, my voice cracking. “She’s the one!” Detective Briggs sighed, stepping between us. Patricia looked at the detective with an apologetic wince. “I’m sorry, Detective. I didn’t mean for him to cause a scene.” She reached out to touch my arm, but I violently yanked it back. “Don’t touch me! Get away from me!” She didn’t get angry. Her eyes remained swimming with gentle, maternal tolerance. “Jesse, I know you’re worried about Wyatt. I wanted nothing more than to marry him, to build a life together. But we can’t force him to stay. If he wanted to leave, we have to let him go.” I stared deep into her eyes. “I know what you did.” She froze for a fraction of a second. Around us, the whispers started. “Isn’t that the groom’s best friend? Why is he acting like a lunatic?” “Must be in denial. His buddy ditched his bride, and now he’s trying to blame her.” “Some friend.” Wyatt’s mother suddenly pushed through the crowd, her face twisted in fury. She shoved me back, stepping protectively in front of Patricia. “Is this your doing?!” she shrieked at me. “You’re the one who convinced my son to run, aren’t you?!” “I know you’ve always hated Patricia! You’ve been trying to poison his mind against her for years! Did you help him pack? Did you drive him to the airport?!” The crowd’s stares turned venomous. “Unbelievable. He’s trying to frame the poor girl to cover his own tracks.” “With friends like that, who needs enemies?” My body went rigid. “No, Mrs. Cooper, that’s not true—” She poked her finger hard into my chest. “My boy was gentle. He would never have had the guts to pull a stunt like this on his own! You whispered in his ear! You destroyed his life! Give me back my son!” Wyatt’s father stood behind her, his gaze cold with disgust. “Unprincipled,” he spat. Patricia sighed, her eyes welling with fresh tears. “Mr. and Mrs. Cooper, please. Don’t blame Jesse. He was Wyatt’s best friend. He’s just fiercely loyal to him. I understand.” On the surface, it was an act of grace. But in reality, she had just cemented my role as Wyatt’s accomplice. She had painted a narrative where I helped him flee and was now desperate to deflect blame onto her. A bystander scoffed. “Some people have no shame.” Patricia lowered her head, looking utterly defeated. “I don’t hold a grudge, Jesse. But please, stop wasting the detective’s time.” My fists clenched so hard my knuckles turned white. “You’re a phenomenal actress. But I will find the proof.” She had fooled everyone. Everyone except me. Wyatt’s mother grabbed my collar, her face inches from mine, trembling with rage. “Have you no shame? When will you stop torturing this girl?” “You ruined his wedding, you helped him abandon his life, and now you want to drag her name through the mud?” She broke down, sobbing hysterically. “If it wasn’t for you, my son would be happy right now! You ruined everything! What did we ever do to you?!!” I looked at her, the words of explanation dissolving on my tongue. Wyatt’s father pulled his wife back, his eyes dead as he looked at me. “We took you in like a second son, Jesse. We were wrong about you. Don’t ever speak to us again.” The words felt like a physical blow. The Coopers had practically raised me. Every birthday, every holiday, I had a place at their table. Now, that door was slammed shut forever. Detective Briggs placed a heavy, sympathetic hand on my shoulder. “That’s enough, kid. Go home.” The security footage from the gated community showed Wyatt leaving on foot in the middle of the night. He was wearing a hood, carrying a duffel bag, and getting into an unmarked cab. His passport, his credit cards, his watch, the family gold—all gone. He had even left a typed note of apology. It was a textbook runaway-groom scenario, perfectly packaged and ready for a file cabinet. Briggs sighed. “I know you’re hurting. But theories aren’t evidence.” Fine. If theories weren’t evidence, I would have to go out and dig up the truth myself. 3 Back home, I locked myself in my room and closed my eyes. I replayed the memory of that night. Once, twice, forty-eight times. On the forty-ninth time, a tiny detail clicked. The timestamp in my head was roughly 11:10 PM. But in Patricia’s official statement to the police, she claimed she was in the main ballroom of the hotel, making rounds and drinking champagne with her extended family. Yet, I had seen her face through Wyatt’s eyes. I sat up straight, my heart racing. Her alibi was a lie. But how had she pulled it off? The ballroom was packed. How did she slip away unnoticed, and how could she have been in two places at once? I paced the hardwood floor of my apartment, my thoughts spinning. The first step was finding Wyatt. Or rather, his body. Without a body, Patricia was untouchable. Suddenly, my phone buzzed. A barrage of notifications flooded my screen. Someone had filmed the confrontation at the police station and posted it online. The comments were brutal: “Look at this guy, blindly defending a cheating coward.” “Birds of a feather. He’s probably just as toxic.” “Enabling his friend’s affair and then gaslighting the heartbroken fiancée? Disgusting.” “This is why men’s friends are the worst. They hate seeing their buddies settle down with a good woman. He was probably jealous of how perfect Patricia was.” I swiped the screen black, ignoring the noise. I closed my eyes and focused, conjuring Wyatt’s face in the dark. The vision returned. The murky, foul-smelling water. This was where she had put him. The water was thick with silt and algae, tiny fish darting through the gloom. It was impossible to see anything clearly. Where was he? I pulled up a map of the county, drawing a ten-mile circle around the wedding venue. For her to slip out of the reception, kill him, dispose of him, and get back without raising suspicion, the location couldn’t be far. The storm drains? Too easily searched. The popular hiking trail along Whispering Pines? Too much foot traffic. My pen hovered over the final option. The Stillwater River, running behind the ridge. Secluded. Unmonitored. Empty at night. My throat tightened. I grabbed my keys and went back to the precinct. “I need to file a report.” 4 Detective Briggs rubbed his temples, looking thoroughly annoyed as he pulled out his notepad. “What is it this time, Jesse?” I kept my voice steady. “I know where she put the body.” Briggs’s pen paused. He gave me a sharp, warned look. “Making false reports is a felony.” “I know. But I’m telling the truth.” His jaw tightened. “Alright. Where?” I took a deep breath and laid out my deductions, pointing to the specific, secluded bends of the Stillwater River. A junior officer nearby let out a sharp chuckle. “Nice story. Very cinematic.” A young clerk rolled her eyes. “He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes. Probably wants to take the police report to get clout on social media. I’ve seen this a hundred times.” I ignored them. I grabbed Briggs’s hand, my fingers digging into his sleeve. “Just check. Please. Just one look.” “It’s right down the road. If I’m wrong, what do you lose? A couple of hours?” “Instead of assuming I’m crazy, go look! That is a human being we are talking about! Why won’t you just look?!” The clerk started to snap at me, but Briggs raised a hand, silencing her. He stared at me, a mixture of pity and resignation in his eyes. “One last time, Jesse. That’s it.” 5 By the riverbank. A dozen officers and search-and-rescue K9 units combed the muddy banks of the Stillwater. Minutes stretched into hours. My anxiety flared. Why hadn’t they found him? I closed my eyes. The vision was still the same—dark, murky water. He was definitely in the water. Suddenly, headlights cut through the dark. Car doors slammed, and Patricia and Wyatt’s mother came rushing down the bank. Before I could even speak, a sharp, stinging blow landed on my cheek. My face burned, my vision blurring for a second. Wyatt’s mother was shaking with rage. “Are you happy now?!” “Are you going to stop when you’ve gotten Patricia fired from her job? When you’ve completely ruined her life?!” “If you have any respect left for this family, you will tell the detective to drop this ridiculous search right now! And you will get on your knees and apologize to her!” Patricia’s eyes flickered, a dark, calculating glint passing through them. “Mrs. Cooper, please. It’s okay. Jesse is just confused by grief.” I spat a copper taste of blood onto the grass, locking my eyes onto Patricia. “You know he’s down there,” I whispered. “That’s why you brought her here. To make a scene and stop them from digging. Am I right?” At the word water, a micro-expression of panic flashed across Patricia’s face. It was incredibly brief, but I caught it. She’s terrified. Just then, Detective Briggs walked back up from the riverbank, the search dogs trailing behind him. I looked at him with desperate hope. Patricia, too, turned to watch him. But Briggs’s face was grim, his eyes carrying a cold, dismissive pity. My stomach dropped. “Nothing,” Briggs said, his voice flat. “We dragged the riverbed. There’s nothing down there.” I saw Patricia’s shoulders visibly drop, a subtle sigh escaping her lips. “That’s impossible!” I screamed, my voice cracking. “Did you actually search? You couldn’t have!” The junior officer scoffed, stepping forward. “How many times do we have to humiliate ourselves for you, kid?” “If you’re so sure, why don’t you dive in yourself? We shouldn’t have wasted our time on a lunatic.” Briggs’s expression hardened. “Mr. Jesse, we searched the entire stretch. There isn’t a body. There isn’t even a stray tire. There’s nothing.” “We’re packing up.” As the officers walked past me, one of them intentionally clipped my shoulder. “Nice try, kid.” My mind scrambled. I couldn’t understand it. The murky water. The weeds. The silt. I had seen it. I know it was water. How could he not be there? Where did I go wrong? I sank to my knees, clawing at my hair in frustration. Think, damn it, think! “He’s completely lost his mind,” someone muttered in the distance. At those words, I froze. A sudden, violent realization hit me like a physical blow. The fog in my mind vanished, leaving a terrifying clarity. Of course. Why the river was empty. Why Wyatt had vanished. How Patricia had bypassed the cameras. I let out a harsh, breathless laugh. “Stop!” I yelled, standing up. “Stop acting! I know where he is!” “He’s been right in front of us the entire time!”

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I spent five years with Isaac. He was one of the top astrophotographers in the world. But I never once asked him to take me with him on a shoot. I stayed behind because of the rule he constantly hammered into me: “The absolute law of astrophotography is zero light pollution. A single flash of a phone screen can ruin an entire night’s long exposure.” So for five years, I never dared to send him even the simplest text. Not even a “Did you make it?” I was terrified that the screen’s brief glow would destroy his masterpiece. I just waited at home. Every time he set off for some frozen mountain or barren desert, I folded a paper star. Inside each strip of paper, I scribbled the quiet, anxious thoughts I was too afraid to send him. “Bundle up, it’s windy.” “Come home safe.” Five years. One thousand and ninety-six stars, filling three glass jars. He never opened a single one. Last week, his name was announced as a finalist for the International Astrophotography Awards. I was so happy for him. I went to the official website to look at his entry. The photograph was titled “Light”. Right in the center of the frame stood his assistant, Daphne. She was wearing a bright red parka, holding a sparkler, her laugh loud and uninhibited. The judge’s commentary read: “The photographer knowingly abandoned a once-in-a-lifetime comet to dedicate the entire exposure to the subject in the frame.” It turned out his world wasn’t hostile to light. It just didn’t have room for mine. That night, I poured all one thousand and ninety-six stars out of their jars. I unfolded them, one by one, and read every single word out loud. I read them to myself. And then, I burned them. When dawn broke, I washed those three glass jars until they were spotless and lined them up neatly on top of his hard-shell lens cases. The universe was meant to hold ten thousand tons of starlight. I shouldn’t have spent my life waiting on the periphery of someone else’s lens, hoping for a stray beam. …… The next day, Isaac’s interview was scheduled for three in the afternoon. That morning, he set up his backdrop fabric and meticulously arranged his high-end lenses on the wall by focal length. “National Geographic is coming to do the profile,” he said, not looking up. “Clear the clutter out of the living room.” The clutter was my books. And those three empty glass jars. I carried my books to the bedroom. When I walked back out, he had already shoved the three jars into a dusty corner, his face tight with irritation. “Why are we keeping these cheap jars anyway? They look awful. I don’t want them in the frame.” “Just leave them for now,” I said softly. He didn’t ask again. The journalist arrived at exactly three. Isaac had changed into the black button-down I’d ironed for him last week and sat down at his workstation. I sat at the kitchen island, wrapping my hands around a mug of tea that had already gone cold. “Isaac, “Light” has stunned everyone. Can you tell us about the night you captured it?” the reporter asked. Isaac leaned back, his posture relaxing as his voice took on a slow, practiced cadence. “The ideal viewing window that night was supposed to be for a comet that only passes Earth once every seventy years. But it was freezing on the summit—well below zero.” “My assistant, Daphne, was shivering so hard she could barely stand. She lit a sparkler just to feel some warmth. And the moment that spark flared, I suddenly realized… those dead rocks in the sky, tens of thousands of light-years away, couldn’t compare to the warmth of the living light right in front of me.” The reporter let out a soft gasp. “But everyone in the industry knows you have a golden rule. Absolute zero light pollution.” Isaac smiled, his eyes softening with a tenderness I had never seen directed at me. “Rules are just concepts. When that light illuminated her face, I was more than willing to break every single one of them.” Five years. I had kept watch through over a thousand pitch-black nights. Yet, because someone else was cold, he had willingly ignited the brightest, most piercing spark. The reporter flipped through her notes, her eyes drifting over to me. “And what does your partner think of your career, Isaac? I imagine it takes an incredible amount of understanding to support this kind of lifestyle.” Isaac followed her gaze, his expression instantly flattening back into indifference. “She doesn’t really understand photography, or how demanding this life can be. But she’s quiet. She knows how to stay out of the way.” Beneath the kitchen island, my right hand curled into a tight, trembling fist. Five years ago, my own portfolio of deep-space photography had won a national gold medal. I, too, had once hauled heavy telephoto lenses through blizzards, keeping watch until dawn. But then he told me that a home didn’t need two photographers. He said he needed a solid anchor. To preserve his “pure, uncompromised art,” I locked my camera in a cabinet. I shrank myself, fading into the background to become the live-in housekeeper he now dismissed as “clueless.” He had truly forgotten. After showing the reporter out, Isaac paused at the door of his study. “Upload the photos from the external hard drive to the cloud tonight. Daphne needs them for the upcoming gallery book.” He shut the door before I could answer. I opened my laptop and plugged in the drive. My phone buzzed. An email from the “Icelandic Observatory Journal”. “Dear Iris, we recently revisited your early portfolio. Your intuitive eye for the cosmos is exactly the creative soul we have been searching for. The position of Chief Astrophotographer remains yours if you want it. Have you given it any more thought?” I stared at the screen, my fingertips turning cold. Someone half a world away still recognized my light, while the man who slept beside me saw me as nothing more than a convenient maid. I bypassed the cloud drive link and clicked reply. “Thank you for keeping the offer open. Please give me three days, and I will have my decision.” The next morning, Isaac tossed a Manila envelope onto the dining table. “The publisher needs twenty select photos for a special feature. Pull them from the drive for me.” “You want me to choose?” “You took those photography classes back in the day, didn’t you? You know the basics of composition and lighting. I have to coordinate with the award committee, I don’t have time.” I opened the drive. The candidate folder contained over three hundred photos. Every single one of them was of Daphne. No star trackers, no celestial charts. Just Daphne wrapped in a sleeping bag watching the sunrise. Daphne kneeling by a stream to wash her hands, her profile bathed in golden hour light. Each shot was meticulously color-graded. I knew photography. I knew exactly what went into these. These three hundred images had been captured with profound, aching devotion. In our five years together, Isaac had never taken a single photo of me. He always said his lens was not meant for portraits—only the cosmos. I spent two hours selecting the twenty most technically perfect shots. Isaac came out of his study and flipped through my selection. “Good. These are exactly the angles I would have picked.” He grabbed the drive and headed for the front door, stopping at the threshold. “Oh, by the way, each photo needs a brief caption for the book. Draft them up for me, will you? Daphne isn’t great with words.” He wanted me to write the love letters to another woman’s portraits. “Sure,” I heard myself say, my voice entirely flat. He closed the door behind him. I opened the first file. It was a high-altitude plateau, deep winter, below zero. Daphne stood in the snow. Isaac had slipped his own heated gloves onto her hands. She was laughing, her face bright and untroubled. I stared at those gloved hands, then slowly looked down at my own right hand. The knuckles of my index and middle fingers were swollen, slightly deformed, marked by two dark purple patches of frostbite scar tissue that would never fade. Four years ago. Denali, Alaska. A blizzard screaming at thirty below. To make sure he didn’t miss a rare meteor shower, I had clawed through knee-deep snow with my bare hands to dig out his buried spare batteries. The wind was so fierce I slipped and fell, my hand instinctively pressing my phone screen. It flared for a fraction of a second. Isaac had rushed over from yards away, screaming into my face. “Do you have any concept of light pollution? I waited four hours for this shot, and you just ruined it!” I had sat there in the freezing snow, my hands entirely numb, suffering the permanent nerve damage that still haunted me. I placed my scarred fingers back on the keyboard. Staring at Daphne’s beaming face, I typed the first caption: “In the silent expanse of the frozen wild, she is the only color more precious than the stars.” There was no bitterness as I typed those words. Only a profound, heavy sense of absurdity. The great master who built his entire career on the sacred purity of the dark night was now eager to broadcast his surrender to a cheap flare of light. I would give him exactly what he wanted. I wanted these hypocritical captions permanently printed in his monograph. It was my parting gift—a quiet footnote to his ridiculous, compromised faith, written by someone who actually understood the art. Late that night, I sent the twenty captions to Isaac. He replied with a single word: “Fine.” I smiled, closed the document, and opened my email inbox. “I accept your invitation,” I wrote to the journal. “I will arrive in Reykjavik on the 15th to begin my duties.” Seven days until the 15th. Three days until the awards gala. The next afternoon, the doorbell rang. It was an express international package. The envelope was unsealed, and the gilded certificate slid out easily. “International Star Registry.” Right under the precise coordinates—RA 18h 36m 56s, Dec +38° 47′ 01″, Lyra—was a line of elegant calligraphy: “Daphne Wells”. The date of the registration matched the exact night he had abandoned the comet to capture “Light”. Tucked at the bottom of the frame was a handwritten note from Isaac: “Stars burn for billions of years. This one is your permanent exposure.” I stared at the elegant script. He had paid thousands of dollars to buy a named star in the constellation of Lyra, near Vega, just for her. I had folded one thousand and ninety-six paper stars, and he hadn’t even erred on the side of opening one. Clearly, folded paper didn’t carry the same weight as a star in the heavens. I placed the frame back in its box, sealing it perfectly, and left it dead center on his desk. When Isaac returned that evening, his eyes snagged on the package. His face tightened for a fraction of a second before he quickly threw a heavy art book over it. “The committee wants a five-minute acceptance speech,” he said, his voice forced. “Since you have some free time, write it for me.” “What do you want to say?” “Write about the photographer’s commitment to absolute darkness. Talk about what it takes to banish light pollution, about the sheer discipline of the craft.” I picked up a pen and let the words flow. It was easy. For five years, I had been the one shivering beside him in that absolute darkness, the one whose light he had systematically banished. The next morning, Isaac taped a printed itinerary to the whiteboard in the hallway. “I’m flying to Iceland right after the ceremony.” My hands paused over the sweaters I was folding into my suitcase. “Iceland?” “The final window of the aurora season. Daphne and I have been planning this for three months. There’s a perfect remote observation site there—zero light pollution.” It was exactly where I was headed. “How long?” “Ten days.” My eyes drifted to the red text scrawled on the final day of the schedule: “Aurora portrait session with Daphne—continuation of the Light series.” “Isaac,” I said, keeping my back turned to him. “You promised we would go to Iceland to see the northern lights together.” He stopped packing his gear, his brow furrowing into a deep, irritated line. “Iris, why are you bringing up ancient history? It’s twenty below zero over there. Your hands flare up the second they get cold. Going there would just be torture for you.” “Isn’t Daphne going to get cold?” “She’s a professional assistant. It’s different. Please, don’t start drama right now.” “I understand,” I said, turning away so he couldn’t see my face. I pulled my carry-on bag out from under the bed. I slipped in my passport, my visa, and a few heavy wool sweaters. The apartment was spacious, but everything I owned barely filled half of a single suitcase. The night of the awards gala. Instead of sitting in the VIP section, I used a staff pass to slip into the shadows at the very back of the auditorium. The spotlight focused on the center stage. On the massive screen overhead, “Light” was projected in high definition, Daphne’s face glowing in the sparkler’s fire. Isaac, sharp and handsome in a tailored suit, stepped up to the microphone with his trophy. He pulled my drafted speech from his pocket and read the opening line. “Astrophotography is a pilgrimage through the dark. We spend our entire lives chasing absolute zero light pollution…” He paused. A heavy silence stretched over the crowd of thousands. Then, slowly, Isaac folded the paper in half and slid it back into his breast pocket. “Actually, this speech feels a bit too formal. Tonight, I want to speak from the heart.” He looked up, his gaze locking directly onto Daphne, who sat in the second row. “Those who know me know that my absolute, non-negotiable rule is zero light pollution. For the sake of my exposures, I used to demand that anyone near me barely even breathe.” Standing in the back row, I listened to him describe the very collar he had kept fastened around my neck for five years. “Today, many people asked me why I chose to walk away from a comet we only see once every seventy years.” He paused, his gaze drifting over the crowd back to that cream-colored dress in the front rows. “Because comets always return. Even if it takes seventy years, they eventually cross our sky again.” “But some people aren’t comets. They are shooting stars. You don’t know when they will ignite, and you don’t know if they’ll ever shine again.” “So the moment she appeared, I shut off my trackers, threw out my plans, and pointed my camera, my night, and the entire sky directly at her.” His voice softened, carrying a rare vulnerability. “In that moment, I understood. The stars in the sky are dead. They travel millions of years just to reach us, completely cold. True light is the warmth you feel when you turn your head in the middle of a frozen wilderness and see someone standing right beside you.” He looked down at Daphne, whose face was already wet with tears. “So, I broke my golden rule. Because light pollution only exists when the light is in the wrong place. Daphne, thank you for lighting up my universe.” A wave of thunderous applause swept through the hall. Daphne covered her mouth, rising under the gaze of thousands to run toward the stage. He had used my five years of absolute devotion in the dark to build his reputation. Then, with a single sparkler, he used Daphne to prove his love. I didn’t stay to watch them embrace. As the applause peaked, I turned and walked out of the auditorium. I caught a cab back to the apartment we had shared. I rolled my small suitcase to the door. Then, walking over to the shelving unit, I took down the three spotless, dust-free glass jars. I arranged them side by side on top of his $20,000 camera rig. No notes. No lingering regrets. One thousand and ninety-six silent nights, completely emptied out. I grabbed my suitcase, opened the front door, and let it click shut behind me. My phone buzzed in my coat pocket. A text from Isaac: “Daphne had a bit too much to drink at the afterparty, so I’ll be back late. Go to sleep, don’t wait up.” I stared at the screen, pulled the SIM card I’d used for five years out of the tray, snapped it in half, and dropped it into a trash can on the street. The taxi sped down the highway. The city’s neon lights blurred past, a brilliant, chaotic wash of light pollution. He always complained that you couldn’t see the stars in this city, that he had to go to the ends of the earth to find them. But he never realized that the photographer who had once dimmed her own light to let him shine had vanished into the night. Isaac, your world doesn’t need to be dark anymore. And as for me, I am going to find my own universe.

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When I caught my husband—a rising Major General—in bed with the underprivileged student I had personally sponsored, I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry. Instead, I quietly packed a single suitcase and caught the first flight to Geneva to complete my medical residency. I changed my number, cut ties, and severed every connection to the Capital Command. After graduating, my dedication and surgical precision propelled me to the top of my field. My career skyrocketed. By thirty, I was a chief trauma surgeon at the military’s premier regional hospital. I thought Ryan Henderson was a closed chapter in my life, a ghost from a past I had outgrown. But on my very first day back, my first scheduled emergency case was a thoracotomy on his son. Ryan stared at the name tag pinned to my white coat, completely frozen. I opened the medical chart, my voice flat and professional as I ran through the surgical risks. After he signed the consent form, he lingered, gripping the pen with white knuckles. His eyes were a storm of conflicting emotions, his voice gravelly when he spoke. “I remember when you couldn’t stand the sight of blood.” I snapped the folder shut, keeping my tone perfectly polite, perfectly detached. “You get used to it when you see enough of it.” … 1 “Juliette, please! I’m begging you, save my son!” Chelsea somehow broke free from the two military guards. She threw herself onto her knees in front of me, her joints hitting the linoleum with a sickening thud. Ryan’s brow furrowed slightly as he bent down to pull her up by the arm. “Chelsea, get up. Dr. Ross is reviewing the chart.” His voice was gentle, soothing—the picture-perfect portrait of a responsible, emotionally stable, protective husband. Chelsea grabbed the hem of Ryan’s crisp dress uniform, her face contorted with tears. “Ryan, please, beg her! She was so good to me back then. She’ll save Toby, won’t she?” I ignored her, flicking through the chest CT scans on my tablet. My eyes paused on the patient’s age: four and a half. Four and a half years old. Ryan and I had been divorced for exactly five years and two months. The math was brutally simple. Even the universe, it seemed, was keeping score of their betrayal. “The patient has an acute tension pneumothorax. The right lung is ninety percent collapsed. We need to perform an exploratory thoracotomy immediately.” I slotted the film into the lightbox, my voice entirely level. “General Henderson has already signed the consent form. Now, go settle the intake paperwork and prepare the pre-op blood match.” Chelsea snapped her head up. Beneath the terror in her tear-streaked eyes, I saw a flicker of disbelief. She had likely expected me to use this moment to humiliate her, or to find some bureaucratic excuse to refuse the surgery. Ryan was taken aback too. Letting go of Chelsea, he stepped closer to me. “Juliette, thank you.” He looked at me, his eyes filled with a self-righteous tenderness that made my skin crawl. “I know you’re angry with me. But the boy is innocent. Name your price. Anything you want, it’s yours, as long as you perform the surgery.” I looked up at him. He stood tall in his tailored dress uniform, a luxury tactical watch gleaming on his wrist. That wrist—the same one he had once sliced open in a bloody, dramatic spectacle to force my hand—was now seamlessly concealed beneath the expensive leather strap and pressed cuffs. “General Henderson,” I said, my pen flying across the chart as I scribbled the pre-op orders. “I am the chief trauma surgeon at this hospital. I am on shift tonight. You brought in a patient, and I am doing my job. There are no ‘conditions,’ and there is no personal history here. It’s just medicine.” I slid the order sheet toward him. “Go pay the fee. We’re on a clock.” Ryan didn’t take the paper. Instead, he pulled a stainless steel thermos from his bag, unscrewed the lid, and pushed it gently toward me. “You’ve been pulling back-to-back shifts. Your stomach must be acting up again. I ran down to the cafe across the street and had them make you hot water with honey and lemon. You always lived on it when you stayed up late.” I looked at the steaming liquid, two thinly sliced lemons floating on the surface. A dull ache throbbed in my midsection, but it wasn’t from an ulcer. I didn’t have stomach ulcers. Chelsea did. Years ago, when Chelsea lived under our roof as our scholarship recipient, she would stay up late watching dramas and complain of stomach pain. Ryan would crawl out of bed in the middle of the night to brew her hot honey lemon water. He had done it so often that it had become muscle memory. He had done it so often that, in his revisionist memory, he had projected her favorite things onto me. “I don’t drink citrus,” I said, sliding the thermos back. The metal base scraped against the laminate desk with a harsh, screeching sound. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, General, I need to scrub in.” Ryan’s hand froze in midair. Suddenly, Chelsea shrieked. “Juliette! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing! You’re going to use this to get back at me, aren’t you? I swear to God, if anything happens to my son on that table, I’ll destroy you!” Heads turned in the crowded triage corridor. Nurses and military families stared. I stood up calmly, smoothing down my white coat. “Mrs. Henderson, if you continue to make a scene, I will have military police escort you from the building. Furthermore, your son’s oxygen saturation is dropping. Every minute you spend screaming is a minute he loses.” Chelsea’s face drained of color, her lips trembling. Ryan grabbed her arm, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “That’s enough, Chelsea. Stop it.” He turned back to me, his eyes carrying a familiar, subtle sting of blame. “Juliette, she’s just terrified for our son. She’s not thinking straight. You’re a chief surgeon now. Can’t you show some grace instead of holding a grudge?” He delivered the most deeply biased words in the gentlest tone imaginable, successfully painting me as the cold-hearted aggressor while they played the tragic, helpless victims. I didn’t bother looking at him. I walked past them toward the scrub sink. “The intake forms are on the desk. See you in the OR in ten minutes.” Cold water rushed over my hands. I looked up, meeting my own gaze in the mirror, and let out a soft, humorless laugh. Droplets of water dripped from my chin into the stainless-steel sink, clean and sharp. 2 The surgery lasted four hours. The pediatric patient’s right lung had sustained severe lacerations, with over three hundred milliliters of blood pooling in the thoracic cavity. Under the glare of the shadowless surgical lamps, my movements were purely mechanical—clamp, ligate, suture. The monitor beeped rhythmically. The scrub nurse seamlessly handed me the forceps. No thoughts of Ryan or Chelsea entered my mind. On the operating table, I see only organs and anatomy, never the people they belong to. At three in the morning, the surgery concluded successfully. I stripped off my blood-spattered scrubs, threw on my white coat, and stepped out. Ryan was sitting alone on the corridor bench. Chelsea was nowhere to be seen—likely sent away to rest. Hearing my footsteps, he looked up, his eyes bloodshot. “The surgery was a success. His vitals are stable, and he’s been moved to the ICU for observation,” I delivered the update in my standard clinical tone, preparing to head back to the on-call room. “Juliette.” Ryan stood up, blocking my path. The empty hallway hummed under the dim fluorescent lights. He reached into his breast pocket and produced a sleek black debit card, holding it out to me. “There’s fifty thousand dollars on this,” he said, his voice quiet, carrying that familiar air of condescending charity. “The PIN is your birthday.” I looked down at the black plastic. “What is this?” “You left so quickly back then. You didn’t take a dime.” Ryan sighed, a look of unearned pity washing over his face. “I know these past five years haven’t been easy for you. A woman, fighting her way from a lowly resident to a chief surgeon… you must have suffered. Take the money. Buy yourself a decent car. Stop driving that beat-up sedan with the old military plates.” He paused, adding, “Consider it a peace offering from Chelsea. She was young and foolish back then.” Young and foolish. Three small words to erase how she bit the hand that fed her, how she crawled into her benefactor’s husband’s bed. Three words to wash away his own infidelity, and the night he sliced his own wrist to blackmail me into signing the divorce papers without a single asset. I looked at his handsome, composed face, and a sudden urge to laugh washed over me. He was so utterly convinced that I had been miserable. He was convinced I was still scraping by, harboring bitter resentment over the past. He wanted to use this fifty thousand dollars to buy his way out of his own guilt. “General Henderson,” I said, making no move to take the card. My eyes met his, cold and clear. “Five years ago, I gave Chelsea a ten-thousand-dollar scholarship to finish her degree. Even with the highest interest rate, the principal and interest today would barely reach fifteen thousand. Is the remaining thirty-five thousand hush money for your cheating?” Ryan’s expression tightened. He clearly hadn’t expected me to lay it bare so ruthlessly. “Juliette, is it really necessary to be this bitter?” He frowned, a flash of annoyance crossing his features. “I’m trying to look out for you. You never used to be so clinical about money.” Clinical. When I turned down a prestigious fellowship at the Walter Reed headquarters to follow him to a dusty, wind-swept border post for two years, he didn’t think I was “clinical.” Now that he had climbed the ranks and wanted to throw money at his problems, suddenly my pragmatism was a character flaw. I reached out, pinched the black card between two fingers, and slipped it from his grasp. “Is that so? Well, if General Henderson wants to buy his peace of mind, far be it from me to stop him.” A faint smile played on my lips. “After all, I earned this.” What I had earned wasn’t the fifty thousand dollars. It was the hard-won realization that I should have started putting myself first a long time ago. Years ago, I wore faded, thrifted clothes and ate the cheapest meals in the hospital cafeteria just to save every extra dollar to help fund his networking dinners and pave his way to promotion. He praised me for being “sensible,” “supportive,” and “not like other materialistic women.” I had felt proud back then, foolishly believing I was his unique soulmate. Now I understood: that wasn’t being noble. That was just being cheap. He had used a few worthless compliments to systematically exploit my youth and my future. Seeing me take the card, Ryan’s shoulders relaxed. A wave of relief washed over him, accompanied by a faint, almost imperceptible smirk of triumph. He had successfully reduced his betrayal into a transaction he could settle and forget. “I’m glad you’re seeing reason,” he said, adjusting the cuffs of his uniform as he regained his polished, respectable composure. “Chelsea has a temper. Now that we’re at the same base, try to be patient with her. I owe you one.” I slipped the card into my pocket and turned back toward the on-call room. “Rest easy, General. My job is to treat patients, not to raise your wife.” The window at the end of the hall was cracked open. The night breeze filtered in, carrying the sharp, cold scent of antiseptic—piercing and entirely sobering. 3 During ward rounds the next morning, a crowd had gathered outside the ICU. Chelsea was sitting on the floor, her hair disheveled, screaming at a young nurse. “Is this how you run a hospital? My son just had major chest surgery yesterday, and now he has a fever! Did you give him the wrong medication?” The young nurse’s eyes were rimmed with red as she stammered, “Mrs. Henderson, a post-operative absorption fever is perfectly normal. We’ve already started non-pharmacological cooling protocols…” “Don’t try to hide behind your medical jargon!” Chelsea lunged to her feet, shoving the nurse back. “Get the chief of surgery! Get Juliette out here! She’s still bitter about what happened five years ago. She did something to my boy on purpose!” I walked through the crowd, clipboard in hand. “Mrs. Henderson, this is the Intensive Care Unit. Keep your voice down.” The moment Chelsea saw me, her eyes flared. She charged at me. “Juliette! You finally showed your face! What did you do to my son?” She raised her hand to slap me, but the military guards intercepted her just in time. Ryan came rushing down the corridor. He pulled Chelsea into his arms, shielding her behind him. “What’s going on here?” He looked between Chelsea and me, his forehead creasing. The trembling nurse quickly explained the situation. After listening, Ryan turned his gaze to me. “Juliette, Chelsea is just frantic about the baby. Couldn’t you have just explained it to her calmly? Did you have to let it escalate like this?” There it was again—his trademark neutrality. Always playing the mediator, always shielding his precious Chelsea under the guise of reason. “General Henderson,” I said, shutting the chart. “During our pre-op consultation, I explicitly informed you of the risks of post-operative fever and infection. Your signature is on that consent form. If your wife has doubts about our treatment, she is welcome to file for a formal medical review. But if she continues to disrupt this ward and disturb other recovering patients, I will have security remove her.” Chelsea glared at me from behind Ryan’s shoulder, her teeth gritted. “Go ahead, call them! You think I’m scared of you? I saw my husband hand you that fifty-thousand-dollar card last night! Stop acting so righteous, Juliette. You blackmailed my husband using our son’s life!” The corridor fell dead silent. Every eye in the hallway locked onto me. The young nurse gasped, her mouth hanging open. Ryan’s face went completely pale. He whipped around, glaring at Chelsea. “What the hell are you talking about? Shut up!” But Chelsea thought she had won. Her expression turned smug. “Me, lying? Juliette is a shameless thief! She used her position as chief surgeon to solicit a massive bribe from a patient’s family! I’m going to report you to the board! I will ruin your career!” Ryan grabbed Chelsea’s arm with a bruising grip, trying to drag her away. He looked back at me, his eyes pleading, filled with silent desperation. “Juliette, go back to your office. I’ll handle this.” He expected me to panic, to scramble to defend myself. But I just stood there, quietly watching their little domestic drama. “Sure,” I said. I pulled out my phone and dialed the hospital’s internal ethics committee line. “Director Collins, please come up to the ICU. I have a family member here making a formal accusation of bribery against me.” The sharp dial tone echoed loudly down the silent hallway. 4 Inside the ethics committee office, the tension was suffocating. Director Collins sat behind his desk, his brow furrowed in a deep, troubled line. Ryan sat on the leather sofa, hands clasped, his expression grim and heavy. Chelsea sat beside him, wearing a triumphant, vindictive smirk. I stood by the window, watching the neat rows of military vehicles parked in the courtyard below. “Dr. Ross, Mrs. Henderson has filed a complaint stating that you accepted a debit card containing fifty thousand dollars from General Henderson last night,” Director Collins said, tapping his fingers on the desk. “Do you have an explanation for this?” I turned around, but before I could speak, Ryan cut in. “Director Collins, this is all a misunderstanding.” He stood up and stepped closer to my side, his voice dripping with earnest sincerity. “The fifty thousand was something I offered to Dr. Ross voluntarily. We have… history. I knew she might be facing some financial difficulties lately, and I simply wanted to help an old friend. She did not solicit a bribe.” I stared at Ryan’s hypocritical face, completely unmoved. On the surface, he was trying to shield me. In reality, every single word he spoke was designed to cement the narrative that I had taken his money. If I fell in line with his story and admitted I was struggling financially, I would be admitting to the transaction. I would become the desperate, mercenary woman Chelsea accused me of being, forever forced to look down in shame before them. “Ryan,” I said softly, calling him by his first name. “Are you absolutely sure you gave me that money of your own free will?” Ryan looked at me, a flash of warning in his eyes. He leaned in, lowering his voice so only I could hear. “Juliette, don’t be stubborn. Just apologize to Chelsea, say the money was a personal loan, and I’ll clear things up with Collins. You worked too hard to get to where you are. Don’t ruin your career over pride.” He was so sure I would break. Just like five years ago, when he was convinced that the sight of his bleeding wrist would make me sign the divorce papers without a fight. He had always believed he held the remote control to my life. I looked at him, a faint, mocking smile touching my lips. “General Henderson, do you honestly believe I’m still the same naive girl you manipulated so easily?” Ryan’s brow furrowed deeper. “I’m trying to help you.” At that moment, the office door was pushed open. The Chief of Medicine walked in, flanked by several high-ranking officers in military dress uniforms.

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At the end-of-quarter team dinner, my girlfriend went twenty minutes out of her way to pick up two bubble teas. She handed one to Drew, who sat across from us, and slid the other toward me. Drew smiled, his eyes crinkling. “You’re a lifesaver, Natalie. You always remember I can’t handle ice when my stomach is acting up.” I looked down at the mango-coconut slush sitting in front of me, its bright yellow color mocking me. I pushed it away with the tip of my finger. “What’s wrong?” Natalie asked, not even looking up from her phone. “I’m severely allergic to mango, Natalie. Did you forget? Again?” She paused for a fraction of a second, then let out a soft, dismissive laugh. “It’s just a little bit of mango jelly on top. Can’t you just pick it out?” But she remembered everything about Drew. She knew he hated cilantro, despised raw onions, and took his tea half-sweet with zero ice. Yet, my throat closing up from a single bite of mango was just “something I could pick out.” I realized then how deeply favoritism runs. When someone stops caring about you, even your survival becomes a minor inconvenience. On the drive home, I sat in the backseat. Looking at the two of them in the front, their silhouettes framed perfectly by the dashboard light, a sudden, unexpected wave of relief washed over me. I was done. I didn’t want a relationship where even my life-threatening allergies were treated as an afterthought. … When the car pulled up to our building, the two of them were still deep in a debate about a movie that had come out last weekend. The same movie Natalie had promised to see with me, only to bail at the last minute claiming she had to work late. They jumped from discussing the chemistry between the leads to analyzing the cinematography, their voices bouncing off the windshield. I couldn’t remember how many times I’d been left out of their conversations like this. Even now, I sat in the back like an unwanted hitchhiker. Eventually, the laughter faded. Natalie glanced at the rearview mirror, her eyebrows knitting together in mild surprise. “Why are you still in the car?” I looked up, my voice flat. “You didn’t unlock the doors.” Natalie went silent. Drew immediately stepped in to smooth things over. “Oh, man, that’s on me! I got so carried away talking.” He leaned over the center console and expertly pressed the unlock button on the driver’s side door. This car was bought with the first major bonus Natalie earned. Back then, she had held my hand, laughing, and promised me I’d never have to squeeze onto the crowded subway again. Then Drew moved to Chicago to “find himself.” Our two-person commute became a party of three. Because Drew claimed he got motion sickness easily, I was relegated to the backseat. Three years in the back had made me forget how the dashboard controls even worked. Drew, however, navigated them with the familiarity of a spouse. “Don’t be mad at her, Jesse,” Drew said, turning around with a sympathetic grin. “I’ll give Natalie a good scolding on the drive to my place.” Natalie let out a soft, amused chuckle, offering no denial. Having loved her for so long, I could easily recognize the warmth and indulgence in her tone. It was a tone she never used with me anymore. When I had once mentioned that I didn’t like the smell of cigarette smoke on her clothes, she had turned cold, calling me controlling and accusing me of suffocating her. Yet now, she let Drew criticize her driving, her music choices, and her habits without a single complaint. Outside, the rain began to leak through the slightly cracked passenger window, sending a damp chill straight to my chest. I pushed the door open and practically fled from the car. The downpour intensified the second I stepped out. I ran to the awning of our building, soaked and shivering. Through the rain-slicked glass of the windshield, I saw Natalie reach over and gently wipe a stray raindrop from Drew’s cheek. I wiped the water from my own face, but no matter how hard I rubbed, my skin still felt damp and cold. Back in the apartment, I took a long, hot shower. When I walked out, my phone was ringing. It was Diane, my department manager. “Jesse, are you absolutely sure about this resignation?” she asked, her voice tinged with regret. “You just landed that major account. I was actually planning to pitch a promotion and a raise to Natalie tomorrow.” In my six years at the company, I had applied for a promotion twelve times. Without fail, Natalie had blocked every single one. When my colleagues praised my campaign strategies, she dismissed them as “just meeting basic expectations.” When the regional head recommended me for an executive training program, she claimed my leadership skills were lacking. Even when the entire department signed a petition to promote me, she vetoed it. I had felt the sting of it, but I had never openly complained. Meanwhile, Drew—whom I had personally referred to the company—had received three promotions in three years. His salary had tripled. When I finally asked Natalie why, she had looked at me with cold, professional eyes. “We need to avoid any appearance of nepotism, Jesse. Be mature. Drew doesn’t have a safety net in this city; he needs the leverage to establish himself.” But I was done being mature. I was done stepping aside. I took a deep breath. “There’s no need to pitch anything to her, Diane. I’ve made up my mind. I’m leaving.” Diane sighed on the other end. “Alright, Jesse. I won’t push. Take care of yourself.” The sound of keys jangling at the lock cut through the quiet apartment. Natalie walked in, carrying a small FedEx box. She caught the tail end of my sentence. “What did you make up your mind about?” “Nothing,” I said. Natalie didn’t press. She walked over to the sofa, unboxing the package. Inside was a red carnelian Van Cleef Alhambra bracelet, the gold chains gleaming under the living room lights. She looked up at me. “Do you like it?” I stared at it. I had kept that exact bracelet in my online shopping cart for over a year. Every time I had shown it to her, she had rolled her eyes, calling luxury goods a tax on the insecure. She told me I didn’t have the wrist for something so flashy. For a split second, a foolish spark of hope flared in my chest. I thought she had remembered. Then she spoke again, extinguishing the spark completely. “Drew’s a guy, but he’s got pretty slim wrists. Do you think he’d like this color?” I went numb. I forced a nod. “He’ll love it.” Perhaps sensing my sudden withdrawal, Natalie offered a rare explanation. “Tomorrow is his three-year work anniversary. I wanted to get him something special. He moved across the country to work with us; I don’t want him to feel unappreciated.” She paused, her eyes lingering on my bare wrist. “If you really like it, I’ll get you one for your next birthday.” I was her boyfriend of seven years, yet I was expected to wait in line for the scraps of her affection, promised on some distant, hypothetical birthday. The Natalie from years ago never made empty promises. She showed her love in real-time. If I sent her a link to a new restaurant, she’d take me there the same weekend. If I mentioned a craving for those expensive lobster rolls from the harbor, they would be waiting in the fridge the next day. When I turned down a six-figure offer in Boston to move to Chicago so we could finally end our long-distance relationship, she didn’t say much. She just worked eighty-hour weeks, secured a massive partnership, and placed a deed to our condo in my hands. “We have a home now, Jesse,” she had whispered. I pulled myself out of the memory. “No need. I don’t really care for red.” Natalie’s brows drew together. “Suit yourself.” She loosened her blazer and walked toward the bathroom. “I’m going to shower. Don’t mention the bracelet to Drew tonight. I want it to be a surprise.” The sound of running water filled the apartment, masking the quiet hum of the refrigerator. Natalie’s phone, left on the coffee table, vibrated. I looked down. A message popped up on the lock screen. Home safe? The sender was saved simply as a blue whale emoji. It was Drew. Last year, Natalie and I had a screaming match over her phone contacts. I had discovered that while Drew was saved with a cute emoji, my contact name had been changed from “My Love” to a cold, clinical “7.14 Jesse Ward.” I had packed my bags, crying, and moved into a motel. Natalie had panicked. She begged me to stay, promising she would quit smoking, change the contact name back, and keep her distance from Drew. For a few months, it felt like we were back in college. She bought breakfast, waited for me after work, and held my hand in public. But there was a hairline fracture in our foundation, and we both knew it. Then, three months ago, Drew got alcohol poisoning at a client dinner after stepping in to drink on my behalf. He ended up in the ER, and just like that, he was back in our lives, woven tightly into the fabric of our daily routine. I had been waiting for them to cross a line, to give me a definitive reason to walk away. But they never did anything explicitly physical. They just developed a language of their own—an endless stream of inside jokes and shared memories that left me standing on the outside looking in. Like today, after the team dinner. I had bent down to tie my shoe. It took ten seconds. They didn’t even notice I had stopped. By the time I stood up, they were already around the corner, disappearing into the crowd together. The next morning, I went straight to the office and left my signed resignation letter on the HR director’s desk. When I walked back to my cubicle, Drew caught up to me, throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Can you believe Natalie forgot you were allergic to mangoes? I gave her a piece of my mind on the drive home last night.” He playfully punched the air. But she remembered you can’t drink cold drinks, I thought. I wanted to say it out loud, but it felt too pathetic, too desperate. Instead, I gently shrugged his arm off. “It’s fine. We didn’t fight. I’m just tired.” Drew didn’t seem to notice my coldness. “Well, make sure you get some rest. Let me treat you to a nice dinner tonight to make up for it!” Looking at his bright, innocent smile, I felt a sudden pang of resentment. I used to think of Drew as a younger brother who had no one else in this city. I tolerated his intrusion because I wanted him to feel welcome. But when I first moved to Chicago, I didn’t know anyone either. I only had Natalie. At least when Drew arrived, he had me to guide him. And eventually, he had Natalie to pamper him. “No, thanks,” I said quietly. “I have plans tonight.” I turned my back on him and sat down at my computer. Within minutes, a notification popped up in the company Slack. It was from Natalie. Congratulations to Drew on his three-year work anniversary! Afternoon tea is on me. Attached was a screenshot of an order from a high-end French patisserie downtown—the one with a two-week waiting list. I had bought a box of their pastries last weekend. Natalie had watched me open them, asking, “Is this place really worth the hype?” I had excitedly explained the flavor profiles, thinking she was taking an interest in my tastes. Now I realized she was just doing research for Drew’s celebration. In the breakroom, Drew was surrounded by coworkers, his face flushed with happiness. Natalie stood just outside the circle, watching him with a soft, affectionate smile. They looked like a picture-perfect couple. I was just a ghost haunting their peripheral vision. Drew walked over to me, holding a small plate with a gold-leaf chocolate tart. He winked. “Saved the most expensive one for you.” An expensive pastry couldn’t mask the fact that Natalie had just spent a fortune to treat fifty people in his honor. But I didn’t want to make a scene. “Thanks,” I said. Drew clasped his hands together, putting on a pleading face. “Jesse, I have this campaign brief due by Friday, and the client is riding my back. You’re the best at these. Can you take a look? Please?” He dropped a thick folder onto my desk before I could answer, entirely confident that I would do what I had always done—quietly take his work, finish it perfectly, and let him put his name on the cover. The red carnelian Van Cleef bracelet on his wrist caught the fluorescent light, burning my eyes. I pushed the folder back. “I’m busy, Drew. I can’t help you.” His smile faltered, his eyes immediately welling up with tears. “Jesse… are you mad at me? You’ve never said no before.” Natalie appeared out of nowhere, stepping between us and shielding Drew. “Jesse, what the hell is your problem?” I kept my voice calm as I explained the situation, half-hoping Natalie would reprimand him. She despised people who shirked responsibility at work; she had faced so much exploitation early in her career. But she only looked at me with cold disgust. “Drew is your superior. When he delegates a task to you, you don’t get to say no. You’ve been with this company for six years, Jesse. Have you ever wondered why you’re still sitting in a cubicle? It’s because you’re small-minded. You throw a tantrum the moment you’re asked to do a little extra work.” I wanted to laugh. People who started after me, people who had half my metrics, had been promoted to team leads. I was the only one stuck in place. Did she think the rest of the office didn’t notice? Did she really think I was the problem? Drew pulled gently on Natalie’s sleeve. “Nat, don’t worry about it. If Jesse won’t help, I’ll just stay late and do it myself.” Natalie’s glare remained fixed on me. “Jesse, if this is going to be your attitude moving forward, I’ll have to speak to HR about your termination—” “Let’s break up,” I interrupted. The open-plan office fell dead silent. Natalie’s eyes widened, her chest freezing mid-breath. “What did you just say?” I looked her dead in the eye. “I said, we’re breaking up.” Drew let out a sharp gasp. “Jesse! Why are you doing this? Natalie has been so good to you…” I ignored him, stood up, and grabbed my coat. Natalie grabbed my wrist, her grip so tight it felt like she wanted to crush the bone. “Jesse Ward, do you really have to resort to these pathetic stunts?” “What do you mean?” I asked, looking down at her hand. She sneered, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “You’re doing this to force my hand. You want to make our relationship public in front of the whole office. I told you, keeping our personal lives separate is for the best. Why can’t you just be professional?” I looked at my reddening wrist, a profound exhaustion settling deep into my bones. It was always like this. If I expressed hurt, I was throwing a tantrum. If I drew a boundary, I was being manipulative. But if Drew so much as frowned, she would tear down the world to fix it. I pulled my hand back with all the force I could muster, taking a step away from her. “Now that we’re broken up, you don’t have to worry about anyone accusing you of playing favorites.” I left the office immediately, went straight to our apartment, and started packing. I had lived in this condo for five years. The couch was a mid-century piece I had spent weeks hunting down in thrift stores when we were still living in a cramped studio. I couldn’t bear to leave it behind when we moved here; it was a testament to how far we had come. The linen curtains were ones I had researched for hours to find the best deal. On the wall hung a framed Polaroid of us from the day we moved in. Natalie was holding a paint roller, I had a broom, both of us covered in white smudges, laughing like idiots. We had a home. We were finally secure in a city that had felt so cold and foreign. I took the photo out of the frame, tore it into tiny pieces, and dropped them into the trash can. Since my resignation required a one-week notice period for handovers, I booked a room at a hotel near the office. By the next morning, the office rumors had taken on a life of their own. My colleagues looked at me with thinly veiled hostility. They assumed I was a toxic ex trying to ruin Natalie’s career. They began icing me out, dumping menial tasks like scanning and coffee runs onto my desk. Diane, who knew the truth about my departure, tried to intervene once or twice, but the whispers only grew louder. Soon, the rumor was that I had been fired because I tried to sleep with Diane—even though Diane was happily married with two kids. The exclusion turned into active hostility. Natalie did nothing to stop it. She either didn’t notice, or she thought I deserved it. Three days later, Natalie marched over to my desk and slammed a thick binder in front of me, her face pale with fury. “Jesse, what the hell is this? The strategic brief you submitted for the client is a total disaster!” I opened the binder, confused. On the cover page, my name was printed in bold letters. But I hadn’t touched a new project since submitting my resignation. Before I could speak, Drew rushed over, grabbing Natalie’s arm. His eyes were red, his voice trembling. “Nat, don’t yell at Jesse. It’s my fault. I must have mixed up the files.” Natalie’s expression didn’t soften. She kept her eyes locked on me. “Don’t let Drew cover for your incompetence, Jesse. The client is threatening to pull their account. I’m docking three months of your bonuses.” I had never seen this document in my life. Yet here she was, eager to paint me as the scapegoat. Around us, my coworkers whispered, some watching with smug satisfaction. I sat up straight. “I didn’t write this brief, Natalie.” Natalie leaned in, lowering her voice so only I could hear. “You’re leaving the company anyway, Jesse. A bad review won’t affect your future. But Drew is up for the Director position. If corporate finds out he botched this, he’ll lose the promotion. Just help him this once. Help me this once.” Looking into her eyes, seeing the desperation she felt for Drew’s future, the very last thread of my love for her snapped. Drew looked at me, a silent plea in his eyes, but he didn’t say a word to clear my name. I smiled. It was a cold, empty feeling. “Okay.” Consider it my final repayment for the drink he took for me three months ago. Because of the “gross negligence” on my record, HR fast-tracked my exit. That afternoon, Diane called me into her office. “Jesse, you don’t deserve this,” she said softly. She had quietly coded my departure as a layoff with severance instead of a termination for cause, ensuring I would receive a payout. I signed the paperwork and thanked her sincerely. I was the last one to leave the office that night. I took everything from my desk and threw it into the trash can by the elevators. As soon as I reached my hotel room, my phone buzzed. Both Natalie and Drew had sent messages at almost the exact same time. They wanted to take me out to dinner to “make things right.” They sent a pin to a trendy, reservations-only restaurant downtown—a place known for its intimate couple’s seating. I knew they had been there together dozens of times. Every time they went, they told me they only got the couple’s tasting menu because it was the most cost-effective option. But Natalie had never taken me there. I had only ever seen it in Drew’s Instagram stories. I didn’t reply. I booked a flight and called an Uber to O’Hare. At the boarding gate, my phone buzzed again with reminders about the dinner, promising a “big surprise” was waiting for me. I set my phone to Do Not Disturb, blocked both of their numbers, and boarded the plane. Six years ago, I had packed my life into two suitcases and followed Natalie to Chicago, eager to build a life together. Now, Drew was by her side, and there was no room left for me. It was time to go home.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “516770”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

My fiancé’s favorite promise was “next time”. When my chronic stomach ulcer flared up and landed me in the hospital, he said he’d accompany me to my follow-up “next time”. When I had to work late on my birthday, he said he’d make it up to me “next time”. When I received my acceptance letter from the prestigious hospital in London, he said we’d celebrate “next time”. But his “next time” always belonged to Amber. When she went through a breakup, he drove across three state lines at two in the morning just to sit with her. When she was moving, he bailed on meeting my parents for the first time so he could carry her boxes. When she offhandedly mentioned wanting to see the ocean, he booked two plane tickets to the coast immediately. I asked him, “What about our wedding?” Chase merely knit his brows, looking thoroughly irritated. “She’s in a fragile place right now, Nancy. Don’t start drama over this.” I stared at the email notification delaying our wedding, my hands freezing over the keyboard. Later, Amber sent a voice note. Her voice was light, laced with a delicate, performative giggle. “Oh, don’t be mad, sweetie! Chase said the wedding can always be postponed, but seeing the ocean—this ocean—is a once-in-a-lifetime thing.” I didn’t reply. Instead, I opened an email from the London hospital. They were asking if I could move my start date up. I wanted to wait for one real explanation from him. But when he called, his tone was nothing but impatient. “Drop it, Nancy. It’s just a one-week delay. I’ll bring you back some seashells.” I exhaled slowly. There would be no next time. Some things, and some people, have an expiration date. … “It’s just a one-week delay. Do you really have to pick a fight with me right now?” Chase’s voice cut through the receiver, backgrounded by the rhythmic, distant crash of waves. “I’m not picking a fight,” I said. He paused. He hadn’t expected me to sound this hollow, this quiet. “Good. Amber’s been incredibly unstable lately. I’m just here to help her clear her head for a couple of days.” He sighed. “Don’t go snooping around or asking questions. It makes you look incredibly petty.” My eyes drifted to the wedding itinerary lying on the desk. It was a mess of red ink—scrawled margin notes, crossed-out times, and detailed schedules. Every single edit had been made by me, alone. Chase’s signature was on the first page, and only the first page. When he signed it, he’d tossed the pen aside and said, “Whatever you like, babe. Next time, I promise I’ll actually sit down and look through it with you.” “Next time.” Those two words had been the background noise of our seven-year relationship. “Chase,” I whispered. On his end, someone laughed. Amber’s voice floated through the speaker. “Chase, hurry up! The sunset is almost gone!” “Coming!” Chase called out. When he spoke to me again, his words rushed together. “Is there anything else? If not, I’m hanging up.” I stared at the open email on my laptop screen. “What if I told you I’m not waiting around this time?” Chase let out a sharp, dismissive laugh. “Nancy, do you have to use this card every single time?” “I know how much this wedding means to you. I know you’re not going to walk away from me. Just calm down for a few days, okay? I’ll bring you some shells when I get back.” “Okay.” He always did that. A careless, breezy “okay” to settle things he didn’t want to deal with. I said nothing. In the background, Amber’s voice chimed in. “Is she mad again? Maybe I should talk to her and explain…” Chase mutters back, not even bothering to cover the receiver. “No, don’t worry about it. She’s just throwing a fit. Leave her alone for a bit and she’ll get over it.” My grip loosened. The call disconnected. As the screen went black, it reflected my pale face. A familiar, sharp ache bloomed in the pit of my stomach. I pulled open my desk drawer. Inside was a small glass jar filled with tiny, perfect seashells. Seven years ago, on our very first trip to the beach, Chase had knelt in the wet sand for hours. He’d sifted through hundreds of shells before choosing one flawless specimen and pressing it into my palm. “Every time I make you wait,” he’d whispered, “I’ll give you another one to make up for it.” The jar had grown full. The waiting had grown endless. I pulled the jar out and tipped it directly into the trash bag by my feet. My phone buzzed. It was an Instagram notification—a post from Amber. In the photo, she was silhouetted against a golden sunset, wearing Chase’s heavy wool coat. In her outstretched hand, she held a delicate bracelet made of polished shells. Her caption read: “Someone said this was to dry my tears.” I looked at it for a long, silent moment. Then, I clicked over to my email and hit reply to the hospital in London. “I can start early. I can leave tonight.” Once the email sent, I walked into the bedroom and pulled my suitcase from the closet. I had just unzipped it when I heard the sound of keys rattling in the front door. Before I could turn around, Chase’s mother pushed the door open. She was holding a stack of wedding invitations, her face set in a hard, disapproving line. “Nancy, Chase tells me you’re throwing a tantrum over Amber again?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase and stayed silent. Mrs. Morton threw the invitations onto the coffee table with a heavy sigh. “You know Amber grew up without parents. It’s only natural that Chase looks out for her. You’re about to become a Morton—you need to learn to have some grace.” “The wedding has been postponed, Mrs. Morton,” I said quietly. “A week’s delay isn’t a cancellation,” she snapped, her eyes falling on my open suitcase. “What on earth are you doing?” I slid my passport into the inner pocket of my bag. “I’m moving to London.” Her expression turned to sheer disbelief. “Have you lost your mind? The wedding is next week, and you’re leaving the country?” “She isn’t going anywhere.” Chase’s cold, dry voice cut through the room. I hadn’t heard him come in. He was still carrying the scent of the ocean—cold air and salt. In his hand, he held a clear plastic bag containing a few wet, sandy shells. Amber stood just behind him, her eyes rimmed with red. Chase tossed the bag onto the floor in front of me. “I brought the shells,” he said, his tone flat. “Are we done with the drama now?” The bag hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, water splashing onto the cuffs of my jeans. Amber immediately dropped to her knees to gather them. “Nancy, I am so incredibly sorry. This is all my fault. Chase was supposed to be tasting the catering options with you, but I was the one who begged him to take me to the water.” Chase frowned, grabbing her elbow to pull her back up. “Why are you apologizing to her? She’s just being overly sensitive.” He looked at me, his sharp gaze softening only a fraction. “Nancy, Amber spent the entire drive back defending you. Don’t take your issues out on her.” I didn’t look at him. My eyes were fixed on the shell bracelet around Amber’s wrist. Specifically, the largest shell in the center. I recognized the slight, distinct pink hue on its edge. It was the first shell Chase had ever given me. The one from seven years ago. I had searched the apartment for it months ago, thinking I’d lost it. Now I knew where it was. Sensing my gaze, Amber quickly tugged her sleeve down to cover her wrist, her eyes flitting away. Chase followed my line of sight. His jaw tightened. “It’s just a bracelet, Nancy. She liked the shell, so I had a jeweler re-string it for her. Don’t you have a whole jar of them in your drawer anyway?” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “I threw them in the trash.” The room went entirely silent. For the first time, a flicker of genuine shock crossed Chase’s face. “You threw them out?” “Yes.” “Nancy, we collected those during our first year together.” For a second, he looked like he actually remembered what those shells meant. But the vulnerability was gone as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by irritation. “You’re seriously throwing away our memories just to make a point?” I zipped my suitcase shut. “I’m not trying to make a point. They’re just useless now.” Mrs. Morton stepped forward, placing a heavy hand on my suitcase to stop me from moving it. “Nancy, let’s not say things we’ll regret. A fellowship abroad doesn’t compare to the security of marrying into our family.” Amber sniffled, stepping up beside Chase. “Nancy, I know my presence is causing problems. Maybe I shouldn’t come to the wedding at all. I can step down as your maid of honor.” Her tears began to fall right on cue. Chase immediately turned his attention to her. “Amber, don’t say that.” He glared at me, his voice freezing over. “The wedding can be delayed, but Amber is going to be there. She is my best friend, and she is going to be part of our family.” “And if I say no?” I asked. Chase let out a short, incredulous laugh. “You won’t say no.” He stepped up to my suitcase, reached into the side pocket, and snatched my passport. “You’re just baiting me to comfort you. Fine. I’ll comfort you.” He pulled a small velvet box from his coat pocket and flipped it open. Inside was a delicate pearl brooch. “Amber picked it out. She said it would look beautiful on your wedding dress.” I looked at the brooch. Across the surface of the pearl, there was a visible, jagged hairline crack. Amber chimed in quickly. “It’s vintage, Nancy! The crack is supposed to be there—it gives it character. Please don’t misunderstand.” Chase pressed the box toward my hands. “Just take it. Stop looking for reasons to be angry.” I didn’t take it. My hands remained at my sides. The velvet box slipped through his fingers, hitting the floor and sliding under the edge of the sofa. Chase’s patience finally snapped. “Nancy, what is it going to take to satisfy you?” “Give me my passport,” I said, my voice steady. “When you’ve calmed down,” he replied, sliding the passport into his breast pocket. “You’re not going anywhere. Mom will help handle the final wedding details this week. Your stomach has been acting up anyway, so stop trying to run away.” So he did remember my stomach. But when I had been admitted to the ER, he had been three towns over, buying a limited-edition collectible Amber had been crying about. When I went in for my biopsy results, he told me “next time”. I looked down at the floor. “You’re keeping me here against my will, Chase.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Don’t dramaticize this. I’m doing this for your own good.” Amber murmured from behind him. “Nancy, don’t blame Chase. He’s just terrified of you making a mistake you can’t take back.” I stared at the two of them, standing shoulder to shoulder. Suddenly, the apartment I had spent six months decorating felt entirely foreign. Like a stranger’s house. My phone screen lit up on the counter. It was another email from the hospital. “If you wish to finalize your early start date, please submit your passport details within the next twenty-four hours.” Chase saw the notification and picked up my phone before I could reach it. “I’ll write back and decline.” “Chase, put my phone down,” I said, my voice cracking slightly. He ignored me, typing rapidly. “You can think about fellowships later. Right now, your priority is our wedding, not running off to another country.” I grabbed his wrist. “That is my career.” Chase looked down at me, his eyes filled with a patronizing pity. “Nancy, you went to medical school for years. But let’s be honest—at the end of the day, it was always about having a respectable title when you married me, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Morton cleared her throat but didn’t contradict him. Amber put on a look of shock. “Chase, don’t say that. Nancy worked incredibly hard.” Though she spoke in my defense, her eyes gleamed with a quiet, triumphant satisfaction. I stared at Chase. A long time ago, he hadn’t spoken to me like this. On the day I passed my board exams, he had waited outside the testing center with a small cake. He had looked at me with bright, hopeful eyes and said, “Nancy Cooper, you are going to be an incredible doctor.” Now, those same eyes looked at me and dismissed my life’s work as a pre-marriage accessory. I let go of his wrist. “Give me my phone and my passport.” He didn’t. He hit send on the decline draft. The screen flashed with a confirmation message. In that exact moment, a sharp, white-hot spasm tore through my abdomen. The pain was so intense my entire body went numb. I leaned heavily against the back of a dining chair to keep from collapsing. Amber rushed over. “Nancy, oh my gosh, are you okay? Let me get you some water.” As she turned, her sleeve caught my plastic pillbox on the counter, knocking it to the floor. The little white tablets scattered across the hardwood. Chase’s brows knit together. “Are you taking those stomach meds again?” I didn’t answer. I slowly knelt down to pick up the pills. He stood over me, his voice softening slightly. “If your stomach was hurting, why didn’t you just say something?” My fingers froze against the cold floor. “I did.” The night the pain had gotten so bad I was sweating through my clothes, I had called him. He had sounded thoroughly annoyed. “If you have enough energy to call me, you’re fine, Nancy. Amber just had a panic attack over her ex. I can’t leave her right now.” I quietly gathered the pills and placed them back in the box. “It doesn’t matter.” Chase sighed, kneeling down to help me. But before his hand could touch the floor, Amber let out a sharp cry. “Ah! Chase, my finger… I think I cut it on one of the shells.” Chase stood up instantly. He grabbed Amber’s hand, examining her finger with tender concern. “How did you manage to do that? Let me see.” Amber’s eyes filled with tears. “It’s fine, just a scratch. Nancy clearly doesn’t want me here. I should just go.” Mrs. Morton sighed. “Nancy, look at what your hostility is doing to this girl.” I stood up, holding my pillbox. “If she wants to go, let her.” Amber went pale. Chase whipped his head around to look at me. “Nancy.” He rarely used my full name. When he did, it was always a warning to stay in my lane. “Apologize to Amber. Right now.” I felt a hollow laugh bubble up in my throat. “What did you just say?” “Apologize,” he repeated, stepping in front of Amber as if to shield her from me. “She has been working her fingers to the bone to help with this wedding, even picking out accessories for you, and you treat her like she’s the enemy.” “This is “my” wedding. Why is she doing anything for it?” Amber bit her lip, looking thoroughly small. “I was only trying to help. Chase said you were always working, so he asked me to make some of the decisions.” I froze. Chase avoided my eyes, but his mother spoke up. “Of course she did. The catering menu, the party favors, the dress alterations—Amber took care of all of it. Your health is fragile, and you’re always so particular. You should be thanking her for taking the burden off your shoulders.” I walked over to the table and picked up the wedding itinerary. I flipped to the very last page. Under the section for the bridal processional, the song I had spent weeks choosing had been crossed out in black ink. In its place, someone had written Amber’s favorite acoustic folk song. Next to it was Chase’s signature. I held the paper up to his face. “Did she choose this for me, too?” Chase glanced at it, his expression hardening. “It’s just a song, Nancy. Amber said it had a better rhythm for the walk.” “Just a song.” “Just a shell.” “Just a career.” I let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Then why don’t you let her be the bride, too?” Chase’s face darkened. “Do you have to be so incredibly dramatic?” I didn’t answer him. I knelt by the sofa, fished out the cracked pearl brooch from beneath the cushions, and pressed it into Amber’s hand. “If you like it so much, keep it.” Before Amber could speak, the doorbell rang. The wedding planner stood on the threshold, holding a massive, garment-bagged wedding dress. “Mr. Morton, the custom gown Ms. Amber ordered has arrived. Should we try it on now, or wait until tomorrow?” The air in the living room turned to ice. The planner looked from me to Amber, her professional smile freezing on her face. “Oh… I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” Amber waved her hands frantically. “No, no! It’s not mine! It’s for Nancy. I was just the one communicating with the designer.” The planner looked down at her clipboard, thoroughly confused. “But the order sheet has the bride’s name listed as Amber.” I looked at Chase. His chest rose and fell rapidly, but he quickly smoothed his expression. “It’s just a clerical error.” My hands clenched into fists. “The song was an error. The dress was an error. Was postponing the hotel booking an error, too?” “Nancy, do not do this in front of company,” Chase warned, his voice dangerously low. The planner set the gown down, keeping her head low, wishing she could disappear. Amber’s tears fell freely now. “Nancy, I swear I didn’t know. I was talking to the designer so much that she must have gotten confused.” I walked over and unzipped the garment bag. The dress was spectacular—layers of delicate lace, a tapered waist, and intricate beadwork. But it was not my size. And it was certainly not my style. I had always wanted something clean, sleek, and modern. This dress was a fairytale ballgown—the exact design Amber had saved on her public boards for years. Chase stepped up beside me. “If you don’t like it, we can have it altered.” “Is there even time?” “We postponed the wedding by a week. There’s plenty of time.” He said it so casually. The postponement hadn’t been about Amber’s fragile mental state at all. It had been to give the designer time to alter Amber’s dream dress for me. I gripped the plastic of the garment bag so hard my knuckles turned white. “Chase… do you actually want to marry me?” A look of pure frustration crossed his face. “The invitations are sent. The deposit is paid. My mother is standing right here. Why are you asking such a ridiculous question?” Mrs. Morton stepped in, trying to smooth things over. “Alright, let’s all calm down. It’s just a dress. Nancy, don’t be so stubborn. Amber is roughly your size anyway. It wouldn’t hurt for her to try it on to see how the fabric drapes.” Amber shook her head quickly. “No, Mrs. Morton, I couldn’t. Nancy will just hate me more.” Mrs. Morton patted her shoulder. “You’re too sweet for your own good, sweetheart.” Chase looked at me. “Since you’re clearly not in the mood to try it, let Amber do it. Once we see how it looks, we can adjust it to your measurements.” I stared at him, feeling a cold sensation wash over me. “You want me to stand here and watch your best friend try on my wedding dress?” He remained silent for a beat. “It’s the most logical way to get this sorted out quickly.” The planner whispered from the corner of the room. “Actually, Mr. Morton… the bodice was patterned specifically to Ms. Amber’s proportions. Altering it to fit Ms. Cooper would completely ruin the structure of the gown.” Chase’s expression curdled. Amber covered her face with her hands. “Don’t say another word. I’ll just leave. I’ll leave and I won’t come back.” She bolted toward the front door. Chase didn’t hesitate. He chased after her, catching her arm at the threshold. “You don’t have to leave.” He turned back to look at me, his eyes demanding surrender. “Nancy, let’s settle this once and for all. What matters more to you? This dress, or our future together?” I looked at his hand wrapped tightly around Amber’s wrist. The clarity was almost blinding. “Neither,” I said quietly. Chase blinked. “What?” I turned and walked toward the bedroom. Chase caught up to me in three strides, blocking the doorway. “Where do you think you’re going?” “I told you. I’m leaving.” “I said we’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.” I looked up, meeting his eyes. “I have never been more calm in my life.” He stared at me for a long moment, a slow, knowing smile spreading across his lips. “You just want me to choose you. That’s what this is.” He pulled my passport from his breast pocket, letting it dangle between his fingers. “Fine. Apologize to Amber. Admit you’re being paranoid, and I’ll give this back to you right now.” Amber whimpered. “Chase, please don’t do this. You’re going to break her heart.” Chase didn’t look at her. He kept his eyes on me, completely confident that I would break. He knew me. He knew I always yielded in the end. The hallway light caught the worn edges of my passport cover. I remembered the day I received it, right after getting my first international medical exchange. Chase had held me tight and promised, “No matter how far you fly, I’ll always be there to bring you home.” My throat tightened. I reached out for the passport. He pulled it back. “Apology first.” Mrs. Morton sighed from the living room. “Nancy, just say you’re sorry. Don’t make a scene over nothing.” Amber kept her head down, her voice small and delicate. “Nancy, if you don’t want to apologize, I understand. I just hate seeing Chase caught in the middle of our mess. It’s so exhausting for him.” I looked at the three of them. I realized I had absolutely nothing left to say. I picked up a pen from the console table, turned the wedding itinerary over, and wrote a single sentence on the blank backing paper: “I, Nancy Cooper, hereby cancel my wedding to Chase Morton.” The smug satisfaction drained from Chase’s face. “What is this supposed to mean?” I didn’t answer. I grabbed my suitcase, walked past him, and opened the front door. Chase lunged forward, grabbing my wrist. “Nancy, stop playing games.” “Let go of me.” “If you walk out that door today, I swear to God I will not chase you.” I wrenched my wrist from his grip. Down the hall, the elevator dinged, its doors sliding open. As I stepped inside, Chase’s voice echoed down the corridor. “If you leave, the wedding is still happening next week! Do you hear me?” The elevator doors slowly slid shut. The last image I had of him was his face twisted in absolute certainty—the absolute belief that I would come crawling back. But some birds, once they find the open sky, never look down.

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Two years ago, my best friend Cheryl suddenly packed her bags and moved across the country, leaving a sticky note on my bathroom mirror: “Wren, eat up. Don’t be a picky eater!” I didn’t understand her words back then. But when I heard she was finally returning to Creek Cove, I was ecstatic. I went downstairs to throw out the trash, only to spot Cheryl already back in our apartment complex. Standing right in front of her was my fiancé, Brody, who had told me he was at the gym. He was holding her hand, guiding her fingers over the hard, defined lines of his abs. His voice was low, gravelly. “Still being picky?” Cheryl’s eyes swept over him, a slow, teasing smirk spreading across her face. “Wren has been eating very well, hasn’t she?” Brody let out a soft snort. “She doesn’t know how to appreciate it like you do.” They walked away together, laughing and whispering. That night, when he came home, he immediately slipped into the bathroom with his phone, just like he always did. I opened his private Instagram account—the one he thought I didn’t know about, the one he kept strictly locked down. A thousand progress pictures of his physique. Every single one of them tagged only Cheryl. The most recent post was uploaded the exact day her flight landed. The caption: “If you like it, when are you coming to get a taste?” It took me two whole years to finally understand their sick little metaphor. … The rushing shower water muffled my crying. Once the tears ran dry, I pulled out my phone and texted my mother: “Mom, I’m coming home for the Regatta Matchmaking Festival this weekend. The wedding is off.” Brody finally emerged from the bathroom after an hour. He handed me a cold bottle of water. “Why are your lips so dry? Have you been crying?” That single question almost broke me again. I thought he was going to ask me why, but then Cheryl’s voice memo popped up on his screen. “Brody, I’ve finalized the catering menu for your and Wren’s rehearsal dinner and reception.” From the very first syllable, Brody’s mouth curved into a smile that didn’t fade. “Whatever you decide is perfect,” he typed back. Then he turned the screen toward me. “Cheryl’s back. She did us a huge favor and retooled our wedding menu.” My breath caught. Cheryl hadn’t even told me she was back. And why was Brody letting an outsider dictate our wedding? “Brody, I drafted that menu twelve times. Every single dish was chosen to honor both of our families’ traditions here in Creek Cove.” “If Cheryl wants international cuisine, we can set up a separate table just for her.” The smile finally vanished from Brody’s face. “Your menu is too heavy. Cheryl’s stomach was completely wrecked while she was living away. You’re her best friend, shouldn’t you know that?” “Wren, stop being so selfish and always demanding things your way. Think about other people for once.” His “other people” only ever meant Cheryl. And my careful planning, my attempt to please everyone, was dismissed as mere selfishness. I locked my phone. He had changed his lock screen. It was a picture of a half-eaten heritage hand pie. I had baked it. But the faint lipstick smudge on the crust belonged to Cheryl. Just this morning, I had asked him to take a picture of the pies I spent all night baking. He had brushed me off. “We make these every year, Wren. Why do you need a photo to remember it?” Of course. It was never about the hand pies. It was about the person eating them. I tossed his phone back onto his lap. “If I can’t have my own wedding the way I want it, then whose wedding is it?” Brody looked at me in surprise. I rarely argued with him. But his voice softened, offering a placating smile. “Come on, can’t you just accommodate Cheryl this once?” The word No rushed to the tip of my tongue, but suddenly, all the fight drained out of me. He could spend two years working out just to please Cheryl, but he couldn’t bear to let me have the menu I wanted for our wedding. “Whatever,” I muttered. Relief washed over his face. He instantly grabbed his phone. “Cheryl’s jet-lagged and wants me to hop on a game with her. Go to sleep first.” The door shut, and my tears fell in silence. My pale lips weren’t from crying. They were from the agonizing spasm in my stomach. Three years ago, I underwent a partial gastrectomy. I’ve lived with chronic stomach pain ever since. He had remembered that pain for three years, yet tonight, he suddenly forgot. Over the weekend, Brody drove me to the wedding venue. I figured since I was the one who booked it, I should be the one to cancel it. Midway through the drive, he swerved the car to pick up Cheryl. “You’ve been standing out there forever. Weren’t you hot?” Brody’s tone was sharp, but his hand immediately reached to adjust the air conditioning vents for the back seat. I looked between the two of them. “Why is Cheryl coming?” Cheryl grabbed Brody’s iced coffee and took a massive gulp straight from the straw, nearly choking. “Wren, you don’t mind me tagging along, do you? I promise I won’t play third wheel.” Brody immediately bickered back, his tone intimate. “Cut the act. Who was the one blowing up my phone all morning begging to come scout the venue?” Cheryl lightly kicked the back of his seat. “And who was the one who couldn’t even copy-paste the address right? You sent me thirty wrong pins!” They began bickering over how many texts they had exchanged. Cheryl won; Brody had sent her eighty pointless messages just that morning. “Enough!” I blurted out. The car went dead silent. Cheryl instantly lowered her head, her thumbs flying across her phone. A moment later, Brody’s fingers were tapping away at his own screen. I put in my earbuds and turned up the music, tuning out their silent, digital flirting. At the hotel venue, I slipped away from Brody to speak with the event manager about canceling our reservation. When we finalized the paperwork, the manager said with genuine regret, “It’s such a shame. Mr. Langford was just speaking with our bridal suite coordinator about ordering three more bridesmaid dresses…” Hearing this, the last shred of hesitation I had evaporated. I walked up to the bridal suite. Through the cracked door, the sound of their stifled laughter leaked out. Brody gasped, “Cheryl, you greedy little thing!” Cheryl was poking Brody’s abs, giggling. “Two years ago, I mentioned offhand that your core wasn’t defined enough, and you immediately practically lived at the gym.” “You even FaceTimed me on New Year’s Eve to show me your progress. Did you know Wren was sitting right next to me having dinner?” My heart stopped. She was talking about this past New Year. Cheryl had been home for the holidays. My mother, seeing her eating instant ramen alone, had invited her over for dinner. I had sent Brody a dozen photos of our holiday feast. His reply was four words: At the gym. My mother had asked hopefully, “Can we call Brody to wish him a Happy New Year?” I called him five times. He declined every single one. Meanwhile, Cheryl, sitting beside us, had nervously hidden her screen. My mother teased her, asking if she was talking to a boyfriend. Cheryl had rolled her eyes. “Yeah, he’s just so clingy. I can barely stand it.” I caught a fleeting glimpse of her screen then. She hadn’t replied for a minute, and he had already frantically called her. My mother’s eyes had dimmed. She squeezed my hand. “Don’t call him anymore, Wren. Brody must be busy.” But during the first seven years of our relationship, Brody was never too busy for me. Even during the six months of my surgery and recovery, he had temporarily closed his photography studio just to be my twenty-four-hour caregiver. Now, inside the suite, Brody let out a low groan, catching Cheryl’s hand. “Stop playing… Wren is still…” Before he could finish, I pushed the door open. Brody scrambled upright. “Wren! Are all the venue details confirmed?” Cheryl hopped off the bed. “Brody was trying to show off how strong he is. Wren, you have to take my side!” I stared at the hand that had just been tracing his muscles. It was reaching out to touch my arm like a slithering snake. “Don’t touch me!” I snapped, slapping her hand away. Her pale skin immediately flushed bright red. Brody instinctively grabbed Cheryl’s hand, his eyes flashing with sudden coldness. “Wren, we were just joking around. What is wrong with you?” Cheryl gently nudged him back. “Brody, don’t blame her. It’s my fault. I pushed it too far.” She looked at me, blinking innocently. “Wren, I got too used to how casual people are abroad. I forgot you’re still a conservative, good little girl.” Brody frowned. “Good girl? More like an old-fashioned relic.” “Always sick, never wants to work out, never wants to go out, doesn’t even use social media. My grandmother is livelier than her.” My stomach clenched in a sharp, burning spasm. “Brody, do you even remember why I’m always sick?” Three years ago, he went deep into the Alaskan wilderness to shoot a wildlife documentary on caribou migration. I went with him. The schedule was brutal. He contracted high-altitude pulmonary edema and ended up hospitalized in Anchorage. I picked up his heavy camera gear to finish the shoot for him, driving hundreds of miles back and forth between the hospital and the wild plains. I skipped meals, barely slept, and the day we finally flew back, I collapsed with acute gastric bleeding. He won an award for that documentary. I lost half my stomach. “Wren, if you have an issue, just say it. You don’t need to keep bringing up the past to guilt-trip me into yielding to you and Cheryl.” Brody’s cold scoff dragged me back to the present. I stared at him, dumbfounded. He let out a heavy sigh, acting as though he was the one making a massive sacrifice. “I guess this is what I get for marrying a girl from the River Settlement.” “What is that supposed to mean?” I tore my hand away from him. He pulled up a chat screenshot Cheryl had forwarded him and showed it to me. It was a message from my mother to Cheryl, saying my wedding would feature an eight-day community feast. “An eight-day feast? That’s going to cost tens of thousands of dollars,” Cheryl had texted him. “Wren’s mom really loves her, but she’s treating you like a bottomless bank account.” Brody’s expression grew even colder. “Wren, am I marrying you, or am I marrying your family’s desperate need for social status?” “Brody, you don’t have to marry me at all. And I don’t have to marry you.” I slipped my engagement ring off, set it on the vanity table, and walked out. Cheryl chased after me. “Wren, the wedding is practically here. Can you grow up? Don’t throw a tantrum just because of me.” I spun around, staring at her with cold fury. “Cheryl, where did that half-eaten hand pie go?” She choked on her words. “Brody ate it, didn’t he?” “Sharing a hand pie, sharing a water bottle, laying on the same bed with your best friend’s fiancé—is that your idea of being grown up?” The smirk on Cheryl’s face crumbled. “Wren, you’re counting pennies with me over a man?” She unclasped the designer watch I had gifted her and threw it directly at my face. “If I wanted to be with Brody, you wouldn’t have stood a chance in the first place!” I covered my eye, feeling a sharp, burning pain where the watch had struck my temple. Brody rushed over, instantly pulling Cheryl into his arms. “Calm down. Your stomach is already acting up from the travel. Don’t let her get to you.” Then he looked at me, his eyes filled with exhaustion and boredom. “Wren, tell your mom we’ll host the eight-day feast. Are you happy now?” “Take a cab home. I need to take Cheryl to the clinic.” Brody swept Cheryl up into his arms. The hallway was narrow, and as he pushed past, his shoulder shoved hard against mine. I let go of my face. The blood from the cut on my temple mingled with my tears, wetting my cheek. The hotel manager gasped, handing me a handkerchief. “Miss Barlowe, please don’t cry. He isn’t worth your tears.” My stomach was cramping so violently I could barely stand. Leaning against the wall, I managed a pale, hollow smile. “He won’t be anymore.” That night, Brody called to say Cheryl was hospitalized because of the stress I caused her, and he had to stay overnight to watch over her. He was trying to cover his tracks, but I didn’t care enough to expose him. The next morning, my mother unexpectedly texted me, her tone bright. “Wren, I brought the traditional River Settlement bridal gown with me. Try it on so we can make any adjustments.” Bringing the gown was just an excuse; she was worried I was getting cold feet or dealing with trouble. I went to meet her, but halfway there, she sent another message: “Cheryl knew I was coming and booked a bed-and-breakfast for me. Don’t rush on the road.” A cold dread settled in my chest. I called my mother. When she picked up, the background was filled with shouting and commotion. Then, my mother’s voice pierced through, sharp and terrified: “Let go of me! I didn’t steal anything!” “Mom!” I screamed, but the line went dead. I redialed, but her phone was switched off. In a panic, I was about to call the police when Cheryl’s text arrived: “Wren, your mom is doing just fine with my girls.” “Come over to the diner and pick up your ring first.” When I arrived at the local diner, Brody and his friends were all there. Cheryl was seated in the center of the booth, and Brody was carefully blowing on a spoonful of clam chowder, feeding her. “Brody, it’s too hot!” she whined. He blew on it again. The table erupted into laughter. “Brody’s already whipped, and they aren’t even married yet.” “Honestly, only a wild card like Cheryl could tame him.” Brody shot them a warning look. “Keep spoiling her, and she’ll be walking all over me for the rest of our lives.” “Brody, you’re the one who ruined her. Don’t blame us.” They laughed, but the humor died down when someone spotted me. I marched straight to Cheryl, my rage boiling over. “Where is my mother?” Clack. Cheryl dropped her spoon against the rim of her bowl. At her reaction, Brody immediately stood up, his face darkening as he looked at me. “Can you stop being so hostile toward Cheryl?” Then he noticed the cut near my eye. His irritation softened, and he stepped out of the booth, reaching out to touch my face. “How do you manage to get yourself hurt the second I’m not around?” I slapped his hand away and kept my eyes locked on Cheryl. “Where is my mother?” Cheryl didn’t answer. Instead, she signaled the waitress. Ten heavy, savory heritage hand pies were placed on the table. She held up her pale, slightly swollen hands, her voice cracking. “Wren, I baked ten savory hand pies for you as an apology.” “In the River Settlement, we have a tradition—no matter how deep the grudge, eating the unity pies washes it all away.” “If you’re willing to forgive me, eat them.” Brody, holding my engagement ring, nudged me. “Cheryl dragged herself out of a hospital bed to bake these for you. Just eat them, apologize, and we can still go through with the wedding.” My eyes widened. “Brody, I had a partial gastrectomy.” Did he have any idea what eating ten heavy, dense pies would do to my stomach? He avoided my gaze, muttering, “I’ll go buy you some stomach medicine. If you don’t eat them, Cheryl is just going to keep crying.” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Between Cheryl crying and me dying, he chose her. Cheryl flashed her phone screen at me. Thinking of my mother, I stepped up to the table, squared my shoulders, and began to eat the pies, bite by agonizing bite. Brody’s friends whistled. “Damn, Brody, you’ve got her well-trained. You promise her a wedding, and she’d lay down her life for you.” Seeing me eat so fast, Brody patted my back. “Slow down.” I nearly gagged. My stomach was being stuffed to the brim, the pain radiating outwards in sharp, burning spasms. Cheryl stuck her tongue out at Brody. “See? I told you Wren loves playing the victim. Look at her go. Does that look like someone with a bad stomach?” The hand on my back froze. Brody asked, his voice suddenly hollow, “Wren… when did your stomach get better?” I kept chewing the heavy, half-cooked dough, swallowing my defense along with the pain. When the last bite was gone, my stomach felt like it was filled with lead. I reached my hand out to Cheryl. “Give me the address.” Cheryl raised an eyebrow. “Sent.” I grabbed my phone to leave. “Wren, you haven’t apologized yet,” Brody called out. I turned back to look at them. I bowed my head and forced out every syllable: “I’m sorry. It’s my fault Cheryl got sick. I was being petty, and I didn’t understand your jokes.” Only then did the tension leave Brody’s shoulders. He slipped the ring back onto my finger. “Don’t take it off again. Since your mom is here, go spend time with her.” Drenched in cold sweat, I walked out of the diner. The moment I reached the street, I ripped the ring off and threw it into the storm drain. I wanted nothing that belonged to Brody. I found my mother at a local bed-and-breakfast. She was clutching the traditional River Settlement bridal gown, cornered by Cheryl’s friends. “Ma’am, this dress belongs to Cheryl,” one of them said, tugging at the fabric. “You can’t just steal it when she’s not home.” During the struggle, they pinned my mother’s arms, and one of them ripped the gown away. I shoved them aside and held my mother. Her arms were covered in scratches. I threatened to call the police. Brody and Cheryl arrived shortly after. Cheryl’s friends immediately handed the gown to her. “Cheryl, we got it back for you.” “Cheryl, have you no shame?” my mother cried, her voice trembling. “This is the heirloom gown my daughter is supposed to wear. Since when does it belong to you?” Cheryl had lost her own mother at a young age, and my mother had raised her like a second daughter, never speaking a harsh word to her. “Auntie, Wren is cutting me out over a wedding menu,” Cheryl wept, tears streaming down her face. “And now you’re screaming at me over a dress?” “I treated you like my own mother, and Wren like my sister. But over a dress, I’m suddenly an outsider.” Brody’s brow furrowed. He reached out to wipe her tears. “Wren, you have parents, you have me. Cheryl has no one.” “It’s just a wedding dress. Why can’t you just let her have it?” My mother lunged forward to grab the dress. “Brody, this gown is a sacred family heirloom. If you don’t cherish my daughter, someone else will!” Brody glared at me, as if I had orchestrated the entire conflict. “Wren, is the eight-day feast not enough? What else do you and your mother want? Just say it.” “There’s no need to make a scene over a dress!” Suddenly, Cheryl clutched the gown, turned, and ran into the backyard of the B&B. Ignoring the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat, I ran after her. In the yard, a brick fire pit was crackling. Flames licked the delicate fabric of the heirloom dress, and the twelve gold-embroidered wave patterns—sewn over generations—were turning to ash. I reached into the fire, the heat searing my skin. My mother threw her arms around me, sobbing. “Don’t, baby! Let it go! Let it go!” “But Grandma’s gold charms are on this… the gold thread I stitched back on is on this…” I gasped, refusing to let go. My mother threw herself toward the flames to pull it out, and in horror, I snapped out of my daze and pulled her back. “Mom, okay, okay! We don’t want it anymore! We don’t want any of it!” I looked back. Brody was holding Cheryl’s hands, checking them for burns. Sensing my gaze, his movements stiffened, and he sighed. “Wren, the dress is gone. Cheryl was just upset that you guys were isolating her.” Cheryl reached out to pull my sleeve. “Wren, you’ve never stayed mad at me. We’re still okay, right?” I silently pulled away from her touch. Seeing my cold, empty expression, panic finally flickered in Brody’s eyes. He softened his voice. “Wren, don’t be mad. Go home first. Tomorrow, I’ll take you to buy a brand-new designer dress.” The pain in my stomach was blinding. Leaning heavily on my mother, every step felt like a mile. But step by step, I walked out of their lives. Once we reached the main road, the adrenaline faded, and the world went black. “Wren!” During the two days I spent in the hospital recovering, Brody sent exactly three texts. First: “Cheryl’s stomach is acting up. I’m staying with her at the hospital. We’ll pick out a dress tomorrow.” Second: “Wren, are you seriously still throwing a tantrum? You haven’t even come home.” Third: “Cheryl said women from the River Settlement aren’t supposed to see the groom five days before the wedding? Why didn’t you tell me about this rule sooner?” I deleted them one by one, then helped my mother into a car heading back home. The day before the wedding, Brody walked out of Cheryl’s apartment. He opened his text history. My last message to him was from a week ago. That day at the B&B, my face had been deathly pale. Was my stomach really acting up? No, he reasoned, shaking his head. She had eaten those ten heavy hand pies without a problem. She was just playing the victim to get attention. He laughed to himself. She was just being petty, still angry at him and Cheryl. Suddenly, his group chat with his friends erupted with notifications, tagging him repeatedly. Brody opened the chat, and his mind went completely blank. Pictures of an elaborate, breathtaking waterfront celebration flooded the screen. I was wearing a magnificent, hand-embroidered crimson bridal gown, standing at the bow of a decorated wooden ship.

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Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a secret. When I look at someone, I can see their exact bank balance floating right above their head. It was this little gift that saved me. Back in the orphanage, I used it to choose my adoptive parents—a couple who dressed in faded, off-brand clothes but actually had a cool hundred million sitting in their accounts. But my taste of the good life was short-lived. The biological daughter they’d lost years ago was found, and she came back to claim her throne. Tiffany hated me for occupying her space. She made it her life’s mission to torment me, leaving me bruised and broken in ways no one else cared to see. I endured it all, keeping my head down, just so they would continue paying my college tuition. The moment I finally graduated, degree in hand, I was ready to run. I was packing my life into a single duffel bag when Tiffany blocked my path, her face twisted in rage. “I thought the guy I was talking to online was some rich heir with a Ferrari,” she hissed, shoving her phone in my face. “Turns out he’s just some pathetic loser who rides a Lime bike.” “If he starts stalking me, it’s going to ruin my reputation. You’re going to go meet him instead. Tell him you’re the girl he’s been talking to. Tell him you’re Cindy.” I looked in the direction she was pointing, out the window. A loser? Above the man’s head, in glowing, undeniable numbers, was a ten-digit balance. I swallowed hard, my heart hammering against my ribs. I grabbed Tiffany’s arm, unable to mask my sudden excitement. “Tell me everything,” I said. “Every single detail you two talked about. I’m going right now.” … Tiffany let out a sharp, mocking laugh when she saw how eager I was. “Are you really that desperate, Zoe? Can’t even keep your drool in check over a lowlife like that?” She tossed her phone at my face. It hit my cheek before sliding into my hands. “Have at him. If you’re that starved for a man, he’s all yours. Take him, leave, and honestly, do me a favor and never come back.” I swallowed the bitter taste of her insults, keeping my focus entirely on the screen. I memorized every text, every shared inside joke, every detail of their digital romance. Then, drawing in a long, steadying breath, I walked out of the house and made my way toward the man Tiffany had discarded like trash. “Hi,” I said, stepping up to him. I forced my voice to be light, cheerful. “I’m Cindy. The girl you’ve been texting. But my real name is Zoe.” I offered my hand, a warm smile stretching across my face. His eyes lit up, a flicker of genuine surprise washing over his features. “Oh,” he said, his voice softer than I expected. “You look… different than your pictures. Better, actually. Much better.” “I’m Wyatt,” he replied, wrapping his hand around mine. Tiffany had only ever sent him blurry, angled photos of her back or side-profile. Since our builds were similar, Wyatt had no reason to doubt me. But as our hands met, I wasn’t listening to his voice. I was staring at the space just above his head, carefully counting the digits glowing there. One, two, three… ten digits. Over a billion dollars. What made my breath catch, though, was that the number wasn’t static. Even as we stood there, it was ticking upward, climbing steadily with every passing second. So this was what real, obscene wealth looked like. He didn’t have to lift a finger; his money was making money faster than most people could spend it. If I could play this right, if I could tie myself to him, I wouldn’t just escape the hell of my adoptive family. I’d have a future. While I was lost in my calculations, Wyatt’s expression shifted, a quiet vulnerability clouding his eyes. “I… hope you aren’t disappointed,” he murmured, gesturing self-consciously to his scuffed, cheap foam clogs and the faded, oversized t-shirt he wore. “I could only afford a city bike to get here. Do you hate me for being poor?” He looked like he’d crawled out of a clearance bin at a thrift store. But Tiffany, in her endless pursuit of trying to play the “sweet, low-maintenance girl” to hook what she thought was a rich guy, had established a very specific online persona. She had pretended to be a struggling, modest girl. So I played along seamlessly. “I’m literally wearing my sister’s discarded hand-me-downs right now,” I said, gesturing to my faded sweater. “If anything, it’s nice to meet someone who knows the value of a dollar. I guess that’s why we clicked so well.” Tiffany had assumed that playing the victim of poverty would win her a rich boyfriend who would shower her with gifts. She had no idea that Wyatt had beaten her to the punch, using the exact same strategy to test her. Wyatt scanned my thin frame, taking in my slightly hollow cheeks and the cheap fabric of my clothes. The suspicion in his eyes melted away, replaced by a soft, growing warmth. But the test wasn’t over. “We can’t just stand on the sidewalk all day,” he said, rubbing his back. “Let me buy you lunch.” He unlocked a city bike for me, deliberately positioning his cracked, ancient smartphone so I could see it. I didn’t say a word. I pulled out my own phone—the screen webbed with deep fractures—and offered to buy him a ninety-nine-cent Arizona iced tea from a convenience store. “Thanks for coming out to see me,” I told him as we biked side-by-side. “It really means a lot.” Inside, I was secretly thrilled. I wanted to see exactly how far Wyatt was willing to drag this “broke boy” act. After a thirty-minute bike ride that left my legs burning, he pulled up to a dingy, strip-mall diner with a sign that read: All-You-Can-Eat Buffet – $7.99. I paused at the entrance, and Wyatt’s shoulders slumped slightly. He gave me a look that said, I knew it. Still, he rubbed his hands together nervously, playing the part of the anxious, low-income worker. “I know it’s not fancy,” he said, his voice tight. “But money is tight. I do delivery driving, and after gas, I barely clear eighty bucks a day. Zoe, do you look down on me for bringing you here?” I blinked, my stomach choosing that exact moment to let out a loud, traitorous growl. “Are you kidding?” I said, my eyes shining with absolute sincerity. “I’m the black sheep of my family. My parents stopped giving me a dime the second I started college. I’ve been working three part-time jobs just to pay tuition. Most days, I survive on a single side of white rice from the campus dining hall mixed with free hot water and ketchup.” “To me, an all-you-can-eat buffet is practically a Michelin-star feast.” I wasn’t lying. The hunger in my belly was very real. Before he could even respond, I grabbed a plastic tray and headed straight for the food line. If this had been Tiffany, she probably would have dumped a plate of hot food over his head and walked out. But I was practically vibrating with excitement, piling my plate high with whatever looked hot and heavy. “Mac and cheese, yes please. Mashed potatoes… definitely. Fried chicken… oh, absolutely.” Wyatt followed close behind, watching me heap mounds of heavy carbs onto my plate. When we sat down and I began eating with genuine, unpretentious joy, a sudden tenderness softened his face. “You really aren’t faking this, are you?” he murmured. I was too busy inhaling a roll to answer. Compared to my ravenous appetite, Wyatt barely touched his food. It was clear he wasn’t used to such greasy, low-grade fare. He took a few polite bites and set his fork down. Naturally, I finished his leftovers, too. Once the plates were clean, I leaned back, patting my stomach with a contented sigh. “Thank you, Wyatt. That was honestly the best meal I’ve had all year.” “Don’t get used to it,” he said, a faint, enigmatic smile playing on his lips. “Once I make it big, I’ll take you to a place that’ll make this look like garbage.” When he offered to drop me off at home, I shook my head. “I’m not going back there,” I said softly. “I’m going to find a cheap hostel to crash at for a few days while I look for a job.” I remembered from Tiffany’s chat history that Wyatt had been deeply curious about her living situation. Tiffany, who had been pampered her whole life, could never quite fake the gritty details of a hard life; she had always brushed his questions off with cute, deflective emojis. But I had nothing to hide. “I’m adopted,” I told him as we walked down the street. “A few days after they took me in from foster care, their biological daughter—the sister I mentioned—was found and brought back. From that moment on, I became a ghost in my own home. My sister found endless, cruel ways to make me pay for existing, and my parents looked the other way. But they kept a roof over my head and paid for my school, so I try to be grateful.” Wyatt’s hands balled into tight fists inside his pockets. “And you just took it? You let her treat you like that?” I shrugged and rolled up my sleeves, showing him the faded, thin scars on my forearms. Some were from where Tiffany had burned me with matches, others from where she’d scratched me with rusty nails, and one deep mark from when she’d set the family dog on me because I touched her shoes. “I’ve graduated now,” I said, pulling my sleeves back down. “I can take care of myself. Once I save up enough, I’ll pay my adoptive parents back for the tuition and cut ties with them forever.” “Zoe…” Wyatt stared at me, his gaze intense, searching. “To be honest, when we first started texting, I thought you were just playing a character to get my sympathy.” He was completely convinced now. He stood there for a long moment, lost in thought, before looking up at me with dark, unreadable eyes. “If you could make one wish right now, what would it be?” I stole a quick glance at the number hovering over his head. In the span of our lunch, his balance had somehow grown by another five million dollars. He was still playing the pauper, so asking him for a direct handout was out of the question. But maybe, just maybe, he could use whatever connections a secret billionaire had to help me find a job. “I just want to find a job as soon as possible,” I said, keeping my tone practical. “Ideally, something that offers employee housing or a housing stipend, so I can save on rent.” Wyatt raised an eyebrow, a mysterious glint in his eye. “Well, you never know. Maybe the universe will surprise you.” I smiled, not wanting to get my hopes too high. After all, I still had no idea who he really was. To thank him for lunch, I spent the last of my pocket cash on a couple of cheap ice cream cones. He spent the rest of the afternoon walking with me, helping me check out various sketchy, low-cost hostels in the city. By evening, after a cheap dinner of street tacos, we parted ways on our city bikes, his eyes lingering on me with a strange, reluctant warmth. The moment he disappeared around the corner, my phone rang. It was an HR representative from a major, multi-billion-dollar corporation. “We saw your resume on a recruiting portal,” the woman said, her tone highly professional. “Your qualifications are a perfect match for our open position. Would you be open to an interview tomorrow morning?” I didn’t know the exact connection between this massive firm and Wyatt, but I knew with absolute certainty that this wasn’t a coincidence. It was him. The interview the next day was shockingly easy. The HR manager barely asked any technical questions before offering me the job on the spot, telling me I could start the very next morning. Excited, I immediately texted Wyatt: Your lips must be blessed! I got a job! It comes with a dorm and a meal stipend! You brought me this luck—I have to buy you dinner to celebrate! Wyatt agreed instantly. He showed up in the same threadbare outfit, offering a sheepish, self-deprecating shrug. “I don’t really have any nice clothes, Zoe. I hope you don’t mind walking around with someone who looks like this.” As he spoke, the number above his head flashed. It was eighty million dollars higher than it had been yesterday. I suppressed a smile. “Once I get my first paycheck, I’m buying you a brand-new outfit.” Wyatt blinked, genuinely taken aback. “You can barely afford to feed yourself, and you want to buy me clothes?” “You’re the first person who ever took the time to listen to me,” I said simply. “You treat me well. It’s only fair I do the same.” The emotion that flared in his eyes was entirely real. There was no acting in that moment. From that day on, I poured everything into my new job, desperate to build a life of my own. Wyatt and I met almost every evening, our bond growing deeper with every passing day. We ate at cheap diners and food trucks, but Wyatt seemed to grow more relaxed, his guarded, testing nature melting away entirely. On payday, I kept my promise. I took him to a retail store and bought him a decent shirt and jeans. As he changed into them, his expression grew serious, almost solemn. “Zoe,” he said softly, “your luck is just getting started. I have to go away for a few days to handle some business. But when I get back, I have a surprise for you.” I didn’t know what he meant, and I didn’t dare to dream. In fact, a part of me preferred him as the “poor delivery guy.” When he was pretending, we were equals. If he became a god among men, I wouldn’t know how to look him in the eye. For the next three days, I couldn’t reach him. He only sent occasional, brief texts telling me to be patient. But before I could see Wyatt again, the person I dreaded most found me. Tiffany somehow tracked down my workplace. “Are you still seeing that guy?” she demanded, cornering me outside the building. “Get him out here. I need to see him right now.” “I was looking at the financial news today, and his face… he looks exactly like Wyatt Harrington!” She shoved her phone in my face, displaying a high-res photo from an international economic summit. It was Wyatt. But in the photo, he was the crown prince of Manhattan’s elite. He wore a bespoke three-piece suit, a multi-million-dollar watch, and was stepping out of a black Rolls-Royce surrounded by a phalanx of security guards. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. To think that this untouchable billionaire had purposefully gone without washing his hair, putting on cheap clogs just to eat a seven-dollar buffet with me. He had really gone all out to test his online date. Knowing Tiffany would try to claw her way back to him if she found out the truth, I quickly tried to diffuse her suspicions. “You’re dreaming,” I said, shaking my head. “On our first date, he took me to a seven-dollar buffet. Every time we hang out, we eat cheap street food. He literally wears the same faded t-shirt every day, and his clogs are practically falling apart. How could he possibly be a billionaire?” Tiffany squinted at me, searching for any sign of a lie. I quickly pulled up my transaction history, showing her the cheap diner receipts and photos of our street-food dates. She scrolled through my phone, taking in my cheap clothes and worn-out shoes, before finally letting out a sigh of relief. “Right. If he were actually a Harrington, he’d be throwing money at you, not making you split cheap tacos. Besides, someone that high-class would never look at a ratty girl like you.” She sneered, tossing my phone back. “You’re built for the gutter, Zoe. You and your little trash boyfriend deserve each other. Just don’t tell anyone we’re related. My parents would die of embarrassment.” I swallowed my anger, watching her walk away. But deep down, a tiny, foolish spark of hope flared in my chest. What if… what if Wyatt chose me? What if he stood by me and showed Tiffany exactly what she had thrown away? I shook my head, clearing the fantasy from my mind. Getting this job was already a miracle. I couldn’t afford to be greedy. I spent the next three days keeping my head down, working hard. But on the fourth day, as I stepped out of the office lobby, a sleek, black Rolls-Royce pulled up directly in front of me. The rear window rolled down slowly, revealing a face that was both intensely familiar and suddenly foreign. It was Wyatt. “Zoe,” he said, his voice smooth and commanding. “Get in. We need to talk.” Whispers broke out among my coworkers as they stopped to stare. My brain went entirely numb. I couldn’t believe he was exposing his identity like this. Seeing me frozen on the pavement, Wyatt smiled, opening the door and stepping out. “What’s with the face? It’s only been three days. Did you forget me already?” As he walked toward me, his eyes filled with a gentle, protective warmth, my heart hammered against my ribs. Was the miracle actually happening? But before I could take a step toward him, a sharp, screeching voice shattered the moment. “Wyatt! She’s a liar! Zoe scammed you! She isn’t Cindy—she’s an imposter!” My breath caught in my throat. I turned slowly, my body turning to ice. Tiffany was marching toward us, her face flushed with triumph. “I am the real Cindy!” she yelled, pushing past me to stand directly in front of Wyatt. Seeing Wyatt’s expression instantly harden, a cold dread pooled in my stomach. It was over. Just as he was about to reveal himself to me, the truth had come out. If he realized our entire relationship was built on a lie… Forget about a future with him—I would probably lose my job, my dorm, and my only shot at survival. I wanted to explain, but terror choked the words in my throat. The mocking whispers of the gathering crowd seemed to press in on me from all sides, forcing my head down. “Look!” Tiffany screamed, shoving her phone in his face. “Here’s my account! Here are our chats! These are the photos I sent you! I have all the proof. Zoe is a fraud. You have to destroy her!” Wyatt took her phone, his eyes scanning the screen. A second later, his brow furrowed, and he turned his cold, piercing gaze to me…

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My boyfriend vanished without a trace three years ago. I searched every corner of the city, posted flyers, and exhausted every lead, but found nothing. Until last week. He suddenly appeared at my doorstep, covered in horrific wounds. He told me he had been kidnapped and trafficked to an illegal brick kiln in the middle of nowhere, and it took him three agonizing years to finally escape. My heart broke into a million pieces. Trembling with pity, I brewed him healing tea, dressed his wounds, and took care of him twenty-four hours a day for seven whole days. But this morning, the police knocked on my door. “We found a body at an abandoned brick kiln last night. The medical examiner estimates the time of death was about a week ago.” “The deceased is your boyfriend, Julian.” I froze. “That’s impossible. He’s been staying with me all week.” *** “That’s impossible,” I repeated, my voice shaking. The detective opposite me frowned, pushing the case file across the metal table. “Ms. Harper Vance, we’ve already run the checks. The victim had Julian’s driver’s license in his wallet. The facial recognition database matches the missing person report you filed three years ago perfectly.” I could hear the tremor in my own breath. “But he’s been with me this entire week. In my apartment. He hasn’t left the room.” The two detectives exchanged a heavy look. The older one was Detective Carter. I had seen him dozens of times. Three years ago, I practically lived at the police station, pleading for updates every week. Then it became once a month. Eventually, I thought I’d never have to go back. Detective Carter pulled a glossy photo from the manila folder and laid it in front of me. I looked down, and my stomach instantly violently churned. A wave of cold nausea hit me. It was a body, lying on a metal slab, eyes closed, skin a sickly ash-gray. The background was dark, likely taken at the crime scene under harsh camera flashes. Every grim detail was painfully sharp. It was Julian. No, wait. It was his face. It was definitely Julian’s face. I stared at the photo for what felt like an eternity, until Detective Carter gently called my name. “Harper?” I snapped my head up. “This isn’t him.” “We ran the facial recognition. It’s a ninety-eight percent match.” Detective Carter’s voice was flat, stating an undeniable, cold fact. “And he had Julian’s ID. Name, date of birth, social security number—everything matches the file from your missing person report.” “But—” “Harper.” He cut me off gently. “Julian’s immediate family has passed away. His parents died in a car crash shortly after he went missing three years ago. You know this, right?” I knew. Of course I knew. Four months after Julian vanished, his devastated parents drove to another state following a fake lead about his whereabouts. They crashed on the highway. I was completely numb back then. When I got the call, I didn’t even know how to cry. Later, I was the one who handled their funeral and packed up their belongings, thinking that if Julian ever came back, at least he would have something left of his family. But he never came back. “So right now, you are the only emergency contact we have on file,” Detective Carter said. “We need you to come to the morgue to formally identify the body and sign the paperwork.” My mouth opened, but no sound came out. “He’s sleeping in my bedroom right now,” I said, pointing toward the hallway. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll go wake him up. You can see for yourselves.” I stood up abruptly and walked toward the bedroom. I was walking too fast, stumbling over my own feet, but I didn’t care. I pushed the bedroom door open. The bed was empty. ***

The duvet was tossed to one side, as if someone had just gotten up. I walked over and pressed my hand against the sheet. It was ice cold. “Julian?” I called out, my voice barely a whisper, as if afraid to shatter the silence. No answer. I called again, louder this time. Still, only silence. I turned and checked the bathroom. Empty. The kitchen. Empty. The balcony. Empty. My apartment was tiny—barely six hundred square feet. You could see the whole place in one glance. I stood in the middle of the living room, looking at the two detectives who had followed me in. Seeing the pity on their faces made me feel like a complete lunatic. “Maybe he went out to buy groceries,” I muttered. Detective Carter didn’t say a word. He just watched me. I looked down at the coffee table. Last night, I had brewed a mug of herbal tea for Julian. It was a dark, bitter home remedy to help him sleep. He had only drunk half of it, complaining it tasted like liquid dirt, so I left the mug on the table. I had told him I would make him a fresh cup today. But the mug was gone. No, it wasn’t just the mug. My heart skipped a beat as I looked around. For the past week, the coffee table had been cluttered with ointment tubes, rolls of gauze, antiseptic wipes, and cotton swabs. Julian’s wounds needed dressing every day. I had accumulated a small mountain of bloody bandages, which I kept in a trash bag by the door, intending to take it down to the dumpster. Now, there was nothing. The coffee table was sparkling clean. The half-empty mug was gone. The gauze was gone. The trash bag by the door was gone. No. This was all wrong. I stood there, my ears ringing. Something dark and terrifying was clawing its way up my throat, but I forced it down. Detective Carter stepped closer to me. “Harper, are you alright?” “He came back,” I said, turning to him, emphasizing every single word. “He really came back. Last Wednesday night, he knocked on my door. He was covered in blood and bruises. I barely recognized him. He said he was trapped in a forced labor camp and spent three years trying to escape. I made him soup, I dressed his wounds, I held him for seven nights. I didn’t dream this. It wasn’t in my head. He was here.” Detective Carter was quiet for a long moment. “Then why didn’t you call the police?” I froze. Why didn’t I call the police? Because Julian begged me not to. “He said…” I scrambled to piece together the memories of that night. “He said the owners of the brick kiln had powerful connections. He said the local cops were paid off, and if we reported it, they’d just drag him back. He told me he just wanted to hide out for a while until the dust settled. He said having me was enough. He didn’t want anyone else to know.” Detective Carter looked at me, his eyes filled with a complicated mixture of skepticism and concern. “During these seven days, did anyone else see him?” I thought about it. “No. He never left the apartment. Aside from my quick runs to the pharmacy and grocery store down the street, I stayed by his side the entire time.” “What about security cameras? Does your building have CCTV?” “It’s an old building. The cameras in the lobby have been broken for years. Management never fixed them.” Detective Carter nodded slowly. The younger officer next to him whispered, “Sir, this is getting a bit too…” Detective Carter raised a hand, silencing him. “Harper, come with us to the station first. Let’s get the identification over with.” ***

His tone had softened, laced with sympathy. “We can figure out the rest later.” I looked at him, then at the eerily clean coffee table, and finally nodded. The entire drive to the precinct, my mind was racing, trying to find the glitch in reality. The night Julian knocked on my door was last Wednesday. I remembered it clearly because I had worked late. I had grabbed a cup of instant ramen from the convenience store downstairs, planning to have a sad dinner. As I approached my building’s entrance, I saw a shadow slumped against the brick wall. I gasped, instinctively stepping back. The shadow moved, and a voice, raspy and broken, called out, “Harper.” It was Julian. I stood frozen. The cup of ramen slipped from my hands, rolling to a stop near his dirty sneakers. He took two agonizing steps forward, and the streetlights illuminated his face. He was unrecognizable. His face was a map of purple bruises, his lip was split, one eye was swollen shut, and his clothes were tattered rags. His exposed arms were covered in a horrific lattice of old and new scars. He was limping heavily, his left leg dragging. “Julian?” my voice cracked. He nodded weakly. I rushed to him, my hands hovering over his body, terrified of hurting him. He was a walking open wound. In the end, I just stood there, tears streaming down my face. “How… how are you…” I couldn’t even finish the sentence. He looked at me through his one good eye, a faint, emotional glint shining through the pain. “Harper, I escaped,” he whispered. The details after that were a blur. I remember helping him up the stairs, guiding him to the sofa, and frantically grabbing my first-aid kit. His injuries were worse than they looked. His back was covered in angry whip welts—some scabbed over, others still oozing blood. His feet were a mess of popped blisters and thick, dirty calluses. I cried the entire time I applied the antiseptic, my hands shaking. He remained incredibly quiet, only letting out a sharp gasp when the alcohol stung his raw skin. Once I finished wrapping him up, he leaned back against the sofa, looked at me, and suddenly said, “Harper, don’t call the cops.” I blinked. “Why?” “The people who ran that place… they have people everywhere. The police won’t help.” “I saw a guy try to report them once. They sent him right back. He didn’t survive the night.” “But we can’t just—” “Harper.” He reached out and squeezed my hand. “Just let me catch my breath first, okay? I’ve been running for three years. I just want to be safe with you for a few days.” Looking into his desperate eyes, I nodded. Over the next week, I called in sick to work and stayed by his side. He was too weak to move much, so he spent most of his time in bed. I cooked for him, kept him hydrated, and wiped his feverish brow. He didn’t talk much. Whenever I asked about his time at the labor camp, he would shudder and shake his head, saying he couldn’t bear to relive it. When I asked how he survived those three years, he just looked at me and said, “By thinking of you.” There was one moment, while I was heating up some soup, he watched me from the kitchen doorway and said, “You still have the same habit. You always let it boil over first, then panic and turn the heat down.” I smiled. “How did you know?” “You used to make me soup when we lived in our college dorm.” “Like that time I had the flu, and you insisted on making some terrible vegetable broth that tasted like hot dishwater. I couldn’t swallow a single sip.” Now, sitting in the back of the police cruiser, staring at the blurred city lights outside, I scrutinized every single memory from the past week. His words. His gestures. The way he looked at me. Everything was so normal. He remembered my favorite foods, the places we used to go, the stupid arguments we had. At one point, I casually mentioned how much I missed my old cat who ran away years ago. He immediately said, “You mean Milo? The chubby orange tabby? You cried for two weeks and searched every shelter in the city.” If this man wasn’t Julian, how could he possibly know these intimate details? ***

But… The cruiser pulled up to the precinct. Detective Carter opened the door. “We’re here.” The process of identifying the body was faster than I expected. I was led into a cold, sterile room. On the gurney in the center lay a body covered in a white sheet. An assistant walked over and pulled the sheet down, revealing the face. It was clean. The dirt, the blood, and the bruises were gone. There was only the pale, lifeless skin and closed eyes. But the facial features were unmistakably Julian’s. The jawline, the curve of his brow—it was him. I stood there, a cold dread wrapping around my spine. This was Julian. But this wasn’t Julian. Two violently clashing voices roared in my head, leaving me completely disoriented. “Harper?” Detective Carter’s voice cut through the fog. “Can you confirm? Is this Julian?” I walked closer to the gurney, staring at the cold face. Slowly, I reached out, took the corpse’s left wrist, and turned it over. There should have been a scar. Julian had a deep, jagged scar on his left wrist from a dark period during his senior year of high school. He had attempted suicide during a severe depressive episode. He survived, but the ugly pink scar remained. When we were together, I used to gently trace that scar, asking if it still hurt. He would always smile and say it only hurt when he remembered how lonely he was before he met me. But this wrist was completely smooth. Clean, unblemished skin. Not even a faint scratch. I whipped my head around to face Detective Carter. “This isn’t Julian.” Detective Carter walked over, glanced at the wrist, and then looked back at me. “Are you sure?” “Julian has a prominent scar on his left wrist.” I pointed at the dead man’s bare skin. “It’s deep and impossible to miss. This man doesn’t have it.” Detective Carter fell silent for a few seconds. He pulled out the DNA report and reviewed it again. “But the DNA matches,” he said, handing me the document. “See for yourself.” I snatched the paper, my eyes scanning down to the bold print at the bottom: *99.97% DNA match with Julian’s deceased parents’ DNA database.* My hands began to tremble violently. “This is impossible.” I looked up, panic rising in my chest. “If this dead man is Julian… then who the hell was living in my apartment this past week?” Detective Carter stared at me, silent. “He was there,” my voice cracked into a sob. “For seven days, he slept in my bed. I fed him. I kissed him. He called me Harper. He knew everything about us! If Julian is dead on this table, then who was that man?” “Harper, please, calm down.” “How can I be calm?” I snapped. “The DNA says this is Julian, but Julian has a scar! This makes absolutely no sense!” Detective Carter frowned, examining the corpse’s wrist again. “Is it possible you misremembered? Maybe the scar faded over the years?” “I didn’t misremember!” I yelled, tears finally spilling over. “I touched that scar thousands of times. It was about two inches long, slightly raised, and lighter than the rest of his skin. I could draw it with my eyes closed!” Detective Carter turned to the medical examiner standing nearby. “Can you explain this?” The medical examiner stepped forward, carefully examining both of the corpse’s wrists. “There is absolutely no scar tissue here. But DNA doesn’t lie. Unless…”

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