Seven months pregnant, I found a hidden compartment in Philip Hayne’s study. Inside was an expired asset transfer agreement. Twenty percent of the Hayne Corporation’s shares, valued in the billions, plus three overseas manors and a private island. All of it, gifted to my stepsister, Stella Monroe. No strings attached. When Philip and I got married, all he gave me was a prenuptial agreement. “It’s a business merger, a formality,” he’d said, his tone casual. “Just sign it.” I signed. And I walked into the Hayne family with nothing to my name. Ten years of marriage, and I still don’t even know his bank account password. “Who gave you permission to be in my study?” Philip’s voice, sharp and cold as ice, cut through the silence from the doorway. I turned to face the man I had loved for fifteen years. No tears, no hysterics. Just a quiet, steady voice. “Philip. I want a divorce.” He strode into the room, snatched the papers from my hand, and threw them to the floor, the pages scattering like fallen leaves. “This is ancient history. Is it really worth making a scene over?” He didn’t even bother to explain. He just raged, telling me to get out. And so I did. I calmly left the study, picked up my phone, and made a call to the hospital. “Hello, I’d like to schedule an appointment to terminate a pregnancy for next week.” 1 The confirmation text arrived a moment later. Staring at the appointment time on the screen, a violent cramp seized my abdomen. I leaned against the bedroom wall, sliding slowly to the floor, fighting back the tears as I messaged my lawyer. His call came instantly. “Mrs. Hayne, are you absolutely certain? You want to walk away from all marital assets, with nothing?” he pressed. “Under the law, especially during a pregnancy, you’re entitled to at least…” Marital assets? A bitter laugh escaped my lips. There were no marital assets. Philip’s stock appreciation over the years was all held in proxies. Every property he owned was notarized before our wedding. My name had never once appeared on the list of beneficiaries for his family trust. He’d told me casually, the day we got engaged, that he’d never marry a woman with her hand out. That he wouldn’t give away what he’d fought so hard to build just because of a marriage certificate. At the time, I thought he was just bitter that my father had forced his hand. I knew how hard he’d battled his half-brothers, the illegitimate ones, to inherit the Hayne Corporation. So I obediently signed my name, over and over, on a thick stack of documents, waiving my rights to everything. I thought one day he would see me, truly see me, and let go of his resentment. It wasn’t until I saw that asset transfer agreement that I realized what a fool I’d been. The items on this transfer agreement matched, one for one, the list of assets I had signed away at the notary’s office all those years ago. It wasn’t that he was unwilling to share. It was just that the wife he wanted to share it with was never me. “Mr. Davies,” I cut him off, my voice steady despite the trembling in my hand. “Please prepare the divorce papers. My only condition is that I leave with nothing.” When I hung up, my hand was still shaking. Not from hesitation. From rage. Ten years of marriage. A long, elaborate con. And I had been the willing, idiotic mark for every single day of it. The password to the hidden compartment in Philip’s study was Stella’s birthday. He was willing to give Stella everything he owned, yet the credit card he gave me had a monthly limit that never exceeded five hundred dollars. Even when I was seven months pregnant, sick and dizzy from morning sickness, he was with Stella, hosting her private art exhibition. And the cruelest joke of all? I was the one who designed their love nest. Three months ago, Philip brought me the blueprints for a villa, forcing me to work despite the crippling nausea of my pregnancy. “A friend is gifting his partner a villa,” he’d said. “I need you to design it to the highest standard, as quickly as possible.” Now I see it. The “friend” was him. And the looping, ostentatious signature on the resident line, “S.M.”, was for Stella Monroe. The divorce papers arrived that evening. Mr. Davies tried one last time. “Mrs. Hayne, at least keep the money you’ve earned yourself…” I shook my head. Philip had never contributed a single cent to our household expenses. Every penny I earned went into running our home. Looking back, I suppose in his eyes, I really was cheap. As I signed my name, the baby kicked violently, as if in protest, or perhaps, in comfort. This time, I couldn’t stop the tears. I finally broke down and cried. 2 With Mr. Davies’ help, I rented an apartment that same afternoon. I wasn’t picky about the location or the size; I just needed to get out. It was eight o’clock by the time I returned to the Hayne villa. The fatigue of pregnancy made it hard to even stand upright, but I cooked one last dinner. Four dishes and a soup, all Philip’s favorites. After ten years, I knew his tastes better than my own. No matter how it ended, I wanted to part ways gracefully. Fifteen years was a long time. But Philip didn’t come home until one in the morning. He reeked of Stella’s signature perfume, and a garish smear of lipstick stained his collar. I watched him loosen his tie and noticed, for the first time, that his ring finger was bare. I don’t know when it happened, but he had taken off his wedding ring. He glanced at the untouched, cold dinner on the table, his brow furrowing in that familiar, irritated way. There was no warmth in his eyes, only undisguised impatience. “What’s with the martyr act now? You think this will make me give in?” He tossed his jacket onto the sofa and started for the stairs without a single look in my direction. “Philip,” I called out, my voice so calm it surprised even me. “The divorce papers are on the table. Sign them.” He stopped, his foot hovering over the first step. When he turned, the sarcasm in his eyes was practically dripping. “Because of some expired, useless piece of paper? Elara, when did you become so irrational?” “Your father used the fact that he saved my life to force me to marry you. I had no choice.” “Stella’s heart is weak. I just wanted to give her a blessing, a gesture, that’s all!” A blessing? A gesture? How ridiculous. Two weightless words to dismiss all my pain and suffering. I finally understood. The chasm between us for the past decade wasn’t about anything else. It was simply that he had never loved me. Fifteen years ago, on a rainy night, he was being hunted by his half-brothers. I was the one who hid him in a storage closet for three whole days. I was the one who snuck him food and medicine, nearly getting beaten to death for it. He was the one who held my hand and whispered, “Elara, wait for me. When I take control of the Hayne family, I’ll marry you with all the honor you deserve.” And he did take control, with ruthless efficiency. But he “honored” me with nothing more than a cold, calculating prenuptial agreement. “Philip,” I said, cradling my belly as I slowly pushed myself to my feet. “So you do remember that you owe me your life.” He flinched, then let out a cold laugh. “Oh, so now we’re keeping score? Fine. Name your price. How much do you want?” Name my price. A bitter smile touched my lips. The last warm corner of my heart finally turned to ice. “That won’t be necessary, Philip. I’m truly done with this relationship.” “By nine o’clock tomorrow morning, I want to see those signed divorce papers on the living room table.” I used every ounce of my strength to keep my voice from breaking. Without waiting to see his reaction, I turned and walked upstairs. Behind me, I heard the crash of something breaking and his furious, strangled roar. “Elara Thorne! You’d better not regret this!” Regret? My only regret was opening that storage closet door fifteen years ago. 3 When I came downstairs the next morning, the living room was empty. The divorce papers had been torn to shreds, scattered like confetti across the expensive, hand-woven rug. My heart seized at the sight of the confetti, then settled back into a numb calm. This was Philip’s answer, then. He wouldn’t deign to explain, but he wouldn’t let me go either. My phone screen lit up with a new message. From Stella. She had re-added me on social media about a month ago. Her first message was: Sister, long time no see! I’m back. Philip picked me up from the airport. He hasn’t changed a bit. 🙂 Since then, my phone had become a live stream of her happiness. A photo of Philip’s back as they viewed an art exhibit. A candid shot of him putting food on her plate. A picture taken from inside his car, with a deliberate shot of her slender leg… And yesterday, she sent a voice message. In the background, I could clearly hear Philip’s impatient voice on another call. “Elara? Don’t worry about her. She’s always making a big deal out of nothing. Just focus on the art.” The latest message had arrived just ten minutes ago. It was a picture. Philip, asleep in her bed, his face peaceful in profile. The bedding was a familiar star-themed set from her bedroom. The caption read: Sister, I heard you went into Philip’s study and made him angry? Sigh, that old agreement was just something he drew up to comfort me when I was sick a long time ago. It’s not valid anymore. Please don’t misunderstand. By the way, you really do look like I used to, especially your eyes. Philip said he noticed it the very first time he saw you. Oh, and how’s the baby? Philip said he hopes the baby has my eyes. A wave of cold nausea rose in my throat. I ran to the bathroom and retched violently. The morning sickness had never been this bad. I gripped the sink, staring at my reflection in the mirror—pale face, red-rimmed eyes. These eyes… he liked them because they looked like hers? A fifteen-year love affair, a ten-year marriage, all born from one man’s unrequited love for another woman. And I was just the cheap, convenient substitute. The tears finally fell, hot and heavy. With a trembling hand, I replied to Stella. You always did love picking up my leftovers. You can have them. Philip included. Message sent. A second later, my phone rang. It was Philip. I didn’t answer. I declined the call and blocked his number. The world went quiet. I clutched my tightening stomach, taking deep breaths, forcing myself to be calm. This was no time for grief. I called a moving company and began to pack my things. My clothes, my design sketches, the simple kitchenware I’d bought… Everything that was mine, everything that bore my mark, I packed into boxes. As for the expensive jewelry, the gowns, the designer bags—they were all things Philip had purchased to maintain the image of “Mrs. Hayne.” I didn’t take a single one. The wedding ring I’d taken off lay on the dresser, cold and forgotten. The movers were quick. In no time, a dozen boxes were loaded onto their truck. Before I left, I took one last look at the villa I had called home for a decade. Ornate, cold, and meticulously crafted. A beautiful cage. And I was finally being set free. The new apartment was small, but it was filled with sunlight. It took me the entire day to unpack and settle in. My body ached, a dull weight pulling at my lower abdomen, but my heart felt strangely light. That evening, I received a text from an unknown number. It was Philip. Elara, come home. Now. We can pretend none of this ever happened. Stella isn’t well. Stop harassing her. And you will have this child. The Hayne bloodline cannot be abandoned. I stared at the message, a laugh bubbling up that was half sob. Even now, all he cared about was Stella’s feelings and the Hayne bloodline. My pain, my life, my death—none of it mattered. I didn’t reply. I deleted the message and blocked the new number. 4 The day before the scheduled procedure, I went to the hospital for a final check-up. In the ultrasound room, the technician squeezed cold gel onto my belly and moved the probe gently across my skin. “The baby is very healthy,” she said, pointing to the screen. “See, there’s a little hand, and there’s a foot…” The tiny figure on the screen was wiggling. My heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vise. My voice cracked. “Doctor, if I… if I go through with the induction, will the baby feel it?” The older female doctor adjusted her glasses, her expression complicated. “At this stage, a termination is very hard on the mother’s body. And yes… the baby can feel pain.” She placed her hand gently on my stomach. “Are you sure you want to give up? He seems like a very active little one.” I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood. Walking out of the examination room, I felt like I was floating. At the end of the long hospital corridor, I saw the last person I ever wanted to see. Philip. Standing there in a pristine suit, every inch the powerful CEO of the Hayne Corporation. “Come back with me,” he said, grabbing my wrist. His grip was so tight I thought the bones might snap. “Stop this nonsense.” “Nonsense?” I looked up at him. “You think this is nonsense, Philip?” “That agreement is expired and void,” he said, his voice laced with impatience. “Stella’s heart is weak, I just wanted to give her a blessing—” “So I’m just collateral damage in your epic love story?” I yanked my hand away. “Philip, do you remember our first anniversary? I had a fever of 104. You said you were too busy to come home. Later, I saw pictures on Stella’s social media of the two of you skiing in Switzerland.” “Our third anniversary. You said you had a board meeting. I saw your car in the background of one of Stella’s selfies.” “Every single one of my prenatal appointments, you said you were busy. But you had time to go to art galleries with her, buy her jewelry, celebrate every one of her birthdays.” I listed his betrayals, one by one, my voice as calm as if I were telling someone else’s story. Philip’s face finally changed. “You… you knew all along?” “I never said anything. I just kept telling myself to give you one more chance, to trust you one more time.” I smiled, but the tears wouldn’t stop. “It wasn’t until I saw that agreement that I understood what a complete and utter fool I’ve been.” He was silent. For the first time, I saw something that looked like guilt in his eyes. But it was too late. It was all far too late. “I’m going to have this baby,” I said softly. “But he will have nothing to do with you.” “From this day forward, my child and I have no connection to Philip Hayne.” With that, I turned and walked away. He didn’t follow. For the next few days, I cut off all contact with the outside world, resting in my apartment. Mr. Davies called to inform me that Philip was refusing to sign the divorce papers. “Mrs. Hayne, if you insist on a divorce, we’ll have to file a lawsuit. However, given that you’re pregnant, the court will likely push for mediation.” “Furthermore,” he added, his tone hesitant, “Mr. Hayne has made it clear that if you proceed with a lawsuit, he will use every resource at his disposal to gain full custody of the child.” I held the phone, silent for a long time. I knew he could do it. He had the money and the power. I had nothing but the baby in my womb. “Mr. Davies, how long would a contested divorce take?” “If he fights it and uses his resources, it could drag on for years.” Years? I couldn’t wait years. My child couldn’t be born into that kind of turmoil and uncertainty. I had to make Philip agree to the divorce. I had to. 5 As I was racking my brain, the doorbell rang. It was Stella, dressed in a white cashmere dress that made her look fragile and innocent. She was holding an elegant thermos. I opened the door but didn’t invite her in. “What do you want?” “Sister, I knew you’d be here.” She smiled sweetly, trying to push her way inside. “Philip was so worried about you, he asked me to check in. I brought you some bird’s nest soup. Pregnancy is hard, you need to take care of yourself.” I blocked the doorway. “Thank you, but I don’t need it. You can go.” Her smile faltered for a second before being replaced by a wounded expression. “Sister, are you still mad at me? There’s really nothing going on between Philip and me. He just looks out for me…” “Whatever is or isn’t going on between you two has nothing to do with me,” I cut her off coldly. “I’m divorcing him. Soon you can have him look out for you all you want, officially.” A flash of triumph flickered in her eyes, quickly masked by concern. “Sister, don’t be so rash! A child needs a father. Besides, Philip said he wants you to have the baby…” Her words trailed off as I snapped my head up to stare at her. “He wants me to have the baby? And then what? Give him to you to raise?” My glare seemed to startle her. She took a half-step back. “Sister, why would you think that? I just feel so sorry for the baby. If my health was better, if I could have children of my own, Philip wouldn’t have to…” She left the sentence hanging, but the unspoken words were more vicious than any blade, piercing through all my defenses. So that was it. That was why he refused to divorce me, why he was so insistent I keep this child. Because the substitute had finally become a disappointment, and his one true love was infertile. So he needed me, the woman who looked like her, to give birth to a child with her eyes, to complete their perfect little dream. A tidal wave of disgust and absurdity crashed over me. I couldn’t hold back any longer. I snatched the thermos from her hand and hurled it at her. The warm soup splattered all over her pristine dress. She shrieked and jumped back. “Get out!” I pointed at the stairs, my entire body shaking. “And you tell Philip Hayne, he wants my child? He can have him over my dead body!” Stella looked down at her ruined dress, the fragile mask finally cracking to reveal a venomous sneer. “Elara, don’t be so ungrateful! Philip wants this baby, and you are going to deliver it! Do you really think you have any choice in the matter?”

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Three years after my own brother sent me away, our paths crossed at the airport. War had broken out in Adana. I’d been severely injured protecting children in the slums and was being flown home for medical care. He, on the other hand, was about to embark on a round-the-world trip with his adopted sister. Our eyes met. His gaze swept over my injuries, and his voice was laced with the same old disappointment. “I warned you it was dangerous over there. You have no one to watch your back, so stop looking for trouble.” He paused, his expression hardening. “I can get you the best doctor, but first, you will apologize to Nina for what you did.” I lay limp on the stretcher, my gaze drifting away from him. “No, thanks,” I said, my voice a faint rasp. “We stopped being brother and sister a long time ago.” Besides, I had a new brother now, a man of immense power I’d met overseas. Seacliff City’s finest surgeon was already waiting for me. … My body was a canvas of countless wounds, big and small. The pain in my leg was so intense it was bordering on numbness. Just uttering that one sentence made the metallic taste of blood flood my throat. My brother Ethan’s face darkened. “It’s been three years. Are you still holding a grudge?” he scoffed. “You’re this torn up, and you still haven’t learned your lesson?” I tried to retort, but a sharp movement sent a jolt of agony through me, and I sucked in a breath. The two paramedics carrying my stretcher immediately tried to move on, but Ethan blocked their path. “Sophia, is it so hard for you to just say you’re sorry?” The sudden halt of the stretcher sent a blinding, bone-deep pain shooting up my right leg. I bit down hard on my lip, forcing the words out. “I did nothing wrong. Why should I apologize?” Beside him, Nina clutched Ethan’s arm, her voice a soft, cautious whisper. “Ethan, let it go. I was fine a long time ago…” “You’re still defending her?” Ethan’s voice was sharp with frustration. “If she hadn’t slapped you back then, would your heart condition have flared up, taking three years to recover?” He shot me another venomous glare. “Look at you. You clearly got into a fight and got beaten up. And you’re still unrepentant. Sending you to the slums was too lenient!” Adana was a chaotic hellscape, and its slums were no place for a human being. So, naturally, Ethan assumed my injuries were the result of a street brawl. He was wrong. I was hit by shrapnel from a mortar shell. I had thrown myself over two small children to shield them. It didn’t just cost me my leg. I’d lost most of the hearing in one ear, too. I looked up at him, a mocking smile playing on my lips. “You’re right. You should have just killed me back then.” “You want an apology? Maybe in the next life.” Ethan’s face turned ashen, his hands clenched into tight fists. He looked like he was seconds away from striking me. Just then, the airport announcer called his and Nina’s names, a final boarding call for their flight. My paramedics were getting anxious, their faces grim as they tried to push past him. Nina tugged on his sleeve. “Ethan, we should go, or we’ll miss our flight!” Her face was pale, her voice small and frail. That was the look he could never resist. His tone softened instantly. “Alright.” But when he turned back to me, his eyes were chips of ice. “I’ll deal with you when I get back from our trip with Nina.” The crowd swirled around us, and in a moment, he and Nina were gone, swallowed by the flow of travelers. The two foreign paramedics rushed my stretcher outside and into a waiting ambulance. At the hospital, a team of three doctors immediately began examining me, their faces grave. The only American doctor among them spoke in a low, reassuring tone. “Miss Spencer, don’t worry. You got back just in time. We can still save your leg.” “Mr. Lin gave us clear instructions. He wants you fully healed. We’re taking you into surgery now.” Mr. Lin. My new brother, Leo. Hearing his name was like an anchor in a storm. A sense of peace washed over me. I managed a weak nod before they wheeled me into the operating room. The three surgeons surrounded me, and the anesthesiologist prepped the IV. As consciousness began to fade, I slowly closed my eyes. But just then, a horribly familiar voice echoed from outside. “Where are the doctors? My sister’s having a heart attack! Get your best specialists in here, now!” My heart dropped like a stone. But before I could process it, the anesthesia took hold, and my world went black. I thought three years had been long enough to bury the past. But in my dreams, I was right back in that soul-crushing family estate. I was kidnapped at seven. By the time Ethan found me and brought me home, I was seventeen. In those ten years, he had endured my disappearance and then the sudden, accidental death of our parents. The grief shattered him, pushing him into a severe depression that led to multiple suicide attempts. His therapist suggested he adopt a sister. And so, Nina entered his life. Nina was three years younger than me and had Ethan wrapped around her little finger. I returned home at the peak of their bond. Ethan was always warning me. “Sophia, Nina has a weak heart. She can’t handle stress. Stay away from her, don’t provoke her.” “She was there for me through everything. I can’t just send her away, but don’t worry. You’re my only real sister.” I knew how much he had suffered, so I tolerated it. I swallowed my pride, again and again. But behind his back, Nina showed her fangs. At family gatherings, she’d convince Ethan to leave me at home, claiming I didn’t understand the proper etiquette. The welcome-home gifts from relatives and friends? She took them, one by one. If I dared to protest, she’d clutch her chest and gasp about how she couldn’t breathe. As it happened more and more, Ethan’s disappointment in me grew. “They’re just little things, why do you have to make such a big deal? Nina has a heart condition. Are you trying to kill her?” I endured it all, until the day Nina “accidentally” knocked over the bowl of soup I’d made for Ethan. It was a small thing, but it was the spark that lit the fuse of all my pent-up anger and resentment. “Ethan’s stomach is acting up from overworking! If you’re not going to help, at least don’t make things worse!” I slapped her. The next second, she was on the floor, clutching her heart. I’ll never forget the icy glare Ethan gave me. “We’ll settle this when I get back,” he said, before scooping Nina into his arms and rushing to the hospital. I waited, my stomach churning with anxiety. The next morning, he came home, his face a cold mask. He handed me a passport and a plane ticket. “Nina had a severe heart episode. You can’t stay here anymore. Go to Adana for a while, cool your head.” I stared at him in disbelief, tears streaming down my face. “If you send me away,” I screamed, “I’ll never call you brother again!” His face hardened. He grabbed my arm and began dragging me towards the door. “You’ve done nothing but cause trouble since you came back. Do you think you’re some kind of princess? If you can’t get rid of that rotten attitude, then don’t come back at all!” “Here, I can protect you. But over there, you’re on your own.” Even as I sat on the plane, I couldn’t believe he had just abandoned me. I was sobbing uncontrollably, my voice hoarse. “I did nothing wrong! If you send me away, you’re not my brother anymore!” His lips pressed into a thin line, and with one sentence, he shattered all my remaining hope. “Then I’m not.” After just one year back home, I was exiled to a slum worse than any kidnapper’s den. Even now, I don’t have the courage to remember how I survived those three years. I woke up crying, the bright lights of the operating room blinding me. A young intern stood beside me, scalpel in hand, her voice filled with pity. “All the senior surgeons were called away by a Mr. Ethan Spencer. He donated a hundred million dollars to this hospital, so…” Two of my ribs were broken. My body was covered in over a hundred stitches. The intern had managed to close my wounds, but because we’d missed the optimal window for surgery, my right leg was now facing amputation. “Miss Spencer, the bones in your leg are shattered, and the tissue is becoming necrotic. You don’t have much time to decide.” Someone’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Amputation is a viable option. You can be fitted with a prosthesis later.” My head was ringing. Images of the maimed and crippled from the slums flashed through my mind. They hadn’t been fast enough to run from the shelling. They were blown to pieces. We believe in keeping the body whole for the afterlife. I didn’t want to be buried missing a leg. My voice was thick with tears when I spoke. “What happens if I don’t amputate?” “The muscles will atrophy. You could lose your other leg as well. You might manage with crutches for a while, but eventually… you’ll likely need a wheelchair.” I covered my face with my hands, hot tears streaming through my fingers. A moment later, the phone under my pillow buzzed. It was a video call from Leo. I took a deep breath, composed myself, and answered, showing only half my face to the camera, a weak smile on my lips. “Hey, what’s up?” He held up a plane ticket. “Just wanted to let you know, I’ll be there in two days,” he said, his voice etched with worry. “You’re out of surgery, right? How’s the recovery going? I got you the best doctor in Seacliff City, so everything should be fine, right?” I angled the phone away slightly. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.” He let out a sigh of relief, a smile returning to his face. “Joseph and Hank are insisting on coming. They said you saved their lives.” Two familiar faces popped into the frame, waving their hands and chattering excitedly in their native Adanan. I forced another smile, exchanged a few words with them, and then ended the call, claiming I needed to rest. I had just put the phone down when I heard Ethan’s voice from the hallway. “This must be the young lady’s room, right? I was in a hurry earlier and had to pull her surgeons away. I’d like to apologize to her.” The door opened. When he saw me, he froze. “The Miss Spencer in the operating room… it was you?” I gave him a scornful look. “Let me guess. Just like every other time, Nina is perfectly fine now, isn’t she?” Before Ethan could answer, the intern spoke up, her voice urgent. “Miss Spencer, have you made a decision? Are we amputating or not? If you choose amputation, we need to operate immediately!” The color drained from Ethan’s face. “Amputation? What are you talking about?” The intern, after confirming their relationship, explained my condition to him. When he learned that it was because he had pulled my doctors away that I’d missed the crucial window for surgery, his expression became a mask of horror. But then, just as quickly, he made the decision for me. “Amputate. It’s better than losing both legs later!” My fingers clenched into a fist. “No! I choose conservative treatment!” I could deal with the consequences later. I had to wait for Leo to get here. What if he had a way? Ethan’s face was a thundercloud. “Why are you being so stubborn? Didn’t you hear what the doctor said? Amputation isn’t the end of the world. Even if you can never stand again, I’ll support you. No one will dare to laugh at you for being a cripple!” “No!” I shouted, my voice raw. “I’d rather use crutches than lose my leg! We already cut ties! You have no right to decide for me!” “Well…” The doctor looked torn. Ethan’s brow furrowed. He pulled out a stack of documents—his passport, his ID, and even our family registration booklet. He handed the booklet to the doctor, a flicker of relief in his eyes. “Good thing I brought all our documents for the trip.” “Doctor,” he said, his voice firm, “I am Sophia Spencer’s sole legal guardian. Don’t listen to her nonsense.” “We’re choosing amputation. Do the surgery. Now.”

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After the Contender’s System finally gave up and left our world, my leading lady and I got married, had a child, and settled into our happily ever after. The live comments all agreed: it was the perfect ending for a high school romance story. Until one evening, while reading a fairytale to my six-year-old daughter, she looked up at me with dead seriousness and asked, “Daddy, what’s love?” “That’s easy,” I said without hesitation. “Mommy and Daddy got married and had you. That’s love.” Her little brow furrowed. “You’re a liar.” “Mommy said that even though she didn’t marry Uncle Connor, they’re the ones who have true love.” I froze. 1. Ruby was beaming, thrilled to have proven me wrong. “Mommy said if it wasn’t for you, she definitely would have married Uncle Connor. She said if she gets a next life, she’s going to find him first. They’ll watch the northern lights, ride horses, and feed baby lambs… and then have a baby of their own.” Her eyes sparkled. “Maybe then, I’ll get to be Uncle Connor’s daughter!” The “Uncle Connor” she was talking about was the story’s villainous rival, the one who had failed to win Sophie’s heart. “What else did she say?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. Ruby rattled it off instantly. “Mommy said Uncle Connor’s birthday is April seventeenth. He likes to drink sake in the hot tub, his favorite food is anything Mommy cooks for him, and… and he loves cinnamon-roasted chestnuts.” She recited the list of trivial details flawlessly, as if they were precious family heirlooms. I suddenly realized that today was Connor’s birthday. And Sophie still wasn’t home. Seeing my silence, Ruby tossed the fairytale book aside with a huff and went to her room to work on her physics problems. I started to call after her, but a few lines of text shimmered into view before my eyes: 【LMAO, the child prodigy and her idiot dad!】 【Our girl Ruby is a true main character’s kid. So cool, so savage.】 【The male lead is so lucky. A genius daughter and a wife who’s been his high school sweetheart from day one.】 【Long distance, family illness, a failed startup… she stuck by him through it all.】 【I’m crying, I want a love like that…】 2. Is it really love? I sat there, lost in a fog, for a long time. Until a warm paper bag was pressed into my hands. A new comment, punctuated with heart emojis, scrolled across my vision: 【The CEO of a publicly traded company, waiting in line for three hours just to get him the first batch of roasted chestnuts of the season.】 【Married for seven years and still this pure.】 【What is he even doubting? Can’t he see she only has eyes for him?】 “Moved?” Sophie slipped off her scarf and smiled at me, leaning in on her tiptoes. It was our customary welcome-home kiss, a ritual we hadn’t missed in a decade. But this time, I caught the faint, sharp scent of cologne on her. I pulled back slightly, my eyes stinging. “Where did that scent come from?” Sophie’s brow twitched almost imperceptibly. “A male client,” she said airily. “It must have rubbed off on me.” She paused, then her smile returned. She kissed my chin lightly. “Overthinking again?” “Here, try the chestnuts I bought for you. Your favorite.” I did love chestnuts. Back when Sophie wasn’t the CEO with a sports car and a personal driver, she used to wake up at four in the morning to go to the market, just to buy me the freshest batch. Seeing me eat them happily, she would rest her chin on her hands and smile, completely content. The memory softened me. I let her slender fingers peel a chestnut and place it in my mouth. Sophie said nothing more, heading straight to the study to check on our daughter’s homework. They were in there for half an hour, longer than usual. I chewed mechanically, my mind heavy. Something about the chestnut tasted… different. It was cinnamon. The living room was dark, the lights unlit. Sophie emerged from the study and leaned languidly against the doorframe. She couldn’t see the color drain from my face. “Don’t take it so seriously,” she said, her voice low. “It’s just a kid talking.” I stared at her. The words I wanted to scream were lodged in my throat, but they dissolved into a quiet sigh. I let her curl onto my lap, a smirk on her lips, as her hot, demanding kisses fell over me. I didn’t know how to question her. Seven years of marriage. Even including our most reckless high school years, our relationship had always been smooth sailing. Just as the System that had appeared in our senior year had told us it would be. In this high school romance novel, I was the male lead, and Sophie was the female lead. We were destined to overcome every obstacle and reach our happy ending. Connor, the rival, was one of those obstacles. On the very first day of school, he reported us to the teacher for dating. The teacher separated us, moving Connor into the seat right beside her. After graduation, Sophie won a full scholarship to a prestigious university abroad. And, as the System ordained, Connor went with her. Same school, same major. For three years, Sophie kept me updated on everything. “Connor sat next to me in class today. So annoying. I didn’t say a single word to him.” “Passed a flower shop and thought of you. Bought some baby’s breath, your favorite.” “Why do I keep running into Connor everywhere! It has to be the System. I’m actively avoiding him.” “Honey, there was an earthquake in Berlin today. Connor and I almost died. I miss you so much.” … When Sophie returned, she threw herself into her work. For some reason, she kept putting off my proposals. Until one night, I got into a car accident on my way to deliver some documents to her. When I woke up in the hospital, Sophie was staring blankly at me, her face gaunt and exhausted. She gripped my hand, so choked up she couldn’t form a complete sentence. By the time I came to my senses, there was a ring on my finger. It was too big; it didn’t fit. But I was so lost in the joy of finally being with the woman I loved that I brushed it aside. By the time I remembered, Sophie had quietly had the ring resized. That was the day the System declared Connor’s mission a failure and prepared to send him back to his original world. On the day he was set to leave, he asked to see me. To everyone’s surprise, he wasn’t dejected or defeated. He just crossed his arms, looking at me with a mixture of pity and defiance. “Do you really think I lost?” 3. He hadn’t lost. After the novel’s official ending, Connor returned. When I heard the news, I was a wreck for days. But Sophie just reassured me with a lazy smile. “What’s there to worry about? I don’t even like him.” She stroked my hair, her tone teasing. “Why are you always so paranoid? Do you need me to literally cut my heart out to prove it to you?” Everyone thought she was head-over-heels in love with me. But no one could have predicted that in the seventh year of our marriage, I would be the one to seek out Connor. It wasn’t just because of what Ruby said. It was the chestnuts. I’m allergic to cinnamon. Sophie knew that. Under normal circumstances, it was a mistake she would never, ever make. In the coffee shop, before I could even state my purpose, Connor got straight to the point. “Yes, Sophie spent my birthday with me the other night.” “We rode the Ferris wheel, set off fireworks, and she waited in line to buy me cinnamon-roasted chestnuts.” I stared at him, numb. The heart that had been suspended in anxiety for so long finally crashed to the floor. “She never told you?” he continued smoothly. “For those years she was abroad, I lived right next door. We were together then.” I shook my head, my movements stiff. Connor smiled, a triumphant glint in his eyes. He held up his hand, showing me a ring on his finger. Engraved on it was Sophie’s name. Not an initial, not a monogram. Her full name, clear as day. “Sophie had this made for me herself before she came back. She has a matching one.” Connor’s smile turned sorrowful. “When she returned, we agreed to pretend nothing had ever happened. This ring is the only proof that behind your back, behind the System’s back, behind everyone’s back… we had a love of our own.” As if to prove his point, Connor had me take him to Sophie’s study. Amidst a pile of physics journals, he found it. The other ring. He stared at it, his eyes turning red. “She kept it… She still loves me.” I stood frozen. For a moment, even breathing felt exhausting. It was like a hole had been carved through my chest, and a cold wind was blowing right through it, chilling me to the bone. After a long moment, I picked up the small silver object. Engraved on it, just as clearly, was his name: Connor. The chisel marks were deep, as if etched into the very soul of the metal. The usually silent comment stream finally burst to life: 【…Wait, I thought this was a sweet romance that already ended? What is this plot twist?】 【I knew the vibe between the female lead and the rival was weird when they were abroad, especially after the earthquake. They were practically glued to each other.】 【So the female lead gained self-awareness and fell for the rival… but she was forced by the plot to have a happy ending with the male lead.】 【It’s the male lead’s plot armor. If they didn’t end up together, the System would have punished the rival.】 【OMG, this angsty, forbidden love story is so much better than the original vanilla romance!!!】 … I stared at the ring in my hand. This was the proof of their love. Then what about me? Was everything between Sophie and me a lie? But I had truly loved her. The girl I carried to the nurse’s office, the girl who twirled her pen and rested her chin on her hand while waiting for me to explain a problem. The girl who was my entire youth. And now, they were telling me I had trapped her with my “male lead” status. So what was I supposed to do now? Just… walk away? 4. A sound at the door. Connor looked up like a startled deer. “So… Sophie?” A woman stood in the doorway, her expression unreadable, her arms crossed. Her gaze passed over me, landing on Connor’s face with a complex mix of emotions. Time seemed to stop. 【Whoa, the long-awaited reunion…】 【She’s probably wanted to see him for ages but couldn’t because of her role.】 【Imagine pretending to be in a happy marriage with a man you don’t love every single day. My heart breaks for her.】 【This is so tragic. He’s the one she was willing to defy her own story for…】 【I used to say the female lead and the contender had chemistry and you all flamed me. Can I get an apology now?】 “It was my idea to come here, don’t blame him…” Connor choked out. Sophie didn’t answer. Her cold gaze shifted to me. “Give me the ring.” I slowly rose and walked toward her. As I passed the fireplace, I paused. The next second, a silver arc flashed through the air. For a split second, as it left my hand, I felt a strange sense of dissociation. “My ring—!” Connor cried out, unhesitatingly plunging his hand toward the roaring flames. Sophie lunged forward and pulled him back, her eyes filled with anguish. “Are you insane?” “Sophie…” he sobbed, “that was our ring… the only thing that proves what we had…” 【? What kind of male lead is this? He’s the real villain here.】 【Just because he’s the main character? I was starting to feel sorry for him, but now I see why she fell for the contender.】 【OMG his hand is so badly burned, she must be heartbroken for him.】 “Are you satisfied now?” Sophie gripped Connor’s wrist, turning to me with a cold sneer. “Connor is just a supporting character. I never did anything for him. I gave all my love to you…” So? I lifted my gaze. “You love him, don’t you?” My voice was slow, careful, deliberate. Just like it had been all those years ago, under the shadow of the school building, when a seventeen-year-old me had worked up the courage to confess, “You like me a little too, don’t you?” It was all a lie. 5. Sophie’s eyes were downcast. The silence stretched. The quiet in the room was like cold water being poured over me, slow and deliberate, a repeated, chilling cut to my heart. Finally, she rubbed her temples and looked at me, exasperated. “What do you want from me?” “I have tried to be the perfect female lead. I was only good to you, I married you—” “And now you can’t even tolerate the existence of a single ring?” I looked at her, at the cold, angry lines of her face, and felt nothing but weariness. Maybe when you have enough wounds, the places that were once raw and bleeding just go numb. When I didn’t answer, Sophie turned her attention back to Connor, gently treating his burn. She was so careful, so terrified of hurting him. Her eyes held a tenderness that she once reserved only for me. The only difference was, the tenderness she showed me was an act. This was real. “Don’t be sad.” A small smile touched my lips. I held my hand out to Connor. Sophie instinctively shielded him, her eyes fixed on me, wary. The next second, my palm opened. “Here,” I said, my voice strangely docile. “Your precious love token is safe and sound.” Dead silence. Connor stared at the recovered ring in my hand. “Then what did you throw in the fire?” Sophie’s gaze fell to my empty ring finger. Her eyes widened, a flicker of something sharp and cold in them. I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” Just like our relationship. From beginning to end, it had never been as important as I thought it was. 6. I’m not good at fighting. Sophie knew that. Whenever we argued, our method of resolution was to give each other space. It never lasted long. Usually, by the time dinner was over, my anger would have cooled, and I’d be wrapping my arms around her with a sheepish grin. So this time, as I walked tiredly toward the door, she stood to the side and watched, not stopping me. But just as I pushed the door open, her voice, cool and detached, followed me. “Today is Ruby’s birthday.” “Are you really going to let her watch her parents fight on her birthday?” I stopped. After a few seconds of silence, I went with her to pick up our daughter from school. Sophie was always busy with work; she rarely came to pick Ruby up. When Ruby saw her, her expression didn’t change, but her steps were noticeably lighter. At the amusement park, mother and daughter were deep in a discussion about the orbital velocity of celestial bodies, talking nonstop. I found it interesting and tried to chime in. Ruby shot me an annoyed look. “Daddy, you don’t understand any of this. Don’t interrupt.” Sophie tapped her on the head. “How can you talk like that? Your father graduated from a top university with a degree in physics, you know.” Ruby’s little brow furrowed. “Daddy’s the dumbest. There’s no way he understands physics.” I froze. The comments streamed past again: 【Hahaha, poor male lead, getting dissed by his own daughter.】 【Don’t blame her, Liam. She’s just too smart. In her eyes, even you’re just a simpleton, lol.】 Ruby suddenly stopped walking. She turned to me, uncharacteristically sweet. “Daddy, can you buy me an ice cream?” Neither she nor Sophie liked sweets. I hesitated, but went anyway. The ice cream truck was on the other side of the park. Afraid it would melt on the way back, I ran. When I returned, out of breath, they were gone. 【Ruby is so smart, she came up with a random excuse just to get him out of the way.】 【What can you do? The rival is just too charming. He didn’t just win over the female lead, he won over her daughter too.】 【Stop wandering around, Liam. They went to rent a boat on the lake.】 【So wholesome. This is what a real family looks like.】

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My brother started dating a celebrity, a rising starlet, and to make matters worse, they decided to film their new reality show at our house. So I, whose only ambition was to return home and collapse into a human-shaped puddle on the couch, accidentally became her polar opposite for the whole world to see. She worked out; I stayed on the couch. She read classic literature; I stayed on the couch. She cooked gourmet meals; I remained firmly planted on the couch. The internet, predictably, lost its mind. [I feel so bad for Lisa. Imagine having a sister-in-law who’s a lazy, good-for-nothing leech!] [Ugh, get the lazy girl off the show! We just want to see Lisa and Liam’s sweet romance!] [I heard she didn’t even finish high school. She’s a total dropout just mooching off her family!] [That’s our Lisa! A certified genius who just got accepted into the master’s program at Aurelia University!] I gave a lazy stretch and rolled over, a flicker of confusion breaking through my sleepy haze. Aurelia University? Was that supposed to be a big deal? And a lazy, good-for-nothing dropout? Were they talking about me? The person who just won the International Physics Prize? 1 The day I became the internet’s most hated freeloader, I was curled up on the sofa, catching up on some much-needed sleep. My brother Liam’s girlfriend, the ever-so-popular Lisa, was dressed in chic athletic wear, gracefully moving through a series of stretches on a yoga mat. As she stretched, she murmured to the nearest camera, sharing her secrets for maintaining a perfect figure. She also casually mentioned a scientific paper she’d stayed up all night reading. The live chat was flying. [Lisa is so incredibly disciplined! Working out and reading first thing in the morning. No wonder she got into Aurelia U!] [OMG, my queen is the best! So beautiful and so hardworking!] [Where’s that Nina girl? Yesterday all she did was lie on the sofa. Where is she today?] [Where else? Still sleeping, obviously. I don’t know how a family like the Astors raised such a daughter. A total parasite.] The next second, the camera panned directly to me. I was a shapeless lump under a fluffy blanket, my hair a chaotic mess, my entire body sunk into the plush cushions. Only my eyes were visible. The cameraman seemed to have the patience of a saint, holding a close-up on me for a full three minutes. In those three minutes, I made exactly one movement: the living room lights were too bright, so I rolled over, turning my back to the lens. The chat exploded. [Is that the long-lost daughter they brought back from some backwater town? What an embarrassment to the Astor family.] [Kick her out! Don’t let her tarnish Lisa’s presence!] Ugh. Annoying. I frowned, burying my face deeper into a soft cushion, trying to block out the noise. A glass of warm milk was placed gently on the coffee table beside me. “Nina,” my brother Liam’s voice was a low whisper, laced with exasperation. “We’re still live. Could you at least… pretend?” I didn’t move. I couldn’t even be bothered to lift an eyelid. Liam sighed, his voice dropping even lower, almost to a breath. “Mom and Dad came downstairs earlier. They looked furious. If you keep this up, they’re going to lecture you again as soon as the filming stops.” I knew. From the day I was brought back to this house, they’d never stopped being disappointed in me. They hated that I lacked the grace of a high-society debutante. They hated my languid posture. They hated that I hadn’t even finished high school, making me an embarrassment to the family name. They adored Lisa, their perfect future daughter-in-law with her flawless smile. Lisa was a masterpiece they felt they had a hand in creating. I was the defective product that had somehow slipped through quality control. “Look at Lisa…” Liam’s voice was pleading now. I finally stirred. Not to sit up, but just to lift my head from the cushion and crack open an eye. Lisa had finished her stretches and was now sipping a freshly made kale-and-apple smoothie. Her posture was ramrod straight; even the way she drank seemed meticulously calculated for the cameras. Noticing my gaze, she raised her glass to me from across the room, flashing a sweet, harmless smile. The live chat erupted in another frenzy of praise for her, while simultaneously throwing more insults my way. “Nina,” Liam was still whispering in my ear. “I know you hate this, but please, just do this for me? Go wash up, get something to eat. Even just sitting up and watching TV would be better than this.” Too. Much. Effort. Those were the only three words in my brain. The next second, I pulled the blanket over my head, cocooning myself in complete darkness, finally shutting out the lights and sounds of the outside world. I could feel Liam standing beside me for a long time. Finally, there was another barely audible sigh and the sound of his retreating footsteps. The world was finally quiet. I contentedly drifted back to sleep. 2 The show was a hit. Overnight, my brother and Lisa’s reality dating series shot to the top of the trending charts. Lisa’s popularity skyrocketed. She was smart; she immediately understood the secret to viral fame. She started arranging flowers in the living room. The books she read switched from pop fiction to heavy, English-language academic tomes. She even started baking complex pastries. Each time, she would “casually” showcase her accomplishments for the cameras, then cast a look of mixed concern and helplessness toward the lump on the sofa that was me. Her audience ate it up. They praised her for being a multi-talented goddess and called me a useless waste of space. I didn’t care. I just found her constant activity a little noisy. That afternoon, for once, I wasn’t sleeping. I was sitting on the rug, a notebook open on my lap, with several pages of scribbled calculations scattered across the coffee table. I was deep in thought, wrestling with a problem, so absorbed that I didn’t even notice my brother sit down beside me. “Drawing?” Liam asked. “Mmm,” I grunted, not looking up. My pen flew across the page, leaving a trail of symbols he couldn’t possibly comprehend. The soft sound of footsteps approached. It was Lisa. She was carrying a glass of water, that perfect smile plastered on her face as she glided toward us. “Nina, you’re so busy! Here, have some water. You haven’t moved all afternoon.” Her voice was sickeningly sweet. I ignored her. My train of thought was at a critical junction. And then, it happened. Crash. The glass shattered on the floor. The water instantly soaked the papers on the coffee table. “Oh! I’m so sorry! Nina, I’m so, so sorry!” Lisa immediately knelt, her voice catching in a sob, her eyes turning red with perfect timing. “I… I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to hand you the water, and I tripped… It’s all my fault…” She fumbled for napkins, tears streaming down her cheeks on cue. The camera zoomed in, capturing her perfectly distraught, guilt-ridden expression. In the live chat, her fans were heartbroken for her. [Lisa, don’t cry! It was an accident!] [It’s all that Nina’s fault!] [Seriously, look at her attitude! Lisa is crying her eyes out, and she won’t even move?] They were right. I didn’t move. I was just staring down at the waterlogged, wrinkled papers. A flash of white-hot anger shot through me, but I quickly suppressed it. Anger was a waste of energy, an inefficient use of processing power. I reached out, carefully peeling the soaked pages off the table one by one, my movements delicate, terrified of tearing them. Then I stood up, walked past the still-sobbing Lisa, and went to the window. I laid the papers out flat on the sill, in the spot with the best sunlight, and left them to air-dry. The entire time, I never once looked at Lisa. I never said a single word. My silence made her one-woman show incredibly awkward. Her sobs tapered off, leaving her with tear-streaked cheeks and a slightly comical expression. My parents came downstairs just in time to witness the scene. My mother frowned, pulling Lisa to her feet and dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief. “You silly girl, why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault. Some people just have no manners, raised like weeds.” My father shot me a look of pure, unadulterated disappointment. Only Liam moved to help. He knelt and cleaned up the spilled water and broken glass. Then, his gaze fell on the damp papers drying on the windowsill. He picked up one of the pages that wasn’t completely soaked. He stared at it for a long, long time. Then he looked up at me. His eyes were filled with a dawning, searching curiosity. 3 Lisa wasn’t about to let it go. That little “accident” had earned her sympathy, but it had also made her look clumsy. She needed to reclaim her narrative, to solidify her image as the perfect genius. So, she brought out her tablet. “Liam, Nina, come look at this.” She placed the tablet on the coffee table, her voice bubbling with excitement. “I was on the Aurelia University grad student forums, and people were discussing old problems from the International Physics Olympiad. I found a really interesting one. Let’s try to solve it together?” She then turned to me with a look of feigned concern. “Nina, you should join us. I know you never went to high school, so it might be… a little difficult, but that’s okay. I can explain it to you slowly.” Her fans in the live chat went wild. [Wow, our Lisa is a true Aurelia scholar! The stuff she reads is on another level!] [Is she tutoring her future sister-in-law? Lisa is too kind!] [What could that girl possibly understand? Don’t waste our Lisa’s precious time.] I was in that hazy space between sleep and wakefulness when I felt a gentle nudge. It was my brother. “Nina, wake up. Lisa’s talking to you,” he whispered. I let out an annoyed groan, burrowing my face deeper into a throw pillow. Sleep was mankind’s greatest invention. Anyone who disturbed it was my enemy. “Nina, just take a look, please? Just one look.” Lisa’s cloying voice chimed in again. “This problem is really challenging. The standard solutions are all incredibly complex. They say fewer than ten people in the world solved it completely at the time.” Ugh. Fine. I pushed myself halfway up, my hair resembling a bird’s nest, and squinted at the screen. Seeing that she finally had my attention, Lisa brightened, launching into her explanation. “You see, the key to this problem is to construct an auxiliary function, and then utilize…” “Don’t bother,” I cut her off. Lisa’s lecture died in her throat. She stared at me, dumbfounded. I pointed a finger at the tablet from across the coffee table. “Start with the singularity. You can solve it in three steps from there.” I paused, then added as an afterthought, “Even the committee that wrote the problem probably didn’t know about that shortcut.” Lisa’s face went rigid. She had no idea what I was talking about. My brother was stunned too. He looked from me to the dense cluster of symbols on the screen, that searching look in his eyes intensifying. “Too easy,” I declared, then flopped back onto the sofa and pulled the blanket over my head. “Good for putting you to sleep, though.” The live chat fell silent. The living room was suddenly dead quiet. Lisa’s face was ashen. My brother Liam was frowning deeply. And my parents, who had been watching from the staircase, now had a new layer of angry confusion mixed in with their usual disappointment. They probably thought that on top of being lazy, I was also rude, humiliating their future daughter-in-law on national television. Ding-dong. The doorbell chimed, startling everyone. All eyes turned to the door. A moment later, the butler showed in an older man in a tweed jacket, who walked in with an urgent stride. “Dr.… Dr. Finch?” Lisa gasped, her eyes widening in shock. The President of Aurelia University, Dr. Alistair Finch! She’d seen him once, from a distance, at a university convocation. She would never forget that face. My parents were stunned too. They didn’t know him personally, but Lisa’s reaction said it all. The President of Aurelia University, here, in their home! What an incredible honor! Any lingering annoyance they felt toward me vanished in an instant. They exchanged a look of profound satisfaction with their choice of a future daughter-in-law. “Lisa is bringing such honor to the Astor name!” my mother whispered excitedly to my father. After a long pause, the live chat finally erupted again. [Did I hear that right? The President of AURELIA UNIVERSITY? In person?!] [OMG, the President himself came! Our Lisa is on another level!] [He must have seen the show and come to commend her! Her genius reputation is now set in stone!] Lisa had already straightened up, her face arranged into the most gracious smile. All the cameras, all the lights, were focused on the few feet of space between her and Dr. Finch. She had already rehearsed her lines in her head—how she would express her surprise, how she would humbly thank him for the recognition. However, Dr. Finch didn’t even glance at her. He walked straight past her as if she were invisible. Lisa’s perfect smile froze on her face. Dr. Finch didn’t slow down. He marched directly toward the sofa, stopping right in front of me. Then, under the shocked gaze of everyone in the room, and the millions watching at home, he bowed deeply to the disheveled heap of blankets that was me. “Director Astor,” he pleaded, his voice trembling with emotion. “I’m begging you. Please, come to our university. We need you to head our doctoral program!”

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1 The power cut out suddenly during the Winter Formal. In the pitch-black chaos, an arm slid around my waist. A voice, laced with a confident smile, murmured close to my ear, “Hey, beautiful. Mind if I steal a kiss?” Before I could even process the words, the lights flickered back on. The boy—the boy—saw my face. His arm dropped away as if he’d been burned, and he muttered a curse under his breath. “Sorry,” he said, his voice flat. “Wrong person.” After three years of a silent, hopeless crush, that was the first thing Miles Butler ever said to me. 2 The first time I ever heard the phrase “the golden couple” used in real life, it was about Miles Butler and his girlfriend. My best friend, Maya, filled me in. “You know that new transfer student, Sophia Lane? She actually managed to win over Miles. Damn… I guess that’s what being the most popular girl in school gets you.” Miles was in the class next door. Before they were a couple, I’d watched Sophia’s campaign unfold. She brought him coffee on cold mornings, slipped notes into his locker, and once, I saw her crying in the hallway, asking him, “Is your heart made of stone? I really, really like you.” A small, petty part of me had been waiting to see her fail. He’d turned down so many girls; she would just be another one on the list. But then, they got together. He had a girlfriend. The moment that reality sank in, I stopped stealing glances at him in the hallway between classes. I had a travel mug I’d bought from the school store in my freshman year. It had a delicate floral pattern on it—snowdrops. A few weeks after they started dating, I overheard Sophia telling her friends that snowdrops were her absolute favorite flower. I never used that mug again. But I never imagined that the first time he’d ever speak to me would be because he’d mistaken me for her. Under the harsh gym lights, his expression was cool and distant. “About what just happened…” he started, his eyes avoiding mine. “Can we just pretend it didn’t?” The spot on my lower back where his hand had rested was still burning. I found my voice, but it came out raspy. “Yeah. I won’t tell anyone.” Just as the words left my mouth, Sophia came running over. She didn’t even see me, grabbing Miles’s arm possessively. “There you are! Come on, I found us a better spot to see the stage.” As they walked away, I stood rooted to the spot, my limbs numb and tingling. I didn’t watch them go. A moment later, Maya appeared at my side, her eyes wide. “Oh my god, I just saw Miles Butler talking to you! What did he say? You guys were so close!” My breath hitched, my heart pounding against my ribs. But before I could figure out how to answer, she’d already moved on. “He is seriously so handsome, though. Like, not a single bad angle. I secretly snapped a picture. Wanna see?” I let out a shaky breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I shook my head. “No, thanks.” 3 After that night, I poured everything I had into my studies. My personality was… quiet. A little boring, maybe. But I was good at school. From my freshman year to my junior year, I’d known Miles from afar for three years. In all that time, the only thing I looked forward to after an exam was the results. It was the only time our names could appear next to each other, publicly and legitimately, on the school’s ranking board. Shortly after the winter break, we had our mid-term exams. This time, I told myself not to get my hopes up. When the results were posted, I waited until the end of the day to check the board outside the main office. “Miles’s still number one. The guy’s a machine.” “Whoa, look! Second place changed. Holy crap, it’s Sophia.” The sun was warm that day, a gentle winter afternoon, but my heart felt like it was freezing over. She was brilliant, too. She had so effortlessly surpassed me. I stood there for a long time before turning and walking away. That evening, I stayed late in the classroom finishing homework. As I was walking back to the dorms, someone called out. “Excuse me.” I turned around. It was Miles. He was holding a large bag of snacks, some of them in fancy packaging I’d never seen before. He didn’t seem to recognize me. “Could you do me a favor and give this to Sophia Lane?” For a split second, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just reached out and took the heavy bag from him. “Oh. Okay.” As I spoke, his eyebrows shot up in recognition. “Wait a sec… it’s you.” I looked up, surprised. He didn’t elaborate, just reached into the bag and pulled out a small box of chocolates. “Thanks for this. Here, this is for you.” I was about to refuse, but he had already turned and walked away into the darkness. After a moment’s hesitation, I put the box of chocolates back into the bag. I went upstairs and found Sophia’s room. The door was ajar. “Sophia, you’re Miles Butler’s first girlfriend. A guy like that, who’s so smart—is he, like, a really good boyfriend?” I froze outside the door, my hand raised to knock. Then I heard Sophia’s voice. It was light and musical, with a distinctly girlish charm. “Him? Ugh, he’s… okay, I guess.” “Have you guys kissed yet?” “Nope. He’s like a block of wood. Makes zero moves.” I pressed my lips together. That’s not true. He had made a move. It was just under a hazy moon and a blanket of darkness. He’d mistaken the girl, and his sweet, whispered words had been for someone else.

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Three years after my death, Chris, the man I’d driven away, finally returned to Auden City. Isabelle was still by his side. He held her umbrella, carried her handbag, his devotion evident in every small gesture. The story’s ending remained unchanged: the hero and heroine lived happily ever after. The only one who met a tragic end was me, the villainess who had dared to covet the hero. They were here to visit his mother’s grave, and I was buried just a short distance behind hers. I floated nearby, watching them. Everyone always said they were a perfect match. When the incense had burned to ash, Chris made an excuse and walked away from Isabelle. He came to my tombstone and stood there in silence for a long, long time. So long that I thought he was trying to choose the right words to curse me with. Instead, Chris let out a soft laugh. His fingers traced the outline of my photograph as he whispered, “Nora, why haven’t you come to my dreams yet?” Because I’m not your Isabelle, I thought. My dreams could never reach your distant shores. … 1 Before I died, Chris had cut all ties with me and fled the country, desperate to stop me from hurting Isabelle. On my deathbed, I clung to a small box meant for him, my life sustained by a single, stubborn breath. I waited for him, but he never came. All I got was a single, relayed message. “If she’s dead,” he had said, “call the funeral home, not me.” After the call ended, my mother collapsed onto my bed, sobbing like a child who had lost everything. My last thread of hope snapped, and I died with a heart full of bitterness. Perhaps that bitterness was strong enough to anchor me here, waiting for him. I watched as my mother pulled the weeds from my grave, again and again, as three years slipped by. My obsession began to fade with the silvering of her hair. Just as I felt my form growing transparent, my earthly attachment dissolving, Chris returned. He had become gentler, more considerate, taking meticulous care of Isabelle. Without my interference, their love story was even more perfect. I laughed at myself. Even if I wanted to, I could no longer do anything to be hated. The smoke from the incense twisted in the wind. I just watched them, my ghostly form still. When they lit the incense for his mother, I crouched nearby, thinking he must have forgotten me completely by now. But after the incense burned out, he lied to Isabelle. As she walked down the mountain path, he came to my grave, my own spectral eyes wide with disbelief. He stared at my headstone for an eternity. I was sure he was deciding on the perfect insult. Slut? Bitch? The wind picked up. He gave that soft, low laugh again, his hand resting on the cold stone. “Nora, why haven’t you come to my dreams yet?” His voice was so quiet, so gentle, I almost believed that ghosts could dream. Chris pulled a wrinkled caramel chew from his pocket and bent down to place it before my grave. Then he turned and left. I stared at the candy. But Chris, I thought, I don’t like sweets anymore. I reached out to brush it away, but my hand passed straight through it. I shook my head with a sad smile and sat down on the hillside. The sun was setting, painting the sky in hues of orange and violet. I used to love watching sunsets. But now, my eyes were fixed on that single piece of candy. I thought a ghost’s heart couldn’t ache. But Nora’s could. I’m done, I decided. I’m done with the bitterness. I’m done with Chris. I would no longer hide from my fate. I had one last thing to do, and then I would move on, find my peace, and be reborn. This life was over. I floated down the mountain and settled into Chris’s car. Isabelle was in the back seat, so the passenger seat was empty. I sat there, finally able to look at him without hiding. As the story’s hero, he was, of course, devastatingly handsome. I couldn’t resist reaching out a translucent hand to trace the lines of his brow. There was a faint scar above his eyebrow—a mark left from when a seventeen-year-old Chris defied the will of the world to save a seventeen-year-old Nora. It was the mark I had once believed was proof of his undying love for me. My hand fell. I sat up straight. Chris drove with intense focus. The car was silent. I watched his hands on the steering wheel. As he turned, the cuff of his expensive suit slid back, revealing a sliver of his wrist. I froze. Tied around it was a cheap, simple red string bracelet. The one I had gotten for him, a token of safety and love. Once, he’d worn it proudly. Now, he had to keep it hidden. I couldn’t help but look at his face, at his thin lips. My mother used to say that men with thin lips were the most heartless. A low, bitter laugh escaped me, and I felt the phantom sting of tears. Even as a ghost, I was still so pathetic. The memories I had spent five years suppressing came rushing back in a tidal wave the moment I saw him again. It wasn’t time that had trapped me here. It was me, refusing to leave the memories of a younger Chris, a Chris who hadn’t yet met Isabelle, a Chris who hadn’t yet forgotten me. The city lights blurred past as the Maybach sped forward, but my thoughts were rewinding, racing back against the wind. Back to a time before Isabelle, when Chris still remembered me. 2 Once, Chris and I were known as the Twin Stars of Auden’s elite. One was a fiercely bright flame, the other a cold, isolated storm. We were complete opposites, yet we were childhood sweethearts. When I was five, I went with my father to visit the Cole family. I wandered off and found myself in a small, dusty attic. There, huddled in a corner, was Chris, covered in bruises. He snarled at me like a cornered animal, telling me to get out. Instead, I crouched in front of him, showed him my canines in a fierce grin, and grabbed his hand. “I’m getting you out of here,” I declared. I pulled him stumbling out of that dark little room and all the way back to my house. From that day on, we were inseparable. At school, I was always ranked first, and he was always second. He would intentionally score one point lower than me, just as he always seemed to yield to me in everything. Before we were eighteen, our worlds contained only each other. Our families were similar—loveless arranged marriages. But my mother was a powerhouse who cared only for her career. Chris’s father had a legion of illegitimate children, and Chris and his mother constantly had to endure the provocations of his many mistresses. His mother was hopelessly romantic and emotionally unstable, and she often took her frustrations out on Chris. One day, one of his father’s mistresses came to the house. His mother lost control and hurled a porcelain vase at Chris. He just stood there in his white shirt, looking broken, not even trying to move. I threw myself in front of him, taking the full force of the shattering vase on my back. The shards of porcelain felt like shrapnel. That day, Chris’s tears fell onto my heart like stones. It hurt, it hurt so much, but when I saw the dark, murderous look in his eyes, I wrapped my arms around his neck and snuggled against him. I gave him a pained, toothy grin. “Chris,” I said, looking him straight in the eye. “It doesn’t hurt.” He hugged me so tightly I could barely breathe, his voice trembling with fear. “Nora, from now on, you only stand behind me.” My mother later told me that after I fell asleep, he’d driven back to his family home in a rage, smashed everything in sight, and gotten into a brutal fight with his father. He even warned his own mother to never touch him again. I knew none of that. All I knew was that when I opened my eyes, Chris was there. Later, in college, we finally made our relationship official. It was after a bizarre accident that we began to suspect the existence of a “World Will.” Through various experiments, we confirmed it: Chris was the story’s hero, and I, most likely, was not the heroine. My consciousness awakened. I was just cannon fodder, a villainess whose purpose was to highlight the epic love between the hero and heroine. But I refused to accept it. I clung to Chris, and he wanted only me in his world. For that, we were warned by the World Will. It tried everything to erase me, to force the plot back onto its predetermined course. At my eighteenth birthday party, the grand ballroom chandelier came crashing down, aimed directly at me. Chris threw himself over me without a second’s thought, shielding me with his body. The razor-sharp crystal shards rained down, one of them slicing open his brow. My ears were ringing, and I could only cling to his shirt in terror. He held me, murmuring over and over, “Nora, I’m here. It’s okay, Nora. Look at me. Look at me.” From that day on, Chris became even more possessive, more like a beautiful, dangerous madman. It seemed there was nothing he wouldn’t do to love me. But the hero’s destined love was still waiting. And she appeared right on schedule. During his graduate studies, a girl named Isabelle joined Chris’s research team. The first time I saw her, I knew. She was the one. Perhaps it was a rival’s intuition, but I disliked her instantly, for no reason at all. But she was so gentle, so kind, that I could find no excuse to lash out, no reason to demand that she stay away from him. Chris started spending more and more time with her. Their interactions were always perfectly appropriate, but my heart was sinking with a quiet panic I couldn’t control. One day, Chris mentioned her again, a casual anecdote, but the smile that touched his eyes was so unconsciously tender that the panic inside me became a tsunami. I lost control. “Enough!” I screamed, my voice raw with helplessness. “Can you please just stop talking about her? Don’t you see what’s happening, Chris? She’s getting into your heart!” He froze, a look of confusion, then dawning realization, in his eyes. His tightly pressed lips told me he knew it was true. Isabelle was like a spring rain, slowly seeping into the soil of his soul. While I wasn’t looking, he grabbed a fruit knife and plunged it into his own thigh. The shock of pain seemed to clear his head. I screamed, trying to stop the bleeding with my hands. He just pulled me into his arms, promising, “Nora, it won’t happen again. I’ll keep my distance from her. I promise.” His fierce, desperate madness made me believe that we would never let each other go. And for a while, I never heard Isabelle’s name from his lips again. But destiny is a stubborn thing. Chris wouldn’t quit his research, and as a member of his team, Isabelle was a constant presence. They went on a research trip together. At the same time, my mother was hospitalized for exhaustion, and I went to take care of her. The next time I saw Chris, he was a different person. He was standing under a streetlight, holding Isabelle in his arms. The last thread of my sanity snapped. In that moment, I could almost hear the great clock of fate swinging back into its correct position. Like his mother before me, I went mad, rushing at them, trying to tear them apart. Chris, who had always protected me, who had cherished me, pushed me away. He pulled Isabelle behind him and shoved my shoulder. I stumbled and fell to the ground. “Nora, don’t be like this,” he said, his voice laced with tired frustration. Isabelle gently touched his arm. “Chris, don’t. She’s just a girl, like me.” He told her to go on ahead, then pulled me up and walked me home. “Chris,” I asked, my voice hollow. “Are you in love with her?” He looked momentarily lost. “Nora, don’t overthink it. Her grandmother just passed away. She was upset.” A wretched laugh escaped me, and I tore my hand from his. I was consumed by bitterness. I went to find Isabelle. “You know Chris and I are together,” I confronted her. “Why are you deliberately getting close to him?” Her usual gentle smile vanished. Her eyes were cold. “Because I’m the protagonist,” she said with a dismissive smirk. “He and I are destined for each other. And you are destined to love him and lose him.” Her words hit me like a physical blow. A ringing filled my ears, and I couldn’t hear anything else. At nineteen, I was still the spoiled, hot-headed heiress. I hired people to corner Isabelle, to threaten her to leave. The first time, all I got was an annoyed warning from Chris. The second time, the love in his eyes was gone, replaced by an icy contempt. I had pushed Isabelle, and she’d scraped her knee. For that, Chris took a heavy cane and brought it down hard on my own kneecap. “Nora,” he said, his voice dripping with disgust. “This is your lesson.” His undisguised loathing was a thousand arrows in my heart. Our butler was the one who found me later, huddled in an alley. That night, drifting in a haze of pain, I thought I saw Chris sitting by my bed. He was frowning, but his hand reached out to gently touch my face. “Nora… this isn’t right… this isn’t right,” he whispered. But I was too exhausted to open my eyes. When I woke up, the room was empty. I told myself it was a dream. After that, I became a true monster. I was desperate to get my Chris back. I tried everything. But he only grew more distant, his memories of us fading like old photographs. He broke up with me. I threatened to kill myself. Chris, the boy who could never bear to see me hurt, handed me the knife himself. “Do it cleanly,” he said with a cruel smile. “And stay out of my and Isabelle’s sight.” I grabbed his hand, desperately reminding him of our promises, our past. He shook me off. “Disgusting,” he spat. Then he turned around and publicly announced his relationship with Isabelle. On his birthday, he invited his research team out to dinner. I went, carrying a cake I’d bought for him. I stood outside the door and listened. Someone was teasing him. “So, Chris, who’s better, Nora or Isabelle? You and Nora used to be so intense. Her temper is awful, how did you even put up with her for all those years…?” Someone coughed, cutting the speaker off. But Chris didn’t seem to care. He leaned back on the sofa, looking completely relaxed. “I forgot,” he said casually. “I can’t even remember why I liked someone like that. The person I like is…” He frowned, his sentence trailing off. For a split second, his eyes landed on Isabelle with a flash of something sharp, almost hostile. But she just smiled at him, and his expression softened. “The person I like is Isabelle,” he finished. I looked down at the cake in my hands. A bitter smile touched my lips, and I turned and walked away. The World Will was so powerful. It could make him forget me, even while I was still alive. On my way home, I was drugged and kidnapped. When I woke up, Isabelle was there with me. It was a classic plot device. Our kidnappers, old enemies of the Cole family, forced Chris to choose. The one he didn’t choose would have her legs broken. Chris arrived, a baseball bat in his hand, a conquering hero. He fought his way through them… and swept Isabelle into his arms. He walked right past me without a second glance. Isabelle shot me a triumphant smirk over his shoulder. I smiled back, a tear escaping the corner of my eye. The kidnappers didn’t hesitate. I felt a sickening crunch as they shattered my kneecaps. When my parents and the police arrived, I was just lying there, my eyes vacant. Chris, it hurts. My legs were broken. So were my ribs. My heart was shattered. I was so, so tired. But I had to try one last time. I used my family’s influence to get Isabelle expelled, to halt their research project. The Coles put pressure on Chris. He stormed into my office and smashed everything in sight. He raised his hand to strike me, again, for another woman. I was too weary to fight. I just tilted my head back, a tear falling from my eye onto the hand that gripped my chin. “Chris,” I whispered, “you promised you would never leave me.” He scoffed and let go. “Nora, I don’t remember anything I said to you before. I don’t love you anymore. I don’t want you. Can you understand that? If you touch Isabelle again, I swear, it will be war between us.” I looked into his fierce eyes and knew he meant it. My shoulders slumped. I leaned back in my wheelchair and started to laugh, tears blurring my vision. “Chris,” I said, “the way you protect her… it’s exactly how you used to protect me.” He frowned, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. He subconsciously reached out to wipe away my tears, but I turned my head away. He dropped his hand and left without another word. I continued to pressure him, but I had forgotten one thing about Chris: once he set his mind on something, he never let go. He severed all ties with his family, took Isabelle’s hand, and left Auden City for good. I tried to follow him. There was a car accident. And as I lay dying, I received his final message. And now, here I was.

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My roommate, Serena, was the kind of person who’d chase a question to the ends of the earth. She couldn’t let anything go. One night, dead asleep, I was jolted awake by her voice right next to my bed. “Lucy? You asleep?” I cracked open my eyes, annoyed. Her response? “See? You weren’t asleep at all. Otherwise, how could you answer me?” When she skipped class, I did her a favor and checked her in on the attendance app. But just before the lecture ended, she burst into the room, phone in hand, and confronted the professor. “Professor, I wasn’t even here today. Why does the system say I’m checked in? Is there something wrong with your app?” The professor investigated, it traced back to me, and I failed the class. I had to retake it. Later, I entered a public speaking competition. In the middle of my speech, Serena stood up in front of everyone and asked why my material was exactly the same as an idea she’d had. My spot in the competition was revoked, I lost the prize money, and I was branded a plagiarist. Unable to handle the humiliation, I climbed to the roof of the tallest building on campus one night. When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day Serena asked me if I was asleep. 1 “Lucy, are you asleep?” Hearing Serena’s incredibly punchable voice, I couldn’t tell if I was dreaming or awake. My hand fumbled around my pillow until it found my phone. I flipped it on, saw the date, and it hit me. I was reborn. Outside my bed curtain, Serena wasn’t giving up. She kept calling my name. I quickly turned off my phone, jammed my earbuds in, and squeezed my eyes shut. Sure enough, when I didn’t answer, she yanked my curtain open. Even though it was past one in the morning, our other roommate was still gaming, and the glow from her computer screen spilled onto my face, punctuated by the frantic clicking of a keyboard. With the curtain open, Serena pressed on. “Lucy. Lucy, are you asleep?” Her voice got louder, loud enough to wake the dead, but I kept my eyes clamped shut. I refused to open them. I knew I couldn’t. Waking up would be giving her exactly what she wanted. In my last life, Serena loved pulling these little obedience tests on me. If I had opened my eyes and asked what she wanted, she would’ve just said, “Oh, nothing. I just wanted to see if you were asleep.” It would infuriate me, leaving me sleepless for the rest of the night, while she’d be perfectly happy. And her bizarre behavior didn’t stop there. When we first moved in as freshmen, she introduced herself as a small-town girl who’d aced her exams but didn’t know the first thing about the big city. She warned us she’d be asking a lot of questions. It was like she was a newborn baby, her brain as smooth as a polished stone. She knew nothing. In college, professors post everything in the class group chat. All you have to do is read the announcements. But every single time, she would ask us instead. “Lucy, how do I submit this assignment? I don’t get it.” I’d tell her to check the group chat, that all the instructions were there. She’d ignore me and keep asking, “What format does it need to be? Word or PDF?” “Either is fine. Just go look at the announcement.” It was like her brain had a filter that automatically deleted my words. She’d just keep plowing ahead on her own. “Lucy, why won’t it submit? Can you come help me?” I’d remind her again to check the group chat. She’d finally seem to hear me, only to follow up with, “Where are the announcements? How do you even see them? I don’t know how.” I nearly lost my mind. From then on, I kept my guard up around her. But that’s the thing about a person that dense—they always catch you off guard. There’s no defending against that level of stupid. 2 One morning, I had an 8 AM class. One of my roommates couldn’t get up and asked me to check her in on the app. When I got to the lecture hall, I realized I was the only one from our dorm who’d shown up. The other three were nowhere to be seen. It was an easy class, and the professor wasn’t taking attendance manually, so I figured I’d do them all a favor and check everyone in. I was feeling pretty good about myself when, suddenly, Serena burst through the main entrance. She marched right up to the professor, holding out her phone. “Professor, why am I automatically checked in even though I wasn’t here?” Every head in the room turned towards her. A cold sweat broke out on my back. The professor gave her a look, his face hardening. “You know perfectly well how you were checked in.” “I really don’t! That’s why I came to ask you. Your system must be malfunctioning. I never clicked anything, but it signed me in.” Serena’s face was a mask of pure innocence. The professor was so exasperated he almost laughed. His eyes quickly found me. For checking in three roommates, I failed the course and had to retake it the next semester. The other two just got a few points docked from their grade. I was so angry I could have spit blood. Through gritted teeth, I asked Serena why she had to make trouble out of nothing. She actually looked wounded. “How was I supposed to know someone could check in for me? It’s your fault for butting in.” I swore to myself I would never stick my neck out for anyone again and started keeping my distance from her. I thought if I just avoided the psycho, I’d be fine. I was wrong. The university hosted an English public speaking competition. The first prize came with a cash award and a shot at a major scholarship. I signed up immediately and poured everything into my research and preparation. On the day of the competition, I was on stage, confidently delivering my speech, when Serena suddenly stood up from the audience. “Why does your speech sound so similar to an idea I had?” she asked. A wave of murmurs swept through the hall. My speech was cut short. The way everyone looked at me changed. Afterward, I confronted her, asking how my speech was similar to hers. She hadn’t even entered the competition, so what “idea” was she talking about? She pointed to her head. “It’s so weird, right? I had a dream about it a few days ago, and it was exactly the same as what you said. It totally freaked me out.” Hearing that, the air left my lungs. I nearly fainted. My scholarship was gone. Soon, rumors started flying around campus that I was a plagiarist. The stress triggered a severe depressive episode, and one night, I found myself on the roof of the university library. Maybe God took pity on me and gave me a second chance. A rebirth. This time, I wasn’t going to put up with Serena’s craziness. This time, she was going to pay. Serena called my name a dozen more times, but I didn’t move. Just as she was about to start again, Kayla, our other roommate who’d been gaming, finally snapped. She ripped off her headphones. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy. What are you doing, calling for your lost puppy? What’s with the ghostly wailing in the middle of the night? I can’t even hear the damn footsteps in my game!” Our dorm room was originally for four people, but one roommate couldn’t stand Serena and moved out to rent a place off-campus. That left me and Kayla. I couldn’t afford to move, so I endured. Kayla, on the other hand, had a fiery temper and a don’t-mess-with-me vibe that Serena was too scared to challenge. So, she picked on me, the easy target, tormenting me relentlessly. 3 Intimidated by Kayla, Serena didn’t dare argue. She mumbled, “I just wanted to wake her up and ask if she was asleep.” “Are you a bot? She’s asleep and you’re waking her up to ask if she’s asleep? Do you hear how insane that sounds? Why don’t you just peel her eyelids open and ask her then?” I almost burst out laughing at Kayla’s comeback, but my amusement died a quick death. Because Kayla’s words had apparently given Serena an idea. She decided to climb up to my bunk to see for herself if I was really asleep. It was clear she wasn’t going to stop until I was awake. With that thought, I balled my hands into fists. As she climbed the ladder and her torso leaned through my curtain, I swung. “Nngh… monster’s coming!” My fist connected squarely with her nose. She yelped in pain, instinctively covering her face, and lost her balance, tumbling off the ladder. Even through my earbuds, I heard the heavy thump. But I kept my eyes shut, pretending to be deep in sleep. After landing hard on her butt, Serena dropped the act. She scrambled up and shook me awake. “Lucy Shay! Why did you hit me?!” Now I had no choice. Faking a groggy awakening, I looked at her, bewildered. “Huh? I hit you? When did I hit you?” Serena clutched her nose. “You just punched me right in the face! It hurts like hell! Don’t you dare deny it!” I looked even more confused. “I was sleeping. How could I have hit you? And what are you doing climbing into my bed in the middle of the night? Are you trying to…?” I let the question hang in the air. Whatever Serena imagined, she immediately shot it down. “Of course not! I was just checking to see if you were asleep. I didn’t know you’d lash out like that!” I nodded slowly. “Well, you really shouldn’t try to wake me up again. I’m a very restless sleeper. This time it was just a punch. Who knows what I’ll do next time.” I added, “But I’m a nice person, so I’ll let it slide that you woke me up.” With that, I lay back down. Serena, still on the floor, looked at me in disbelief, utterly speechless. Terrified of another punch, she finally scurried back to her own bed. That punch bought me a few days of peace. At least she stopped trying to wake me up at night. But I knew she wouldn’t stay quiet for long. She was definitely holding a grudge. As long as I was in this room, my life would be a living hell. So, the next day, I went to my student advisor to request a dorm change, hoping to get out as soon as possible. Given how certifiably insane Serena was, I thought it would be an open-and-shut case. I was wrong. “A dorm change? That’s not really possible,” my advisor said. “Everyone has different personalities; you just have to learn to get along. Serena hasn’t done anything that serious, has she? You’re all students. With a little communication, any problem can be solved.” He leaned back in his chair. “Besides, all the other dorms are full. Where would you even go? You’re all adults now, you need to be more mature. Take my son, for example. He’s studying in England, sharing a flat with a few international students. At first, he wanted to move out too, but now they’ve worked things out. If he can do it, why can’t you?” Listening to his smug speech, I rolled my eyes internally. This guy had coasted through life on his wife’s success—she had a Ph.D. He loved bragging about her and his son studying abroad. To put it bluntly, he was a total phony. It was clear a dorm change wasn’t happening today. I sighed and left his office. 4 That evening, I was watching a show in my room when there was a knock on the door. Our class president came in with a stack of papers. “This semester’s mental health assessment forms,” he announced. “Just fill them out. The advisor said to just check ‘no’ for everything. You know the drill.” We had to do this every semester. It was just a formality. We were all used to it. As the class president handed out the forms, Serena piped up. “Why do we have to check ‘no’ for everything? Can’t we check ‘yes’?” “It’s just faster to check ‘no’,” he explained. “If you check ‘yes’, you have to actually read the question and see if it applies to you. Besides, even if you do have a problem, it’s not like the school is going to fix it for you. I heard some guy in another department got diagnosed with severe depression and was forced to take a leave of absence and go home.” Serena nodded thoughtfully, staring at the form in her hands. After he left, I glanced at Serena and said casually, “I doubt it’s that serious. That sounds like an exaggeration. And even if someone did have a mental illness, the school would have to provide support. The counseling center isn’t just for decoration, right?” Serena picked up her pen and started filling out the form. There were only a few questions; I was done in less than a minute. I looked over at her. She was still contemplating the third question. The next day, the class president collected the forms and gave them to the advisor. A few days later, we were all in class when our advisor suddenly appeared at the door. After a quick apology to the professor, he called Serena out of the room. Sensing drama, I slipped out the back door to see what was going on. The advisor led Serena into an empty classroom and slammed the mental health assessment form down in front of her. “Who told you to fill this out however you wanted?! Didn’t the class president tell you to check ‘no’ for everything?!” Serena looked at him, her eyes wide and innocent. “Why did we have to check ‘no’? Can’t we just answer based on how we feel?” The advisor looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. He couldn’t just say it was a pointless formality, because if a student really did have a problem, it would become a massive issue for him. “I said to check ‘no’, so you just do it! Why do you have to ask so many questions?!” Serena, completely oblivious to his rising fury, continued, “But some of the questions applied to me. If I checked ‘no’ for everything, wouldn’t that be falsifying information? The form says to answer honestly.” Before this, the advisor had been worried Serena might actually have a mental health issue. If she did something drastic, not even his Ph.D. wife and his son studying abroad could save his career. But now he was sure. Serena didn’t have a mental illness. She was just mentally ill. “Never mind that. Here’s a new form. Fill it out again, quickly. Bring it to my office after class.” Serena took the form with a quiet “Oh” and said nothing more. The advisor thought he could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He was celebrating too soon. After class, Serena brought the new form to his office. As it happened, the Dean of Student Affairs was there, checking in on the students’ psychological well-being. “Don’t worry, Dean. We’ve compiled these results carefully. We’d never be careless with something so important,” the advisor said, shooting Serena a look that screamed get out. But she didn’t get the hint. Instead, she turned to the Dean. “Dean, why do we have to mark ‘no’ for everything on this form? Is that a school rule?”

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1 On our wedding anniversary, my husband updated his food blog, Memos for Evie. The post featured a photo of the Beef Wellington he had just placed on the table. The caption read: “Year three, a new creation. May you always love the simple joys of this world.” The top comment was from a fan: “What amazing dish did Eddy cook for his wife this time? You’re so lucky!” He replied: “She loves it.” But the thing is, I don’t eat beef. … “Have a taste?” Eddy slid a small, perfectly sliced piece of steak across the table to me, his eyes filled with anticipation. He was wearing a new white shirt I’d bought for him, his features soft and gentle in the candlelight. A single serving of Beef Wellington at a restaurant costs a fortune, yet my husband had spent the entire afternoon recreating that expensive delicacy just for me. A warmth spread through my chest. I picked up my fork but hesitated. “Eddy… I don’t eat beef. Did you forget?” The smile on his face flickered for a fraction of a second. “Sorry, I forgot.” His apology was smooth, natural. “Things have been so hectic with the new project at work, my mind’s a mess. How about I make you some pasta instead?” I shook my head and smiled, telling him it was fine. There were plenty of other dishes on the table. He’d prepared an entire feast for our anniversary: escargots de Bourgogne, cream of mushroom soup, and even my favorite, a fluffy soufflé. But that flawless Beef Wellington, sitting silently in the center of the table, made my stomach clench. In all our years together, he had never once cooked beef. My gaze drifted to his phone, which he’d left on the table beside him. The screen was lit up, displaying his food blog with its million followers: Memos for Evie. On a strange impulse, I picked it up and tapped on the latest post. “Year three, a new creation. May you always love the simple joys of this world.” I scrolled down through the three thousand comments. Beyond the sea of envious replies at the top, one bolded comment from a “special follow” caught my eye. The username was EvieNeverLooksBack. “Eddy, happy anniversary to me too, from across the ocean.” Eddy’s hand shot out to snatch the phone back, but I was faster. I tapped on her profile. The background of her page was a hazy photo of a couple on a school field at dusk. A boy in a white shirt and a girl in a pleated skirt. Even through the blur, I recognized him. It was eighteen-year-old Eddy. And the girl… I happened to know her, too. Evelyn Monroe. Eddy’s college ex-girlfriend. The one his friends still talked about with a wistful sigh—his old flame, the one that got away. My knuckles turned white as I gripped the phone. So, Evie was Evelyn. Eddy once told me that we would have a beautiful daughter one day. Evie, he’d said, was the name he had picked out for her. I turned the phone to face him, my voice barely a whisper. “So, Memos for Evie… it’s memos for Evelyn?” “And Evie was never a name for our daughter, was it?” The color drained from Eddy’s face. His lips moved, but no words came out. I couldn’t stop myself. I kept scrolling through Evelyn’s feed. Her latest post was from three days ago, a picture of her feeding pigeons in Paris. The caption: “Missing the taste of roasted sweet potatoes from that little street corner vendor.” And Eddy’s blog, just two days ago, had a new post. A photo of a perfectly roasted sweet potato, glowing with warmth. The caption: “Some flavors never change.” Further back, Evelyn mentioned she was craving something sweet. Eddy made a soufflé. Caption: “A little sweetness for you, always.” Evelyn complained about not sleeping well. Eddy simmered a calming herbal soup. Caption: “May you sleep soundly every night.” Post after post, year after year. For three whole years, over three hundred entries. Every meal he had ever made for me was documented on this account, Memos for Evie. I had been so moved by what I thought was his unique, romantic gesture just for me. My colleagues envied me, saying I’d married the perfect man—a handsome, devoted chef. It was all a lie. A complete and utter joke. Eddy’s silence shattered the last of my illusions. I looked up at him. “Eddy, I’m pregnant.” I pulled the crumpled test from my purse and laid it on the table between us. “Six weeks.” I had planned to give it to him as a surprise, the best anniversary gift of all. Eddy’s pupils contracted. He stared at the test, then at me, his face ashen. “Claire…” he finally choked out, his voice raw. “I’m sorry, I…” “So, when you wrote ‘she loves it’ on your blog,” I cut him off, my voice steady, “who is ‘she’?” Eddy’s Adam’s apple bobbed. His breathing grew heavy and ragged. He looked at me, his eyes a swirling mess of panic, guilt, and the cornered anger of being exposed. “Claire, it’s not what you think.” He reached for my hand, but I pulled away. “Then what is it?” My voice was quiet, but every word was sharp. “Tell me. Am I misunderstanding, or have you been lying to me this whole time?” Three years of marriage, all those tender moments, now felt like a thousand tiny needles piercing my skin. I finally understood. All his kindness, all his care for me, had been filtered through the shadow of Evelyn Monroe. He wasn’t taking care of me. He was reliving his memories of another woman through me. The light from the crystal chandelier overhead felt blindingly bright. Eddy finally gave up trying to explain. He slumped into the chair opposite me, burying his hands in his hair, a portrait of defeat. “It’s over between us. It has been for a long time,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Claire, that’s all in the past. I love you now.” I laughed. The sound was harsh and jarring in the quiet room. “You love me?” I pointed at the steak. “You love me, but you don’t know I don’t eat beef?” “You love me, but you planned on naming our child after your ex-girlfriend?” “Eddy, don’t you dare insult the word ‘love’.” My eyes fell back to the phone screen. Eddy, happy anniversary to me too, from across the ocean. The words sliced at my heart. I pushed the phone back to him. “You should reply to her. You don’t want to keep your old flame waiting.” As if on cue, the phone began to ring, shattering the heavy silence. The caller ID read: Evie. Eddy froze, his thumb instinctively moving to reject the call. I watched him. “Answer it,” I said slowly. “Why wouldn’t you?” His finger hovered over the red icon for a long moment before finally swiping to green. I couldn’t hear what was said, but the tension instantly drained from Eddy’s body. His voice, when he spoke, held a tenderness I had never heard before, an unconscious doting tone. “Evelyn.” That one name was enough to shatter my last defenses. He always called me Claire. Only for her was it the intimate, bone-deep Evelyn. I couldn’t make out her words, only piece together the story from his replies. It seemed she was alone abroad, had just broken up with her boyfriend, and her chronic stomach issues were flaring up. “Don’t cry. I’m here,” Eddy murmured, his voice low and soothing, like he was comforting a heartbroken child. “You want my soup? Okay, I’ll figure something out.” “Be good. Don’t eat anything you shouldn’t. Wait for me.” I sat at the table, methodically eating the now-cold soufflé. The dessert that once tasted like pure bliss was now just a bitter paste in my mouth. Finally, he hung up. He turned and met my gaze, a flicker of discomfort on his face. “Claire, Evelyn… she just broke up with her boyfriend. She’s not in a good place.” I said nothing, just stared at him. “She has really bad stomach problems, and she’s all alone in Paris. I’m just… worried.” “And?” I asked. Eddy pressed his lips together, as if making a difficult decision. “Christmas is in two days. We promised we’d go to my parents’ for dinner,” I reminded him. “I know.” He strode over to me and knelt, trying to take my hands. “Claire, I know this sounds horrible right now. But Evelyn… she really can’t handle this alone. Can I just…” He trailed off, searching for the right words. “You want to go to Paris?” I finished for him. Silence. My heart sank, stone by heavy stone. I was pregnant. Our home, our promised holiday with family—none of it mattered more than a single phone call, a few tears from her. “Can you please not make this a scene?” Seeing my silence, Eddy’s patience seemed to wear thin. His brow furrowed, his tone shifting to one of annoyance and accusation. “Claire, I admit I was wrong about the blog, and I apologize. But Evelyn is sick. She’s been through a lot. I can’t just abandon her.” “She’s been through a lot?” I repeated the words, a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside me. “What about me? Has my life been easy?” I pointed to my stomach. “Eddy, your child is in here! And you’re going to abandon your pregnant wife to fly across the world to take care of your so-called ‘troubled’ ex-girlfriend?” “I’m not abandoning you!” he snapped, his voice rising as if I’d hit a nerve. “I’ll only be gone for a few days, just until she’s stable. I’ll explain everything to Mom and Dad. Why can’t you just be a little understanding?” I looked at this man—so familiar, yet suddenly a complete stranger—and felt the sheer absurdity of it all. “Eddy, are you asking me to be understanding about you leaving to take care of your ex?” “She’s not just an ex-girlfriend!” he blurted out. The words hung in the air. He realized his mistake instantly, his face paling. I seized on it. “Then what is she?” I pressed. “Tell me, Eddy. What, exactly, is Evelyn Monroe to you?” He clenched his jaw, a vein throbbing in his temple. The silence was suffocating. Finally, as if all the fight had gone out of him, he deflated. “Claire, I’m begging you.” His voice was laced with exhaustion. “Are you really going to go?” I saw the desperation in his bloodshot eyes, the undisguised urgency. “And you won’t regret it?” He didn’t answer. He just walked past me and into the bedroom, where he began to pack a suitcase. His movements were quick, decisive, without a hint of hesitation. I watched him throw his passport, a charger, a jacket into the bag, as if he were rushing off not to a disaster, but to a grand, romantic rendezvous. The moment he clicked the suitcase shut, I spoke. “Eddy.” “Take that passport. And don’t ever come back.” He paused for a second, then walked out the door without a backward glance. The only message I received was one sent from his phone two days prior, in the dead of night: “Landed safely. Don’t worry.” Don’t worry. What a joke. He didn’t send another message for days. Soon, the morning sickness hit me, hard. I couldn’t keep anything down, eventually subsisting on just sips of water. I sent Eddy a text. No reply. I took a leave of absence from my job at the bakery, told my mother-in-law that Eddy was away on a business trip, and quietly packed my own bags, planning to go to my parents’ house. Just as I finished packing, a wave of nausea hit me. I ran to the bathroom and was violently ill. As I pushed myself up, the world went black. I stumbled forward, my head cracking hard against the edge of the sink. Blood streamed down from my temple, blurring my vision. I lay on the cold tiles, a sharp, twisting pain ripping through my lower abdomen. I fumbled for my phone and dialed Eddy’s number. It rang and rang. Just as I was about to give up, someone answered. But the voice was a sweet, feminine coo. “Hello? Are you looking for Eddy?” It was Evelyn. My blood ran cold. “Where’s Eddy?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Put him on the phone.” “He’s making soup for me. He can’t come to the phone,” Evelyn said, her tone a mixture of smugness and impatience. “Who is this, anyway? Don’t you have any sense? He flew all the way to Paris to take care of me, and you keep harassing him with calls.” The pain in my abdomen was getting worse, more frequent, like a thousand knives churning inside me. I ignored her venomous tone and pleaded, “I’m his wife. I fell… I’m bleeding… please, tell him to come home…” A soft laugh came from the other end of the line, dripping with contempt. “Ma’am, I’ve seen this little sympathy act a million times. Faking an illness to guilt a man into coming back? Do you really think Eddy will fall for that?” “I’m not… I really…” “Yeah, yeah,” she cut me off impatiently. “My stomach is delicate. Eddy is busy perfecting a new soup recipe just for me. If you’re really in trouble, call an ambulance. Stop bothering us.” With that, she hung up. Listening to the dial tone, my heart, in that single moment, died completely. The bleeding was getting heavier. My consciousness began to fade. With my last ounce of strength, I hung up and dialed 911. Lying in the back of the cold ambulance, listening to the wail of the siren, my mind was a blank slate. The cramping in my abdomen grew more intense. I knew I was probably losing my baby. And maybe that was for the best. I didn’t want my child to have a father who would abandon his wife and child for another woman. At the hospital, they rushed me into an examination. “There are signs of a threatened miscarriage,” the doctor said gently. “Where is your husband? We need his signature to discuss options for saving the pregnancy.” I looked at the doctor and managed a smile that was more painful than a sob. “He’s dead.” The doctor stared, a look of pity in his eyes. “Then… are there any other family members?” “No one. It’s just me.” I looked at him calmly. “Doctor, this baby… I don’t want it.” He was aghast. “Are you crazy? Do you have any idea what this could do to your body? If you terminate now, you might never be able to conceive again!” “I know.” “Then why would you…” “Doctor, there’s nothing to discuss.” I cut him off. “Do the procedure. Now.” The surgery was a success. When the anesthesia wore off, the pain was excruciating. Not just physical, but a deep, hollowing agony in my soul. I lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, sleepless through the night. The next morning, the door to my room was thrown open. Eddy burst in. His eyes were shot with red, his face contorted in a panic I had never seen before. He rushed to my bedside and grabbed my hand. “Claire! The baby? Where’s our baby?” His voice was shaking. I looked at him and found it all so laughable. “The baby?” I said softly. “It’s gone.” A violent tremor wracked Eddy’s body. “Gone…?” he whispered, his face as white as the sheets. “How could it be… how could it be gone…?” Watching him shatter, a strange, vindictive pleasure coursed through me. “Eddy, I killed your child with my own hands.” “NO!” he roared, a guttural scream tearing from his throat as tears streamed down his face. He collapsed to his knees beside my bed, his hands clutching the sheets. “Why… Claire, why would you do that…? That was our baby…” He sobbed like a child, asking me why over and over. I looked at him, my expression cold as ice. “He was already dead the moment you chose to abandon your pregnant wife and fly to Paris for Evelyn.” My words were the final blow, extinguishing the last flicker of hope in his eyes. My body felt hollowed out after the procedure. I was curled up on the sofa, wrapped in a thick blanket, when Evelyn appeared at my door. The doorbell rang for the third time before I could muster the strength to answer it. It was her. Dressed in a chic, tailored cashmere coat, a large paper bag in her hand. “Claire,” she said, her voice sweet with a practiced familiarity. “Long time no see. I heard you weren’t feeling well, so I came to visit.” “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Her smile widened as her eyes swept past me, taking in the empty living room. “Eddy told me I could use the key to this place anytime.” Before I could react, she had already wheeled her suitcase into my home. She pulled a stack of photo albums from the bag and began to show them to me. The images were like poisoned daggers, stabbing into my eyes. One was at the airport.

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Every entertainment journalist asks the same question: Who is Eason Schnapp’s Row 8, Seat 27 reserved for? As one of the world’s top rockstars, that seat has remained empty at every single one of his concerts. But only I knew the truth. It marked our anniversary—mine and Eason’s. After the curtain fell on his 200th show, I was doing my usual late-night scan of the online chatter. Then, a single comment sliced through the noise. “You guys know nothing. I went to high school with him. That’s the day he and a certain someone broke up.” I frowned, trying to get a better look, but the comment vanished, deleted in an instant. Just then, my assistant’s frantic call came through. “Ava! Eason got into a fight! The cops picked him up!” My heart hammered against my ribs. Forgetting everything else, I tore out of my apartment, my car swerving as I nearly caused an accident. But when I arrived and looked through the bars of the holding cell, the sight that greeted me sent a chill through my soul. It was Eason, clutching a woman in a purple dress, his arms wrapped tightly around her. His eyes were bloodshot with a raw, protective fury I’d never seen before. And in that single moment, the entire world I had built around him shattered. 1 When I walked into the station, Eason’s brow furrowed at the sight of me. He didn’t loosen his grip on the trembling woman in his arms. “Ava, just get us bailed out.” My fingers curled into a fist. I stared at the woman’s face. She looked familiar. But now wasn’t the time for questions. The moment the media got a whiff of Eason in a police station, they’d descend like a pack of wolves. After signing the release forms, they were let out. Only then did I notice the tear in the woman’s dress, her fragile, trembling frame hidden beneath Eason’s tailored suit jacket. She looked so painfully vulnerable. At the station’s entrance, she glanced at me, her eyes red and swollen. She handed the jacket back to Eason, whose jaw was clenched tight. “Eason, thank you for tonight. I’m sorry for all the trouble.” He took a deep breath, a flicker of irritation in his eyes. “It’s no trouble. If it wasn’t for—” “Well, well, little thing,” a slurred voice interrupted. A drunk, bruised man stumbled out behind them. “Still dressed like that? Waiting for a real man to take care of you?” The girl flinched, her body shaking. Eason’s face went cold. A feral snarl twisted his lips, and he lunged, a blur of motion, his fist connecting with the drunk’s face again and again. The sheer violence of it stunned me. I’d never seen this side of him. “You want to die, you son of a bitch?” he roared, his voice guttural. “I’ll beat that filthy mouth of yours shut!” My heart leaped into my throat. “Eason, stop! Do you know where you are?!” We were right outside the police station! I rushed forward to pull him back, but in his blind rage, he shoved me, sending me sprawling onto the pavement. A sharp pain shot through my knee as blood began to seep through my jeans. The woman in purple gasped and ran to him, her voice choked with tears. “Eason, please! Stop! I’m okay!” At the sound of her voice, he froze. My lips parted, but no sound came out. I watched, stunned, as the man who had just ignored me turned to her with a look of frantic concern. “Are you crazy? Why would you run into a fight!” His voice, harsh at first, softened as he took in her tear-streaked face. “Did he hit you? Are you hurt?” Then, as if just noticing me, his gaze flickered in my direction. He walked over and helped me up. “How’d you fall over? Your pants are covered in blood, you okay?” I shook my head, numb, as a tiny crack formed in my heart. For starting another fight on police station property, Eason was detained again. The drunk threatened to press charges, but I handled it with a hundred thousand dollars. “You know what to say and what not to say,” I told him coolly. “Consider this a hundred grand for your silence.” The man’s eyes lit up, and he eagerly signed the settlement. In the car on the way home, Eason stared out the window, his lips pressed into a thin line. “Ava,” he said finally. “I’m worried that guy might go after Amanda. Can she stay with us tonight?” Amanda. So that was her name. A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to scream, to refuse, but the words wouldn’t come. For years, I had given Eason everything he wanted. I was his rock, his constant… his yes-man. I set Amanda up in the guest room. Later that night, in our bedroom, I finally broke the silence. “Don’t you have anything to explain to me?” Eason, toweling his hair dry, paused. He seemed to finally register the storm brewing inside me. He came over, wrapping his arms around me with a soft laugh. “Getting a little jealous, are we?” He gently kissed my furrowed brow. “That’s Amanda Summers. An old classmate. We’re not close, it’s not what you think.” I looked down, letting the acid of doubt churn in my stomach. Long after his breathing evened out into a deep sleep, I unlocked my phone. I found the profile of the person who’d posted that comment and sent a direct message. “Excuse me, the person you mentioned from Eason Schnapp’s past… was her name Amanda?” The reply was almost instant. “Yeah. Everyone at Northwood High knew about them.” I turned to look at the man sleeping beside me, my heart twisting in my chest. The person on the other end, thrilled to have found a curious ear, spilled everything. One message after another, they painted a picture of a past I never knew. Eason getting into fights for her. Eason studying relentlessly for her. Eason writing his first songs for her. And the story of their breakup—of Eason, begging her to stay, crying without a shred of his pride left. Each detail was another twist of the knife. But the final blow, the one that shattered me completely, was this: the day they broke up, August 27th, was the day he and I got together. 2 I had chased Eason for so long. That day, he just showed up beneath my apartment window, his eyes red-rimmed as he asked, “Do you want to be with me or not?” I was so stunned I couldn’t speak, caught in a daze of disbelief and joy. He looked at me impatiently. “Well? Yes or no?” “Yes!” I blurted out, terrified he’d change his mind. My eyes shone as I looked at him. It was the happiest day of my life. Now, I can only wonder: that photo he took of us kissing, moments after I said yes… who did he send it to? Was it for her? Was I just his revenge? So, August 27th wasn’t a celebration of me. It was a memorial for her. The thought squeezed the air from my lungs, my heart feeling like it was being crushed in a vice. All these years together, I had defied my family to follow him across the country, from one dingy club to another. He said he didn’t want to rely on his family’s connections, so I became his manager. I’d forced down drinks at sleazy meetings and endured the wandering hands and leering smiles of industry vultures, all to get him a deal, a stage, a chance. I never told him about the worst of it. I knew if I did, he’d go after those men like a mad dog, and I couldn’t let him ruin his career. So, as long as it wasn’t too much, I swallowed the humiliation and kept smiling. His career exploded. He became a superstar. And through countless sold-out arenas, that one seat, Row 8, Seat 27, always remained empty. I’d asked him about it once. He’d paused for a fraction of a second, then tapped my head playfully, his voice laced with affection. “You dummy. Did you forget our own anniversary?” His words had filled me with a dizzying sweetness. Now, that same memory was a bitter poison corrupting my heart. That momentary pause… he was inventing a lie for me. As the night deepened, a soft murmur from the man beside me sent ice through my veins. “Amanda… don’t leave me…” A bitter smile touched my lips. I was nothing but a fool in this play. The next morning, Eason woke up and instinctively pulled me into his arms for a kiss. I turned my head, avoiding him. His motion froze. He frowned. “Who pissed you off now?” “Get Amanda out of our house,” I said, my voice flat. “Don’t think I don’t know about your history.” He stood up, his expression turning cold, his voice dropping to a low, warning tone. “You investigated me?” “Ava, don’t cross the line. It’s not a good look.” I almost laughed. “Cross the line? I’m your girlfriend. What line is there to cross? Don’t I even have the right to ask?” His jaw was tight, his face a mask of anger. We stood there in a silent standoff. “Think whatever you want,” he finally said. “Nothing happened between Amanda and me. Ava, don’t be dramatic.” My lips trembled as a metallic taste rose in my throat. Just then, a soft knock came from the bedroom door, followed by Amanda’s apologetic voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to listen. I just needed to talk to Eason about something.” My face hardened. Eason sighed and went to the door. “Ava, you’re the only one for me,” he whispered, as if that could fix everything. He opened the door and introduced me to Amanda. I saw her smile falter, the expression she forced onto her face painfully strained. “Hi, Ava. Please don’t misunderstand. Yesterday, I was nearly assaulted, that’s why E… Eason helped me.” As she spoke, a look of real fear crossed her face, as if reliving the trauma. “Eason… could I possibly stay here for a little while?” “No.” “Yes.” Our voices overlapped. I stared at Eason, who shot me an annoyed look. “Ava, stop being unreasonable. Amanda has nowhere else to go right now.” I forced a brittle smile and turned to the woman before me, holding out a credit card. “Why don’t you get a nice hotel suite? Miss Summers, the bill’s on me.” Humiliation flashed across her face, as if I’d slapped her. “Ava Sinclair!” Eason snatched the card and threw it at me, the plastic stinging my cheek. “That’s enough!” He then took Amanda’s hand and led her away. A moment later, a text message lit up my phone. It was from her. I’m sorry, but I truly love him. I won’t give him up to anyone. That night, Eason didn’t come home. And the next day, I found out exactly what Amanda meant by ‘not giving him up.’ 3 The top floor of Apex Records was Eason’s exclusive domain. “Everyone, I want you to meet the new bassist for the band.” He gently pushed a tall, slender woman forward, standing behind her in a clearly protective stance. “Amanda Summers.” “She’ll be joining us from now on.” The room went silent. The other band members exchanged uneasy glances, their eyes darting between me and Eason. “Eason,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “I’m your manager. Did you run this by me?” He glanced at me, his eyes filled with indifference. “If you have a problem with it, you can quit.” His gaze was challenging, almost mocking. “You wouldn’t, would you, Ava? You couldn’t leave me. So just accept it.” A cold dread washed over me. I stared at him in disbelief. He was actually using my love for him as a weapon against me. But he miscalculated. I’m not the kind of person you can threaten. “Fine,” I said, my voice clear and steady. “I quit.” And with that, I turned and walked out, leaving him standing there with a look of stunned surprise on his face. The air in the room felt like it had turned to ice. Eason caught up to me in the hallway. The sight of me walking away without a second glance had sparked a strange panic in his eyes. “Ava!” He grabbed my arm, stepping in front of me. He froze when he saw the tears welling in my eyes. I never cried in front of him. He’d only ever seen me cry in moments of passion, never in anger or sadness. “You…” He let out a defeated sigh and pulled me into his arms. “I’m sorry, okay? I screwed up. I wasn’t thinking about your feelings. Forget I said anything. Amanda won’t join the band.” I pressed my lips together, a foolish sliver of hope flickering back to life in my chest. “Hey, don’t be sad,” he murmured. “Tomorrow’s our anniversary. I’ve got everything planned. Let me pick you up, okay?” I nodded, giving myself one last chance to be a fool for him. The next evening, I sat on the sofa, waiting, my heart fluttering with anticipation. But the night grew deeper. The silence in the villa grew heavier with each passing minute, crushing my hope into dust. My phone remained dark. Then, it pinged. The sound was jarring in the dead quiet. It doesn’t matter if I’m not in the band. I told you I wouldn’t give up on him. The text was accompanied by a photo: Eason and Amanda in the practice room, her body nestled against his. I glanced at the call log. Ten missed calls to him. I stood up, grabbed my keys, and drove. As I reached the top floor of the record building, the sound of music and their laughter drifted down the hall, each note a needle in my ears. My legs felt like they were filled with lead, each step an agony. My face was pale as I crept closer, peering through the crack in the door. The sight inside stole the breath from my lungs and the blood from my face. Amanda was sitting in Eason’s lap at the drum set. He was wrapped around her from behind, his hands covering hers as they beat out a rhythm. “How are you so clumsy? You still can’t get this?” he teased, but his eyes were full of a soft, smiling tenderness. When the music stopped, they leaned closer and closer, until their lips met. My strength gave out. I stumbled back against the wall, my fingers digging into the drywall to keep from collapsing. In that instant, the love I had nurtured for ten years finally, irrevocably, shattered. I closed my eyes, forcing back the broken light in them. “Looks like I came at a bad time.” My voice made them jump apart. Eason whipped his head around, instantly pushing Amanda away from him. When he saw the cold mockery in my eyes, his voice trembled. “Ava?” He rushed toward me. “Don’t misunderstand. I was just teaching her the drums.” I let out a sharp, humorless laugh. I strode past him to face the triumphant smirk on Amanda’s face. With my left hand, I shoved a cymbal crashing to the floor. With my right, I slapped her, hard, across the face. “Really?” I spat. “Since when do you teach the drums with your tongue?” Eason instinctively moved to shield Amanda, pulling her behind him as she clutched her cheek. The force of his movement sent me stumbling back into a wall, the sharp pain in my back mirroring the one in my heart. “Ava! Calm down! We can talk about this at home.” I looked at him, at the man I had once loved, and felt nothing but the bitter clarity of what a colossal fool I had been. “Eason Schnapp,” I said, my voice ringing with finality. “We’re over.”

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1 My mother and Jenna were on the sofa when a news report came on. The anchor, visibly upset, announced that a boot camp had abused its students, leading to a quiet, depressed girl’s death. Before it finished, Jenna laughed. “Kids are so fragile these days. A few smacks and they die? They just need discipline.” My mother agreed, feeding her a chip. “Exactly. My Chloe was the same, always pretending to be depressed. But since I sent her to that camp, she’s improved. She even writes letters now.” As she spoke, she took my blood-stained final letter and, without reading it, tore it up and threw it away. A sharp pain tore through my soul. Mom, if you knew the dead girl was me, would you feel satisfied? If so, I’m glad. It’s the last thing I can do for you. … My younger brother, Leo, came home from skipping class to play basketball, bursting through the door and making a beeline for the kitchen fridge. He grabbed a can of Coke and started chugging it down. Mom immediately dropped the chips and hurried over with a damp towel for him. She gently wiped the sweat from his brow, her voice full of adoration. “Oh, look at our Leo, all grown up! With a body like that, you could be a model. Who cares about school? Tell your homeroom teacher it doesn’t matter if you’re at the bottom of the class. You’re destined for great things.” After finishing his Coke, Leo glanced around the house. “Is that useless girl not here? No wonder I can drink this out in the open. Where’d she go?” Mom scoffed, the disdain in her eyes impossible to hide. “Hmph. Sent her off to a behavioral boot camp. That sister of yours has a stubborn streak that needs to be broken. The camp and her school have called a few times, but I haven’t bothered to answer. So annoying.” Hearing those words, my ghostly form, standing right beside them, flickered with a sudden awareness. A fragile hope sparked within me. If Mom had just answered the teacher’s call, maybe they would have brought my body home. Just bring me home. Lay me to rest. Then I wouldn’t have to be a lost soul, forever trapped in this place. The thought filled me with a desperate longing. Talking about me always irritated Mom, but with Leo in front of her, her expression softened back into that of a loving, gentle mother. “She’s not like you. You might not get good grades, but you’re a good, sweet boy. Your sister, on the other hand… always walking around with a face like death, like someone owes her a million dollars. What good are her grades then?” “It’s so frustrating,” she went on. “Last weekend, I went to her parent-teacher conference. Her teacher told me I should pay more attention to her, that she seemed a little depressed. As if we’re neglectful parents or something.” Jenna stood up, passionately agreeing. “Exactly! It’s not like you starve her or anything. She’s just faking this depression to make you look bad!” She covered her mouth with her hand, a mischievous smirk on her face. “No offense, but don’t you think your Chloe is just like those girls we used to hate in high school? The ones who acted all fragile and innocent just to get all the guys to fall for them?” Mom erupted in laughter, her body shaking. “You know, you’re right. What rotten luck, giving birth to a two-faced little actress. Who else has my luck?” Ashley, the girl with the worst grades in our class, couldn’t stand me. She hated that I did well, and she especially hated that her favorite biology teacher always praised me in class. One day, during the long lunch break, she dragged me into a bathroom stall. Her eyes were filled with contempt as she grabbed my chest, her fingers digging in hard. “No wonder all the guys in class are obsessed with you, writing you all those love letters. You’re just a little slut who developed faster than the rest of us, huh?” She leaned in, her voice a cruel whisper. “What do you do at night? Get yourself off under the covers?” I kept my head down, too scared to say anything. A curtain of dark hair fell over my eyes, hiding the world from my view. But my silent, submissive posture only seemed to infuriate her more. “Still faking it! You think playing the innocent victim is going to make me feel sorry for you? A girl knows a girl.” She raised her hand and slapped me hard across the face, her eyes blazing with hatred. “You’d better watch yourself. Stop putting on that slutty act. The next time I see you asking my favorite teacher a question, it won’t be just a slap.” The incident left me with deep psychological scars. From that day on, I grew more and more withdrawn. I avoided eye contact. I was afraid to speak more than a few words to anyone, terrified of accidentally setting someone off. That was why my homeroom teacher thought I was depressed. After the parent-teacher conference, she had pulled my mother aside, her voice filled with genuine concern, suggesting she take me somewhere to relax. But what awaited me outside the school gates were words far more painful than any slap or taunt. In the car, after my mother asked why I was so quiet and I tried to explain, she just laughed. Jenna, sitting in the passenger seat touching up her makeup, smirked. Her voice dripped with disdain. “What, is depression some kind of fashion statement for you kids now? Everyone’s got some kind of psychological issue. If you ask me, you just haven’t been hit enough.” She turned around, looking down at me as I cried silently in the back seat. “Besides, if you’re getting bullied and people are spreading rumors about you, don’t you think maybe, just maybe, you’re part of the problem?” “Look at you right now. Who are you trying to fool with this weak, pathetic act? Playing the victim. If you ask me, you had it coming.” My mother heard the venom in Jenna’s words and froze for a second. She glanced back at me, a flicker of pity and regret in her eyes. Her lips parted as if to say something, but no words came out. Jenna caught the look instantly. “Tsk,” she clicked her tongue, her face hardening. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for her. That’s not how you raise a kid. You’ve got to stamp out these dramatic tendencies, or you’ll end up with a manipulative little monster on your hands.” “I know a great behavioral boot camp I can recommend,” she said. “Thirty-four hundred a session. Send your daughter there for a good workout. She’ll come back obedient as a lamb. You can thank me later.” Ever since their school days, my mother had been the least popular one in their friend group, while Jenna was the undisputed queen bee. There were a few years, before I started elementary school, when I remember being cherished by my mother. The memories are hazy, but I recall sunlight warming my skin as I sat on a grassy lawn. My mother’s face was wreathed in smiles as she lifted me high into the air, her perfect teeth flashing as she cooed and made me laugh. Her perfume was the sweet scent of summer peaches, and I would giggle uncontrollably, a carefree little duckling. Then, one day, Jenna saw me, and the ridicule began. “Look at the way your daughter stares. Did you see that? She was totally checking out that cute guy.” My mother was stunned. As a mother, she knew her five-year-old daughter was simply captivated by the colorful pinwheel the man was holding. But the thought that her friend, the one she was always trying so hard to please, was actually talking to her, made her fold. She went along with it, her voice timid. “You’re right. Already looking at boys. So shameless.” The memories tumbled through my mind, fragmented and sharp. I suddenly remembered my first day at the boot camp. The first thing the instructors made us do was shave our heads on the drill ground. Some of the girls refused. Their punishment was a cattle prod that left no visible marks. One of the older male instructors zapped a girl in front of him, sending her crashing to the ground. He leered at her crumpled form. “Listen up. Any girl sent here is not some pampered little princess anymore. You need to remember your place. You’re nothing but filth in this camp.” “Follow the rules, you get to eat. Don’t, and all that’s waiting for you is pain.” The terrified girl choked back her tears. Her hands trembled as she picked up the electric clippers and began hacking away at her own hair. Her beautiful, waist-length locks fell to the ground in clumps, until she looked like one of the shorn, docile sheep from my childhood memories of the countryside. What’s the difference, I wondered, between us and livestock here? In that moment, I knew. This wasn’t just some ordinary boot camp. It was a hell designed to break our spirits and trample our dignity. For dinner that evening, we were given a small bowl of white rice with a spoonful of white sugar sprinkled on top. A few girls who had been there longer than us devoured their food like starving animals, their eyes vacant as they mechanically shoveled the rice into their mouths, like robots performing a programmed task. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I copied them, forcing mouthfuls of rice down my throat. In a strange and hostile place, the best way to avoid trouble is to blend in, to not stand out. The rain outside hammered against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling windows, a dense, rhythmic drumming like a thousand tiny nails. A sudden clap of thunder startled me, pulling me from my memories. I looked down at myself and realized my form was so transparent, almost like I was made of rain. For some reason, after death, my spirit was confined to this house. I think it was because of my last words. The agonizing, desperate cry echoed in my ears again, and I trembled uncontrollably. I was so scared. I curled my spiritual form into a ball and hid in the closet. But the wish I made as I died still reverberated around me: “I want to go home. Mom, I want to come home.” In the living room, Jenna was lying with her head in my mother’s lap, whining like a child for Mom to peel grapes for her. She was a completely different person from the one who had slapped me at the camp. Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring. The sudden shrill of the phone cut through the air. My mother glanced at the caller ID and her face lit up. But the voice on the other end, my father’s voice, was tight with urgency. “Where’s Chloe? Isn’t she home? Why are the police telling me to fly back? They said they couldn’t reach you. Chloe… they said something happened to her, but they wouldn’t say what over the phone.” My mother panicked at his accusatory tone. Her eyes darted around the room as she scrambled for an excuse. “Chloe? She’s right here at home! She’s fine! You must have gotten a scam call.” Hearing my father’s voice, a warmth spread through a cold corner of my heart. My nose stung, and I felt something wet drip down my face. Can ghosts cry? My father had been working in London ever since I was in elementary school. He only came home for the holidays, and every time, he would bring me beautiful dresses and special layer cakes from the city. His voice trembled now, low and terrifying. He demanded she start a video call and show him where I was. “Where is she? Why can’t I see her?” “You said Chloe was at home! Where is she? What have you been doing all day? How can you not even take care of your own daughter? Did you send her to one of those awful boot camps?” “The police said she was hurt at a camp. They told me to come back immediately.” Hearing that my father already knew part of the truth, Mom finally started to panic for real. But she quickly composed herself, forcing a casual tone. “Chloe’s just at a camp to learn some social skills. A little scrape is no big deal. She wrote home just a few days ago saying everything was fine. I just finished reading it today and threw it in the trash.” As she spoke, she rushed toward the trash can, intending to fish out the letter and show it to him. “Chloe’s a timid little thing, she wouldn’t even fight back if someone hit her. I’m sure she’s fine…” She reached into the trash can to retrieve the letter she had torn to pieces. My heart, or what was left of it, swelled with anticipation. I was sure that once she saw the letter, she would come get me. They would piece me back together. And then I could finally leave this place that held my soul captive and be reborn. But just as her fingers were about to touch the paper… The unthinkable happened.

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