The night before the wedding, everyone gathered to play Spyfall. The word card I drew had the name of Julian’s ex-girlfriend written on it—my fiancé’s ex. The game began. Victoria, Julian’s sister, spoke with open contempt: “That country bumpkin who crawled back from the sticks.” Lucas, Julian’s best friend, flicked ash from his cigarette. “Such a poser. I hated being anywhere near her.” Julian was silent for a long moment, then added, “Jealous. Painfully so.” My sister Mia nodded eagerly. “She’s practically got a persecution complex. Always thinks everyone’s freezing her out.” Something tightened in my chest. I’d met Chloe, Julian’s ex, once—she was gentle, well-mannered, nothing close to what they were describing. So I couldn’t help defending her. “Smart. Beautiful. Fun, too.” The moment I said it, Mia burst out laughing. “Evelyn, I didn’t realize you were that full of yourself.” The next second, the whole room erupted. Then, in unison, every finger pointed at me. I was voted out unanimously. Only then did it finally register—*I* was the spy. The name on their word cards was mine. Evelyn Raven. And the person they despised was me. … While I sat there frozen, my best friend Sarah pushed the door open, back from her errand. She began handing out chilled beers, one by one. Six people. Five bottles. Nothing for me. An immense exhaustion crashed over me. The six of us grew up together. When I was ten, I got lost, spent a year drifting through the slums before I was finally found and brought home. After I came back, when they divided crêpes and doughnuts, only crumbs were ever left for me. At our college graduation, everyone decided last-minute to move the celebration elsewhere. No one told me. I stood waiting until dark, until a kindhearted security guard finally clued me in. By the time I made it over, they were already deep in laughter—not one of them had noticed I wasn’t there. This time was no different. My sincerity had earned me only mockery, spoken right to my face. I decided, then, that some circles simply couldn’t be forced. There was no point clinging to a place that would never hold me. “You guys keep playing. I’m a little tired. I’m heading out.” I grabbed my bag and turned to leave a heartbeat before the tears could fall. The door clicked shut behind me, but my legs felt like lead. I sank down into the shadows of the hallway, covered my face, and let myself sob. Through the door, I caught faint murmurs. “Julian, aren’t you going after her? Your fiancée looked pretty upset.” Julian’s voice came back flat, terrifyingly cold. “No need. She can process it on her own.” Victoria seized the opening. “We’ve been shutting her out since we were kids and she still acts like nothing’s wrong. Country folk—they can swallow anything.” Another round of laughter rang out from behind the door. … “No need. She can process it on her own.” Victoria seized the opening. “We’ve been shutting her out since we were kids and she still acts like nothing’s wrong. Country folk—they can swallow anything.” Another round of laughter rang out from behind the door. Then came Lucas’s voice: “She still has no idea we ditched her on purpose the day of that Taylor Swift tour, so Chloe could get her closure, right?” “Sharing a hug and a goodbye kiss on the stage of a sold-out concert—now *that’s* a romantic ending.” “Honestly, I don’t think any of us have ever gotten over the fact that Julian and Chloe didn’t make it.” “Tonight’s little game—consider it us finally getting revenge on her behalf.” Sarah quickly hushed them. “Shhh… don’t let her catch on. She spent one year on the streets and she’s been playing the fragile card ever since. If she finds out, she’ll milk the sympathy for all it’s worth.” Sarah paused, then asked, “The thing about her mom’s injury—that’s not going to leak, is it?” Mia’s voice, brimming with confidence: “Relax. I already coached Mom and Dad. They love me the most. Whatever act I ask them to put on, they’ll deliver.” Crouched by the door, my heart plunged straight through ice. So that day, when Mom said she’d burned her arm making pizza—it was a lie. Dad wasn’t actually flying to Sydney for business. Every single one of them had lied to me. All so Julian and Chloe could have their romantic farewell kiss. I don’t remember how I got out of there. Midsummer. A hot wind rolled off the river and swept over me, and still I felt frozen to the bone. Slumped in the back seat of the bus, my mind was a blank canvas, splattered only with the echoes of their sneers. With trembling hands, I dialed Sarah. “Sarah. In the seven years Julian and I have been together—he and Chloe never actually broke up, did they?” “You… you knew all along, didn’t you?” I gripped the phone, praying she’d tell me it was some sick, unfunny joke. She didn’t hesitate for even a second. “Yes. I’ve always known.” “Look, at first I thought Chloe was just some homewrecker too.” Sarah’s tone was infuriatingly casual. “But the more time I spent with her, the more I realized—she’s a genuine angel.” “She leaves her umbrella for stray dogs in the rain. She buys pads out of pocket for undocumented girls working under the table… She’s so kind. God, who *wouldn’t* love her?” My nose burned. Tears spilled unchecked. “And me, Sarah?! Do I *deserve* to be stomped on like garbage by every single one of you?!” Silence on the other end for a beat. Then a matter-of-fact scoff. “Evelyn, I’m doing this for your own good.” “You’re always so petty, holding grudges over every little thing. You’re honestly acting like a crazy bitch.” … Silence on the other end for a beat. Then a matter-of-fact scoff. “Evelyn, I’m doing this for your own good.” “You’re always so petty, holding grudges over every little thing. You’re honestly acting like a crazy bitch.” “Those two are ten thousand times better matched than you and Julian ever were.” I listened, disbelieving, to the voice bleeding out of my phone. My best friend. When she was being bullied at that private high school, I stood in front of her and nearly took a box cutter to the face. When her ex-boyfriend was cheating, I was the one who kicked down the hotel room door to get her justice. And now, she was standing on the opposite side of the line without a shred of hesitation. I hung up. The wedding event planner called next. “Miss Raven, regarding your castle wedding with Mr. Julian Grant—there are a few details I need to confirm with you.” “The roses for the venue arrangements have all been swapped out for lilies, and the dessert bar has been switched entirely to oat-milk-based items.” I went rigid. “Did… did Julian make those changes?” “They were Chloe’s suggestions. Mr. Grant said… to leave the arrangements entirely to her.” The last of the warmth drained from my chest. I have a severe lily allergy. Even brushing against the pollen sends me into anaphylactic shock. Julian knew this. He knew it perfectly well. And yet, for a single word from Chloe, he could dismiss even my life as if it were nothing. In that instant, my heart died. I typed and typed into the message field—accusations, curses, hurt—but in the end, I deleted every last word. “The details are fine,” I said, my voice steady. “You’ve only gotten one very important thing wrong.” *The bride.*

I hung up and started packing. In this mansion perched on the edge of Beverly Hills, there really wasn’t much that belonged to me. The expensive fiddle-leaf fig on the terrace—*they’d* picked it out together at that Malibu nursery. The California-leather sofa in the living room was lined neatly with limited-edition figurines *they’d* brought back from Disneyland. Even the double-door Smeg fridge was stuffed with the sugar-free seltzers, craft beers, and air-flown seasonal fruit that the five of *them* loved. The strawberries Julian had once picked up for me on a whim were shoved into the most forgotten corner of the crisper, skin split, weeping sour, rotting juice. And yet, the night we’d bought this house, Julian had held me tight and sworn: “This is *our* home, Evelyn. Just the two of us. No one else can ever intrude on us here.” Now every corner reeked of their late-night parties, their games, their laughter. It wasn’t a home. It was a hotel suite for entertaining friends. At two in the morning, the lock clicked. Julian walked in reeking of whiskey, a pink pastry box dangling from his hand. … It wasn’t a home. It was a hotel suite for entertaining friends. At two in the morning, the lock clicked. Julian walked in reeking of whiskey, a pink pastry box dangling from his hand. “Baby, don’t do this, okay?” He rubbed his temple, worn out. “It was just a joke at a party. Nothing personal. We’re getting married in a few days. Grow up a little.” He opened the box and pushed it toward me. “I made a detour to grab your favorite strawberry tart. Let me apologize on their behalf, hm?” I said nothing. I just stared coldly at the dainty little dessert. The tip of the tart had been bitten off. A perfect set of teeth marks was left behind. The truth was, I didn’t even like strawberries. Back in their circle, strawberry was the one flavor all five of them despised. So it was always the leftover they pushed onto me. Over time, they’d convinced themselves it was my favorite. My instincts told me: this half-eaten strawberry tart was Chloe’s discarded leftover. I lifted my head slowly. My voice was calm. “Call off the wedding, Julian.” “Chloe’s leftovers make me sick.” The evasion in his eyes flashed into anger. “Evelyn! Could you be any *more* sensitive?” His voice rose. “It’s just a dessert—do you have to conjure up an entire soap opera out of it? Chloe and I ended a long time ago! You’re on me like a paranoid guard dog every single day, and I’m exhausted!” I laughed, cold and sharp, and stared right through him. “*I* make you tired? I’d think the past four years of you and everyone else putting on a full-scale performance behind my back would be a lot more exhausting.” Julian and I had been together since high school. Then he left for Europe to study, and we survived four years long-distance. When he finally came back, he suddenly had every excuse in the book to delay the wedding. All of my friends kept telling me, “A man has to focus on his career first. Pushing him too hard will ruin his work.” So I waited, foolishly, for him to give me a title. Only tonight did I understand—for the seven years of our relationship, he and Chloe had never actually ended. No wonder he never once posted me on Instagram or Facebook as his girlfriend. Even in group photos, if half my shoulder was visible in the frame, he’d delete it within seconds and repost it cropped. I once asked him, in tears, why. He just stroked my hair, indulgent. “Silly girl. I’m protecting you. There are too many dangers in our circle.” Back then, I was naïve enough to think it was consideration. Now I understood. He wasn’t afraid others would envy me. He was afraid the girl he kept tucked away in his heart would *see* me.

“Julian. Sarah told me everything.” I took a step back, dodging his touch. “Haven’t you performed enough?” … “Julian. Sarah told me everything.” I took a step back, dodging his touch. “Haven’t you performed enough?” The color drained from Julian’s face. Panicking, he stretched his arms open to pull me in. “Evelyn, it’s not what you think! Let me explain—” “Don’t touch me!” Nausea surged in my stomach. I threw him off with everything I had. In the struggle, my elbow slammed hard into his lower back. “*Ah—*” Julian doubled over in agony, folded like a shrimp, and crashed to the floor with a strangled groan. I froze. Cold sweat soaked through my back in an instant. Julian had a serious old lumbar injury—one he’d gotten in senior year of high school, saving me. That night, I was walking home alone when a group of drunken vagrants cornered me. He came charging in with a baseball bat and took the beating in my place. Three of his ribs were broken. He was left with permanent nerve damage in his lower back. He’d been forced to give up his shot as an Olympic-track swimmer. For countless nights afterward, guilt kept me awake. But Julian, lying in his hospital bed, would grip my hand through the pain and kiss my forehead so gently. “Evelyn, my pearl. If something had happened to you, what would any of that glory even *mean*?” Back then, he really would have laid down his life for me. And now, he was the one grinding my heart into dust. I drew in a deep breath and calmly dialed 911. Half an hour later, I rode in the ambulance with him to Presbyterian Hospital. After swiping my card at the front desk for the emergency bill, I realized I’d left my trench coat draped over the chair outside his room. I doubled back. Through the glass window of the ER, I heard soft, coquettish sobbing from inside. “Does she even *know* how bad your back is?! How dare that lunatic put her hands on you?!” On the bed, Julian was gingerly lifting his hand, brushing tears from Chloe’s cheek. His voice was so tender it could have dripped water. “Don’t cry, Chloe… I’m not in pain. It’s my fault. I handled things badly between the two of you. I owe her an apology.” Chloe sniffled, her voice thick with resentment. “Are you really going to marry a woman that emotionally unstable? You two will *never* be happy! I regret it so much… If I hadn’t run off overseas out of spite back then, the woman marrying you should have been *me*!” Julian was silent. His silence was his agreement. If not for Julian’s gravely ill father wanting a docile housewife of a daughter-in-law, he would never have chosen me. Then Chloe, overcome with emotion, leaned down and kissed him on the lips. My blood turned to ice. … If not for Julian’s gravely ill father wanting a docile housewife of a daughter-in-law, he would never have chosen me. Then Chloe, overcome with emotion, leaned down and kissed him on the lips. My blood turned to ice. I was about to shove the door open—when a savage force yanked me back by the collar! *Crack!* The back of my skull struck cold brick. My vision blacked out instantly. Before I could even cry out, I was being hauled roughly around the corner of the stairwell at the end of the hallway. I forced my eyes open. Standing over me were the other four members of that little circle. Victoria stepped forward first, arms crossed, eyes brimming with condescension and disgust. “Evelyn. Since you already know, we’re not going to bother pretending anymore. You should be clear about one thing: the only woman Julian has ever loved is Chloe.” Lucas twirled a Zippo lighter in his fingers. “Evelyn, have some *dignity*. Don’t stand in the way of true love.” Mia leaned in, matter-of-fact. “Wake up. Julian only agreed to marry you as a tactic to force Chloe home from abroad. It’s called relationship gamesmanship. Get it?” I had done nothing wrong. And yet they’d convinced themselves I was the malicious homewrecker. Seeing me lying there, silent, Sarah crouched down. “I’m doing this for you too, Evelyn. Even if you strong-arm Julian into marrying you, he’ll never love you.” She pulled out her phone and thrust the screen at me—the group chat between the five of them on iMessage. “You know every time Julian said he was working late at the office? He was out shopping with Chloe.” “You know his phone’s Face ID was set to two faces? His own, and Chloe’s.” “You know the person highlighted on his Apple Calendar was Chloe’s menstrual cycle, and the person pinned at the top of his WhatsApp was her?” “Even that custom cake you got for your birthday last year? Chloe had already turned down that design.” “We kept it from you because we were afraid you—unhinged as you are—would hurt Chloe. Do yourself a favor and disappear.” Sarah added, with a cold smile, “If you try to make trouble for her, the four of us will make sure you regret it.”

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Five years with Leon Carter. And this is our second time standing outside the Manhattan City Clerk’s office. Right before we hit the front desk,he turned to me. “Jane,I’m sorry.I can’t do this.” “Chloe took a shot for me at the party last night and drank herself into the ER…I can’t just leave her.” I stared into his deep blue eyes,remembering the exact same scene a year ago. Right before getting our license,I caught him cheating. He cried,claiming he was so drunk he thought she was me,begging for one more chance. When I said no,he threatened to jump off the 42nd floor,screaming he couldn’t live without me. I caved. And now? He pointed at a fat,balding white guy hanging around outside. “I just asked around.That guy owns two places in Brooklyn,no baggage.” “Just marry him today. That way I won’t feel bad about wasting your youth.” I looked down at the crumpled marriage application in my hand. Our names were printed right next to each other. Too bad for him. This time,I’m not caving. … “Not interested?” Leon arched an eyebrow and let out a laugh. He snatched the application from my hand and shoved it into his suit pocket. “Okay then,just forget about it.” He never actually wanted me to marry that balding guy. It was just a sick joke. A joke to test my limits,to prove to himself that I couldn’t live without him. Seeing me freeze,Leon reached out and ruffled my hair,his tone softening. “Jane,I knew you couldn’t walk away from me.” “I was just messing with you. That’s what you get for checking my phone yesterday and pissing me off.” “Chloe is just an old friend from college. She drank that shot for me and burned a hole right through her stomach. I can’t just ignore her.” I swatted his hand away and took a step back. Leon’s hand froze in mid-air.His jaw tightened. “Jane,are you seriously throwing a tantrum right now?” “I told you it was a joke.What more do you want?” “Are you trying to make me do something crazy again just to prove a point?” A year ago,he stood on the edge of the penthouse terrace,eyes red,screaming. Swearing that if I left him,he would kill himself. I thought that was love. I thought I finally found someone willing to risk his life just to keep me. But now I saw the truth. It was just a tactic to control me. He preyed on the fact that I grew up in a group home in the Bronx. Desperate for a real family. All he had to do was throw me a few crumbs of twisted affection,and I’d forgive him. “Fine.We won’t get married.” I looked at him,my voice dead calm. Leon paused. Normally,I’d be crying.Clinging to him.Begging him not to leave. But he just chuckled,slipping right back into his arrogant smirk. “There you go.Good girl.” “We can sign the papers later.It’s not like you have anywhere else to go.” “I have a meeting on Wall Street this afternoon. Take a cab back to the Upper East Side.” He spun around and strode off,looking so damn smug. He was probably laughing to himself,thinking no matter how much he humiliated me, I’d always be waiting at home for him like a loyal dog. Instinctively,I touched my stomach. In my purse sat an ultrasound report from a private Manhattan hospital. Six weeks pregnant. I had planned to give it to him as a wedding gift after we signed the papers. Now,it was nothing but a cruel joke. I pulled out the report,tore it into tiny pieces,and dropped it into the nearest trash can. Then,I headed back to the apartment we shared. He bought this place after his venture capital firm took off. When he handed me the keys,he told me this was my home now. I believed him. I decorated the place exactly like my dream home. Picked out every single thing myself. Looking at it all now,it just felt ironic. I pulled out my suitcase and started packing. It wasn’t much. No designer bags.No jewelry. I only packed the old clothes I bought myself. And the old tin box I took from my group home. Inside was my only keepsake—a rusty little pocket watch. It was all my birth parents left behind when they abandoned me. Leon once tried to throw it down the garbage disposal because he thought it was dirty. I had to fight him to get it back. I clenched the watch in my palm.The cold metal grounded me. Halfway through packing,Leon came back. I zipped up my suitcase. Just as I reached the top of the spiral staircase,I heard a sickly-sweet female voice coming from downstairs. “Leon…is Jane gonna be pissed?”

Chloe stood in the entryway,wearing the matching slippers I had made by hand. With her blonde hair and that innocent,harmless face,she looked like someone who just screamed”protect me.” Leon had his arm wrapped around her waist. “This is my house.Who’s gonna complain?” He glanced up at me at the top of the stairs,his eyes turning ice-cold. “Chloe just moved to New York and hasn’t found the right apartment yet.” “With her stomach ulcer,I don’t feel comfortable putting her in a hotel. She’ll be staying in the guest room.” I stood on the steps,watching them cling to each other. A sharp pain pierced my chest,so deep that even drawing a breath hurt. For five years,I had never allowed a single outsider into this house. Leon used to promise me that this place was our private sanctuary. Now,not only had he backed out of our wedding,but he had brought another woman home. “If she’s staying here,where does that leave me?” Leon frowned,annoyed by the question. He let go of Chloe,walked to the bottom of the stairs,and looked up at me. “Jane,can you stop being so damn sensitive?” “I already told you,Chloe is just an old friend from college. Her ulcer ruptured because of me. Is it a crime to take care of her for a few days?” “You are still the lady of the house.That hasn’t changed!” “As long as you play nice and stop acting so paranoid,you’ll still get everything I promised you.” The lady of the house? A woman who wasn’t even worthy of a marriage certificate? A woman forced to watch her man play house with someone else? It was almost funny. I wasn’t the lady of the house. I was just a kept woman.A dirty little secret. Chloe flinched,acting as if it took all her courage just to speak to me. “Jane,please don’t be mad at Leon.This is all my fault…” “If me being here makes you uncomfortable,I can just go. I’ve slept in my car before.I’ll be fine.” Leon spun around and grabbed her hand,pressing her onto the leather sofa. His face softened with pity for her. “You’re still recovering!Don’t be ridiculous.” Then,he whipped his head back to glare at me,his eyes full of accusation. “Jane,do you really have to make everyone miserable?” “A year ago,you drove me to the edge of a roof,and now you want to drive away the woman who saved my life?” Looking at his self-righteous face,I almost laughed. Who pushed who a year ago? He always did this. Gaslighting me into taking the blame just to ease his own guilty conscience. I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced myself to stay calm. “Do whatever you want.” I turned around. Sick of looking at them,I just wanted to finish packing. Leon thought I had caved again.The tension left his face. He jogged up the stairs,pulled an exquisite red velvet box from his suit pocket,and shoved it into my hand. “There you go.I love it when you’re reasonable.” “This is that Cartier diamond necklace you were eyeing last week. I had someone pick it up for you.” “So we didn’t sign the papers today. As long as you behave,there’s plenty of time for that later.” I stared at the expensive necklace in my hand. It felt like it was burning my skin. Whenever I showed the slightest hint of unhappiness,he would just throw a gift at me. He believed money could buy anything—even my dignity and my boundaries. I accepted the box without even opening it. God knows I wanted to throw the necklace right in his face. But I knew better. Doing that would only earn me another round of his humiliation. “Thank you.” Leon looked satisfied. He leaned in and kissed my forehead. “Good girl.Now go make dinner. Chloe has been craving that creamy potato soup you make.” He turned and walked back down the stairs toward Chloe. I watched them exchange a smile. I stepped into my bedroom and shut the door,cutting off the sounds of their happy little reunion. I pulled out my phone and returned the call that had been buzzing in my pocket earlier. It was from the private clinic. “Miss Evans? This is regarding your termination procedure scheduled for 10:00 AM tomorrow. We just need to confirm you’ll be arriving on time.” “Confirmed.I’ll be there.”

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The day the wedding vows were revised for the third time, Devin and Margot got into another screaming match. One was my older sister. The other was my fiancé. Margot insisted on cutting the line “for richer or poorer.” She said it felt tired and incredibly cliché. Devin scoffed. “What do you know about it? The classics carry weight. That’s the whole point.” They argued in the church aisles, they argued through the tasting menu at the restaurant. They fought over the word count of the vows and tore each other apart over the processional music. By early evening, Margot called me. “I finally got Devin to cave. We’re keeping that stupid line, but the entrance music is being changed to an acoustic string cover of “Starlight”. I’ve already hired an arranger. Noelle, what do you think?” 01 Margot’s voice was a little hoarse—evidence of how long she’d been yelling. Yet her tone was distinctly elevated, triumphant. She sounded like she’d just won a war. Before she even finished her sentence, the other end of the line exploded. Devin’s voice chased after hers, the muffled rustle of the receiver making it obvious he was physically trying to wrestle the phone out of her hand. “I didn’t agree to a damn thing! You play dirty. You couldn’t win the argument so you resorted to kicking me under the table!” Margot’s voice dripped with venom. “Shut your mouth, you absolute dog.” Devin let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Why don’t you shut up? You threw the wedding binder at my head!” “I wouldn’t have thrown it if you weren’t crowding my space!” “I only crowded your space because I was trying to get the binder back!” “So you admit you grabbed it first! Hence, the throw!” “Margot, you are a complete psychopath.” I sat in my apartment, gripping my phone, listening to the volley of their voices. They grew louder and louder. Just like they had a thousand times before. Neither willing to yield a single inch. Until they finally remembered I was on the line. “Noelle, listen to me,” Margot demanded, breathless. “Tell him you agree with my vision. You do, right?” Devin wasn’t having it. “Noelle, don’t listen to a word she says.” He immediately pivoted back to Margot. “Why are you even asking her? Asking her is just forcing her to pick sides.” Margot let out a cold, sharp laugh. “She’s my little sister. So what if she takes my side?” “She’s my “fiancée”. Why the hell would she take yours?” I opened my mouth to speak. They started shouting over each other again. During a thirteen-minute phone call, I spoke exactly three words. “Hello.” “Yeah.” “Okay.” I slipped them into the microscopic fractures of their argument. It felt like trying to slide a sewing needle between two suffocating brick walls. 02 The strategic merger between the Hughes family and the Garrison family was originally supposed to be between Margot and Devin. They were the same age. They grew up in the same country clubs, attended the same prep schools. Our parents sat down over drinks at the estate three times, and the whole thing was practically signed in blood. Everyone was thrilled. Everyone except Margot and Devin. “Marry him? Are you out of your minds?” Margot had shrieked, face flushed with rage. “Just looking at him makes me want to break something.” Devin was equally dismissive, rolling his eyes. “Margot? Wow, thanks. I wouldn’t marry her if she were the last woman breathing on the Eastern Seaboard.” Both sets of parents tried to run interference. They offered the classic, wealthy-parent platitudes: “Feelings take time to grow. Love is built on partnership. You’ll figure it out.” Margot went nuclear. “I am never marrying Devin Hughes. If you’re so desperate for this corporate alliance, you have another daughter. Give him Noelle. From what I can tell, they get along just fine.” She wasn’t even afraid of sounding ridiculous. Me and Devin? We were acquaintances, at best. Over the course of our entire lives, we had exchanged maybe ten sentences. She was just using my name to disgust him, to make him uncomfortable. But Devin’s reaction threw the entire room off its axis. He looked away. A faint flush crept up his neck, and suddenly, this brash, confident heir couldn’t even form a straight sentence. “If… if it’s Noelle, I wouldn’t be opposed to that. Noelle is quiet. She’s sweet. She listens. Actually, I… I like Noelle quite a bit.” Just like that, the tides turned. The dying embers of our parents’ grand alliance roared back to life. And in the end, the name next to Devin’s on the wedding invitations was mine. 03 But once the engagement was set, Margot suddenly decided Devin wasn’t good enough for me. She stomped her feet. She hunted him down just to berate him. “When exactly did you start looking at Noelle like that? Have you been creeping on her this whole time? Who the hell do you think you are, Devin? You don’t deserve her.” Then she’d turn to me, eyes blazing with righteous indignation. “He’s a player, Elle. He has zero moral compass. Don’t let the tailored suits and the polite manners fool you. Underneath it all, he is an absolute animal.” Because of this, she appointed herself my personal watchdog. Whenever she and Devin were in the same room, it was a bloodbath. They were at each other’s throats instantly. She audited his friends, she interfered with his weekend plans. Above all, she strictly forbade him from being alone with any other women. “You’re overstepping,” Devin would snap. Margot would stand tall, utterly unapologetic. “I am protecting my sister’s investment. I am guarding your so-called purity for her, and I will be watching you like a hawk.” Eventually, they became the social circle’s favorite spectacle. The bickering childhood enemies. Someone at a cocktail party once joked, “Honestly, you two give off major enemies-to-lovers energy.” Margot had been furious. She dragged Devin over to me, practically spitting mad. “Don’t listen to those idiots, Elle. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten-foot pole. If I actually wanted him, do you think you’d even be standing next to him right now?” I just smiled pleasantly and nodded. “Of course,” I said softly. “I believe you.” 04 My wedding to Devin was fast approaching. My family was rooted in Boston, but my art restoration studio was in Providence. Every weekend, I took the Amtrak up to play my part. Cake tastings, guest list audits, dress fittings. In reality, I was nothing more than a prop. Every single detail of my wedding was born out of a screaming match between Margot and Devin. They fought over the vintage of the champagne, the shade of the floral centerpieces, the font on the RSVP cards, and the brand of the artisan chocolates in the gift bags. It got so intense that our mother eventually teased Margot over brunch, “Darling, at this rate, you might as well be the one marrying him.” Whenever that happened, Margot would flinch, acting incredibly defensive. “I told you I can’t stand him! Why does everyone keep trying to push us together?” Today was my final dress fitting. Two gowns made the final cut, and it was time to choose. Devin drove over early to pick me up. We ran into Margot just as she was walking out the front door. She looked stunning. A tight designer slip dress, strappy heels, her hair blown out into perfect waves, makeup flawlessly understated. Devin took one look at her and raised an eyebrow. “Looking a little desperate today. Where are you going?” Margot’s eyes narrowed. She grabbed the hem of her dress and actually tried to kick his shin. Devin, having clearly anticipated the move, sidestepped it effortlessly. She scoffed, adjusting her purse. “I’m in a fantastic mood today, so I’m not going to stoop to your level.” Devin’s jaw shifted. His eyes swept over her, unreadable. Then, in a low voice, he said, “We’re going to the bridal boutique. You coming?” Margot rolled her eyes. “It’s not my wedding. Why would I go?” “Oh, so now you remember it’s not your wedding? Funny, considering you threw the floral samples in the trash yesterday.” “I threw them away because they were hideous.” “Hideous? You just have zero taste.” Just as they were about to spiral into another shouting match, Margot abruptly snapped her mouth shut. She rolled her eyes and shoved past him. “I don’t have time to entertain you. Move.” She strutted down the driveway, leaving Devin staring blankly at her retreating back. His expression was tight, caught somewhere between fury and something much heavier. I walked up beside him. “Is everything okay?” He immediately forced a smile, his voice dropping into that gentle cadence he always used with me. “It’s nothing. Come on, let’s go.” Devin was a powder keg around Margot, but whenever we were alone, he was mild. Polite. Considerate. He would carry the conversation, trying to make me laugh. Even though I was quiet and rarely gave him much of a reaction, he never seemed to mind. But today, the interior of the car was dead silent. I don’t know how many miles passed before he spoke. He tried to make it sound incredibly casual. “So, your sister looked like she was on a mission today. Where’s she off to?” I glanced at him. I didn’t say a word. He cleared his throat, shifting uncomfortably in the driver’s seat. “I mean, just asking. If you don’t know…” “She’s on a date.” My voice was flat. Emotionless. Devin slammed his foot on the brake. “What did you just say?” My body jerked forward violently, the seatbelt locking and yanking me back against the leather. I frowned, rubbing my collarbone. “That hurt,” I said, annoyed. Devin didn’t even hear me. His voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “Where did you say she went?” I looked up, meeting his manic gaze. “A date. Is there a problem?” Devin let out a harsh, breathless laugh. “No. Nothing. Great.” For the rest of the drive, the air pressure in the car was so heavy it felt hard to breathe. When we finally pulled up to the bridal shop, Devin didn’t turn off the ignition. “You go on in. I need a cigarette.” I murmured an acknowledgment, stepped out of the car, and followed the bridal consultant inside. “Miss Garrison, would you like to get into the first gown?” she asked warmly. I shook my head, taking a sip of the sparkling water they offered. “No rush. I’m going to wait a bit.” I waited for nearly twenty minutes. When Devin finally walked through the glass doors, he was walking fast, his face completely rigid. “Noelle, there’s an emergency at the firm. I have to head back right now. Can we reschedule the fitting?” 05 Devin left. I stood in the mirrored room, staring at the two final gowns hanging on the rack. One was the dress Margot had pushed for. The other was the one I liked. I pointed to the one Margot chose. “I’ll take that one. I don’t need to try it on.” Leaving the boutique, I didn’t go back to my parents’ house in Boston. I took the train straight back to Providence. An antique dealer had recently brought a piece to my studio. It was a 19th-century oil painting, a breathtaking landscape from the Hudson River School. The composition was brilliant, but there was a deep, jagged tear straight through the canvas, and the paint was badly flaking along the edges. It required patching, reweaving the canvas threads, and painstaking color matching. Half a month’s worth of meticulous labor. I was right at the finish line. Back in my studio, I pulled an all-nighter, hunched under the magnifying lamp until it was perfect. After I delivered the piece, collected the final payment, and closed the file, my phone buzzed. It was Devin. “Noelle, do you have some time? We need to talk.” His tone was grave. He had never spoken to me like that before. I narrowed my eyes slightly, my fingernail tapping lightly against my work desk. “I’m catching an afternoon train back to Boston,” I said. “Let’s do dinner tonight. With the families.” “Perfect. I actually have something I need to tell you, too.” 06 I arrived at the restaurant at seven. Both sets of parents were already there, chatting amicably over drinks. My mother was smiling. “Our Noelle is a bit reserved. She’s not as outgoing or charming as Margot, so you’ll have to be patient with her once they’re married.” Devin’s mother waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, stop it. I adore Noelle. Look at her—so well-behaved, so poised. I always tell my friends how jealous I am of you. Two daughters. Two absolute blessings.” I sat there, letting their voices wash over me like white noise, and quietly ordered for the table. Moments later, the heavy oak doors pushed open. Devin and Margot walked in together. They were standing incredibly close. But the second they looked up and realized how many eyes were on them, they froze, immediately jumping apart. It was a clumsy, guilty reaction. Luckily for them, I was the only one paying attention. “Margot, Devin, you’re here. Sit down,” my father commanded. “Waiter, we’re ready for the appetizers.” Devin and Margot exchanged a loaded look. Both of them looked physically ill. Devin took the empty chair beside me. Margot sat on his other side. “So, what’s the occasion tonight?” Devin asked, his voice strained. His mother looked at him, confused. “You didn’t know? Noelle told us she had a major announcement to make.” Every single eye at the table turned to me. I only looked at Margot. She stiffened, her eyes darting away in sheer panic. Devin frowned, his jaw clenched. “Noelle. What are you talking about?” I stood up. “I’m calling off the wedding.”

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My sister and I were twins. But from the moment we were born, she was the beautiful one. The sweet one. The day the earthquake hit our summer cabin, the ground violently tearing itself apart, my mother grabbed my sister. My father grabbed my sister’s dog. I was left buried under the rubble for twelve suffocating hours. I nearly died in the dark. When they finally pulled me out, my parents didn’t hold me. They warned me. “Josie, don’t make a scene,” they said, their voices tight. “If you throw a tantrum over this, we will beat you half to death.” My childhood felt like one long, unyielding season of rain. Right up until the day my sister’s biological parents showed up at our front door, explaining that there had been a mix-up at the hospital. In that fractured, surreal moment, a laugh actually bubbled up from my throat and spilled into the room. My mother grabbed me by the hair. She slapped me across the face. Then again. And again. She leaned in, delivering that same, familiar warning. “Josie, don’t make a scene.” “If you cause trouble now, I swear to God, I will end you.” 01 My mother was a tenured high school principal. She didn’t usually hit her children. And on the rare occasions she did, the apologies followed swiftly. Like right now. My cheek was still throbbing, swollen hot and tight, but she had already said “I’m sorry” three times. “Josie, honey, you know it breaks my heart to lay a hand on you.” “It hurts me more than it hurts you.” “But you cannot be cruel to your sister. It breaks her heart.” Her apology sounded fiercely sincere. But a sudden, visceral wave of injustice washed over me. I lifted my chin, staring right back at her, and forced the words out. “No. That’s a lie. Sabrina isn’t my sister.” “She’s someone else’s kid. She has nothing to do with me.” Yesterday, two strangers—a weary-looking man and woman—had sat in our living room. They explained that fifteen years ago, a nurse had handed them the wrong baby. They said Sabrina was actually their only daughter. I was only stating a biological fact. Yet, my mother raised her hand again. Her face went entirely dead. “Josie, you are incredibly ungrateful.” I was terrified of my mother’s hands, but the suffocating weight of the unfairness was heavier than the fear. Just then, Sabrina emerged from the hallway. She had thrown a fit yesterday and refused to come down for dinner. Now, her eyes were brimming with delicate, crystal-like tears. The thing about beautiful children is that even their grief is aesthetically pleasing. “Mom, please don’t hit Josie,” Sabrina cried softly. “This is all my fault.” And because Sabrina cried, my mother’s palm cracked against my skin once more. Summer clothes are thin. My mother’s acrylic nails were sharp. Angry, crisscrossing red welts began to rise along my arms. In the Gallagher household, the cardinal rule was this: when an adult disciplines you, you do not cry. But the sting was blinding. And Sabrina was still talking. “Mom, please. Don’t let yourself get so worked up. It’s bad for your blood pressure.” It was a dance we had perfected over a lifetime. The more Sabrina begged for mercy on my behalf, the harder my mother struck. Tears finally broke free, streaming down my face. Eventually, my father intervened. He was my rescuer. But all he did was wipe my cheeks with a rough thumb before pulling Sabrina securely into his chest. “Alright, that’s enough. No one is crying anymore,” he declared. “Sabrina is our daughter. Period.” “Anyone who makes her feel otherwise will have to answer to me.” In that moment, the tears just stopped. They dried up in my throat. Yet my parents still felt the need to instruct me. “Josie, you need to be kinder to your sister.” “Imagine how she feels. If she feels alienated in her own home, with no one to talk to… how heartbreaking would that be?” They truly, deeply loved her. I looked at them, my vision blurry, and asked a quiet question. “What about my real sister?” “If she feels alienated in someone else’s home, with no one to talk to… isn’t that heartbreaking, too?” The words hung in the air. I watched the color drain completely from my mother’s face, leaving it the color of ash. My father raised his hand. “Josie,” he said grimly. “You just never learn.” 02 Sabrina was the golden child of the neighborhood. Heart-shaped face, porcelain skin, doe eyes. The neighbors used to coo over her, telling my parents she was going to be a movie star one day. When I was little, I used to tug on their sleeves and ask, “What about me?” “Can I be in movies too?” The adults would offer me polite, pitying smiles. “Sure, sweetheart. Sure you can.” But as I got older, they stopped pretending. To my face, and behind my back, they were casually brutal. “Josie just doesn’t have the look.” I used to fight back. They would actually hold a mirror up to my face and educate me: “Look at your sister. She has a delicate, heart-shaped face. That is beautiful.” “You have a strong, square jaw. That is not.” “Your sister’s skin is pale and flawless. That is beautiful.” “You are dull and tanned. That is not.” They were so earnest in their cruelty. Once, I slapped the mirror out of an aunt’s hand. It shattered on the floor. I put my hands on my hips, glared at the room, and yelled, “You’re! All! Full! Of! Shit!” After that, the extended family mostly ignored me. Only one uncle, a soft-spoken man who liked kids, bothered to pull me aside. “When you pick out a puppy, you want the prettiest, most obedient one. People are the same way,” he told me gently. “Josie, since you aren’t the pretty one, you have to be the sweetest. The most thoughtful.” “Otherwise, your parents are only going to love Sabrina, and there will be nothing left for you.” He genuinely thought he was helping me, and a dark part of my child-brain suspected he was right. But my mother overheard. She stepped in, her voice dripping with maternal nobility. “I have two daughters, and I will always keep the scales perfectly balanced between them.” My uncle flushed red. “Of course. How shallow of me. You’re an educator, you know best.” But my uncle didn’t know the second half of my mother’s philosophy. She explained it to me privately, years later. “It’s hard to keep the scales perfectly balanced,” she had said, brushing my hair with rough strokes. “So, I tip them toward the older sister. Because a good older sister will balance them out herself.” “Josie, I “have” to give Sabrina more love.” “That’s the only way she’ll learn to share it with you.” And that was how it worked. On our birthday, the artisanal, twelve-piece chocolate truffle box was handed to Sabrina. She would eat her fill, then push the half-empty box across the table to me. When they bought us matching dresses, Sabrina got first pick of the colors. Whatever she discarded became mine. I wasn’t allowed to complain. If I did, my mother would sigh. “There were twelve chocolates. Sabrina gave you six. Isn’t that perfectly fair?” “What more do you want, Josie? Do you want seven? Nine? All twelve? What is your sister supposed to have?” Sabrina would look at me with weary exasperation. “There are only two dresses. If I pick pink, you throw a fit because you want pink. If I pick white, you want white.” “Josie, why are you always trying to compete with me?” “When are you going to realize that because you aren’t pretty, it doesn’t matter what color you wear?” 03 No one could have predicted that Sabrina wasn’t my parents’ biological child. But my parents strictly forbade me from ever bringing it up again. After breakfast that morning, they packed Sabrina into the SUV and took her to the amusement park to “clear her head.” They left me with a dining table full of dirty plates. In the span of twelve hours, they had hit me three times. All because of Sabrina. I quietly gathered the plates and carried them to the sink. The house was empty, so I let my tears drop straight into the dishwater. And then, an idea sparked, bright and sharp in my chest. If my parents wouldn’t send Sabrina back, I would do it myself. I remembered the strangers saying they had taken a Greyhound bus into the West Side Terminal. I dropped the sponge. I grabbed my stash of allowance money and bolted out the front door. But the bus terminal was a sprawling, chaotic mess. There were hundreds of people. I searched for hours until my feet ached, finding absolutely nothing. I trudged home, thoroughly defeated. The whole walk back, my stomach tied itself in knots, dreading my mother’s wrath over the unfinished dishes. But the house was still dark and empty. There was a post-it note stuck to the front door. “Josie, your mother texted. They decided to stay at a hotel tonight. Come down to our place for dinner.” I recognized the handwriting. It was the neighbor from the first floor. A tiny drop of sweetness bloomed in my chest. The neighbor was a terrible cook—I usually only managed to choke down a few bites of her dry casseroles. But her son was Tyler. Tyler’s family had only moved into the building this year. He was a year older than me. It took exactly one minute for us to become best friends. He was different from the other kids in the complex. Unlike them, he actually preferred hanging out with me over Sabrina. When Sabrina’s name came up, he was entirely unimpressed. “She always has a whole mob of people around her, making so much noise,” he’d say, kicking a pebble. “Those guys are so basic, just trailing after the pretty girl like lost puppies. I’m not like them.” That was how my trust in him was forged. I gave Tyler all my loyalty. I told him all my secrets. I told him that Sabrina would beg for a white dress, wear it twice, decide she hated it, and demand a new one. “She’s so dramatic,” he’d say. I told him how Sabrina hated pain, how she’d scrape her knee and cry for three hours. “She’s so high-maintenance,” he’d say. I told him how Sabrina would have a nightmare, get depressed, refuse to eat, and send my mother into a panic. “Wasting food is a sin. What a brat,” he’d say. Tyler always said exactly what I needed to hear. So now, I couldn’t wait to tell him the biggest secret of all. “Sabrina isn’t my sister. She’s leaving.” Tyler froze. “What? How did that happen?” I lifted my chin, feeling a surge of pride. “Because I’ve been praying to the moon every night,” I said. “And my wish finally came true.” 04 Last summer, we rented a cabin up in the mountains to escape the heat. That was when the earthquake hit. My mother grabbed Sabrina. My father grabbed Sabrina’s golden retriever. In the chaos, they completely forgot about the sleeping girl in the back bedroom. Me. I was trapped under shattered beams and drywall for twelve hours. By the time the rescue team pulled me out, my vocal cords were shredded from screaming, and my arm was broken. My parents were highly educated, rational people. So they sat by my hospital bed and delivered a very rational apology. “We are sorry.” “But you have to understand, if we had a third arm, we would have grabbed you too.” “Josie, you are not allowed to be angry about this.” “If you throw a tantrum, we are going to be very disappointed in you.” I hadn’t intended to forgive them. But they brought me chocolate. So I swallowed the bitter, jagged question burning in my throat: “Why did Dad use his arms for the dog?” “Is it because keeping the dog alive made Sabrina happier than keeping me alive?” Most days, living with my family felt like living in a coastal fog. Stifling. Humid. But never, ever warm. My childhood was just an endless, dreary downpour. But ever since that day in the rubble, I started looking up at the night sky, whispering to the moon. “Make them love me a little more.” “Make them love Sabrina a little less.” It was the kind of magical thinking you see in old fantasy movies. I didn’t have the flowing gowns or the magic wands, but somehow, my wish had worked. I was pacing Tyler’s room, my voice rising with adrenaline. “My dad says they aren’t going to swap us back.” “But that’s not going to fly.” “As soon as I find her real parents, I’m giving Sabrina back to them, and I’m bringing my real sister home.” Tyler usually agreed with everything I said. But right now, his face was drawn and serious. “Are Sabrina’s real parents richer than yours? Will they treat her right?” he asked. I thought about it. “My parents said they run a fish hatchery. They probably don’t have a lot of money.” Tyler exhaled a long, heavy sigh. “Josie, you can’t be this selfish.” “If Sabrina goes out to the country, what is she going to eat? Where is she going to sleep? What if she wakes up crying in the middle of the night?” “Didn’t you tell me she can’t even eat when she has a nightmare?” “She’s too beautiful to be scooping fish guts on a farm.” In that split second, all the blood in my body rushed to my ears, a deafening roar. I slammed my hands onto his desk. “Whose side are you on?!” Tyler scowled. He shoved my shoulder, pushing me back. “You are actually so toxic, Josie,” he spat. “No wonder your parents don’t love you.” I felt a sudden, freezing draft in my chest, like a window had just shattered wide open inside my ribs. But I locked my jaw. I did not let the tears fall. I looked Tyler dead in the eye, my voice eerily calm and distinctly clear. “I am not toxic.” “You are.” “You only pretended to be my friend so you could get closer to Sabrina.” “You’re a hypocrite, Tyler. And you’re pathetic.”

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I’ve always been able to see exactly how much people despise me. It hovers over their heads like a digital readout, a raw metric of their secret resentment. Five years of marriage, and tonight was the first time Victoria didn’t come home. No answered calls, no returned texts. It wasn’t until the sky began to bruise with the pale light of dawn that the front door finally clicked open. I hurried to the foyer, my chest tight with worry. “Where were you?” She offered a soft, rehearsed explanation, her voice as gentle as it had always been. “Emergency at the office, sweetheart. I had to put my phone on silent.” But my eyes were locked on the space just above her head. My heart bottomed out. Since our wedding day, her disdain meter had been a solid, reassuring zero. But in that exact second, the number flickered. It jumped to 5. Panic set in. I was about to ask if I’d done something wrong, if I’d somehow hurt or annoyed her, when her phone buzzed on the entryway console. An incoming text. Behind a playful cartoon avatar, the sender’s contact name read “Brody”. Victoria instinctively turned her shoulder, shielding the screen from my view. But as she looked down, the faint reflection of her smiling lips caught in the windowpane. And right above her, the harsh red numbers surged again. “Disdain Level: 50.” … A single text. A forty-five-point leap into pure contempt. I clutched the medical scan results in my palm, my fingers going numb. I didn’t need to ask. I already knew the answer. Victoria turned back around. Seeing the color drain from my face, she stepped forward, wrapping her arms around me with a familiar, practiced tenderness. She tilted her chin up to press a soft kiss against my cheek. “Hey, stop worrying,” she murmured. “Work has just been insane lately. I should have texted you beforehand.” “Next time I have to stay late, I promise I’ll let you know.” I didn’t say a word. I was staring at her left hand. Her ring finger—where her wedding band usually sat—was bare. There was only a faint, pale indentation left in the skin. She noticed my gaze. Her hand instinctively curled into a tight fist, hiding the empty finger. “I took it off when I was washing my hands yesterday,” she said, her voice smooth but slightly too fast. “I think it slipped down the drain. It was getting old anyway. We can go buy a new one whenever we have some free time.” That ring. I had forged it myself when we got married. I had spent weeks in a local metal workshop, sweating over the forge, ending up with blistered, calloused hands. Back then, Victoria had cried when she saw it. She’d gently applied ointment to my burned skin, her voice thick with tears: “This is the most precious thing I’ve ever received. I’ll never take it off. I’ll never lose it.” For five years, even during the winters when her fingers swelled slightly and the band pinched, she’d never taken it off. Not once. And now, she was telling me it was gone with the casual indifference of a misplaced set of keys. Victoria was a terrible liar, though she probably didn’t realize it. Whenever she fabricated a story, she had a nervous habit of tightly pressing her lips together. I saw right through it. But I didn’t call her out. I walked over to the kitchen, tossing the medical report into the trash can on the way. There was no point. Sensing that I wasn’t going to press the issue, Victoria let out a quiet sigh of relief and headed into the master bathroom. As the hum of the shower started up, her phone buzzed again on the coffee table. The same cartoon avatar. As if possessed by someone else, I walked over. I punched in my birthday—the passcode we’d shared for years. The screen unlocked instantly. The boy was a new assistant in her department. Brody. Twenty-one years old. They had only been connected on the app for less than a week, yet the thread was an endless scroll. There were more messages here than Victoria and I had exchanged in the last five years of our marriage. A hot, blurry haze filled my eyes. I tried to read the words, but my tears kept falling onto the glass, smudging the screen. One tear fell directly onto Brody’s profile picture. I tapped it, and his social media feed opened up. And there, beneath the glare of the screen, was Victoria’s “lost” wedding ring. In the photo, the boy held the silver band in his open palm, grinning boyishly at the camera. The caption read: “I casually mentioned how much I liked it, and Ms. Crawford literally took it off her finger and handed it to me lol. If this isn’t being spoiled, I don’t know what is.” My fingers began to shake violently. A sharp, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest, so intense it made my knees weak. I had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing. I had prepared myself for a lot of scenarios. But I never imagined this was how she had “lost” her ring. I remembered the night I met Victoria. My father had kicked me out of the house, stripping me of everything. I was sitting on a cold curb, without enough change to buy a cheap cup of instant ramen. She had stopped in front of me, handing me a bag of groceries and a warm carton of milk while I sobbed so hard I could barely breathe. Victoria, with her endless capacity for sympathy back then, couldn’t bear to leave me there. She took me back to her cramped, rented studio apartment. People always talk about the light that saves you from the dark—the savior trope. For years, Victoria was mine. She had literally pulled me out of the mud and built a home with me. Back then, I thought I was the luckiest man alive. Even if my own blood rejected me, I had found a woman who wanted to build a life with me. Who would have thought that before we even reached our seven-year itch, our marriage would disintegrate like this? “What do you think you’re doing?!” A sharp yell shattered my thoughts. Before I could even process the sound, Victoria lunged forward, ripping the phone out of my hands. She used so much force that I stumbled backward, my leg scraping hard against the sharp edge of the coffee table. A thin line of blood welled up instantly. When I looked up, the red numbers hovering above her head were blinding. “Disdain Level: 55.” “Jesse!” It was the first time she had ever used that cold, sharp tone with me. Her face was twisted in a look of pure disgust. “Snooping through my phone is incredibly toxic. There are boundaries, Jesse.” Then her eyes flicked down to the scrape on my leg. Her tightly knit brow softened, just for a fraction of a second. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push you.” “I just… I really don’t appreciate you invading my privacy.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, my voice barely a whisper. “We’re married, Victoria.” Her frown returned, deeper this time. “Even married people need space, Jesse. We need to respect each other’s boundaries.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked into the home office. Before I could say another word, the heavy wooden door clicked shut. She locked it from the inside, shutting me out entirely. On the stove, the pot of sweet corn chowder—her favorite—was sizzling furiously. The bottom had scorched, filling the small kitchen with a bitter, burnt smell. I walked over and quietly turned off the burner. In the early days of our marriage, Victoria wasn’t like this. She had climbed her way up to the executive suite through sheer grit, becoming one of the most respected directors in her industry, yet she had always been incredibly tender toward her ordinary, quiet husband. Our friends used to tease me, saying marrying her was the single greatest stroke of luck in my life. Maybe I had listened to those compliments for too long. Maybe I had been naive enough to believe she was different from everyone else. Now I knew. She wasn’t different at all. I changed my clothes and went to work, keeping my head down. I didn’t call her, and I didn’t send a single text. Stepping back wasn’t just a tactical retreat; it was a matter of basic dignity. I knew when I wasn’t wanted. Maybe she felt a twinge of guilt, or maybe it was just a passing whim. Late that afternoon, a text from Victoria popped up on my screen. “Hey babe, let’s not fight. I booked a table at that new Italian place downtown to make it up to you.” Part of me wanted to refuse, but I knew we needed to talk. We couldn’t keep living in this suffocating silence. I agreed to meet her. When I arrived at the restaurant, I spotted her immediately through the floor-to-ceiling windows. She had an effortless, regal elegance that didn’t rely on designer labels. Even in a simple white linen dress with no jewelry, she commanded the room. But then my gaze shifted to the young man sitting next to her, and my throat tightened. He was holding a boba tea, taking a happy sip before smiling and pressing the straw directly to Victoria’s lips. Victoria laughed, leaning in to take a sip herself. The same cup. The same straw. There was no hesitation. The movement was so fluid, so casual, like a pair of college sweethearts in the middle of a honeymoon phase. Victoria had always been a germaphobe. She never shared food or drinks with anyone. Even if I offered her a bite of my food, she would politely but firmly decline. Yet here she was, drinking after another man without a second thought, her eyes sparkling with laughter. I stood outside the glass doors, my teeth clenched so tightly I could taste copper on my tongue. Even before I saw his face clearly, I knew. It was Brody. As if sensing my presence, Victoria looked up. Our eyes locked through the glass. The laughter vanished from her face instantly, replaced by a sudden, fleeting look of guilt. She stood up and hurried to the entrance, pulling me toward the table. “This is Brody, the new associate in my department,” she said quickly. “He didn’t have any dinner plans, so I told him he should tag along.” “The more the merrier, right?” With that single, breezy sentence, she effectively choked out any questions I might have asked. I forced my lips into a polite line, trying to keep my composure. A three-person marriage is certainly crowded, but it is anything but merry. Like the small round table before us, it was built for two. A third person meant someone was always squeezed out. Brody leaned back in his chair, offering a lazy, confident smile. “You must be Jesse. Wow, you look… a lot older than Victoria.” “Sorry for crashing your date night, man. I promise I’ll try not to be too much of a third wheel.” The mockery in his eyes was naked, a childish but deliberate provocation. The urge to turn around and walk out was overwhelming, but Victoria caught my arm, forcing me down into the chair beside her. “Come on, sit down. Brody’s just teasing you.” “He’s young, Jesse. Don’t be so sensitive. Let it go.” She smiled warmly, but above her head, the vivid red numbers flared. “Disdain Level: 65.” I hadn’t said a single word, yet my mere presence had cost me another five points of her respect. The waiter approached, placing a menu in front of Victoria. “Ma’am, the couples’ tasting menu you ordered last time is off the menu today, but you and your boyfriend can look at our new seasonal selections.” He handed the second menu to Brody. Brody didn’t bother correcting him. He just pointed at the page. “Sure, let’s do the new couples’ menu. It looks great.” Only after the waiter walked away did Brody look at me with a performative gasp of realization. “Oh, shoot. I’m so sorry, Jesse. I totally forgot you were here.” “But don’t worry, the portions are huge. Honestly, I have a tiny appetite. Last time, Victoria had to finish half of my plate anyway. We can just share.” Victoria tapped Brody’s forehead with a playful, reprimanding finger. “Stop misbehaving,” she chided softly. “You can’t offer Jesse your leftovers.” It was a scolding in theory, but her tone was soaked in affection. There was no real bite to it. “Jesse,” she said, pushing her menu toward me. “See if there’s anything else you want to add.” I didn’t take it. I just shook my head. “No, thanks. I’m not hungry.” Victoria opened her mouth to argue, but Brody beat her to it. “I don’t blame you, Jesse. Honestly, if I showed up to a place like this wearing rack-discount clothes, I’d probably lose my appetite too.” “Oh, by the way, when I closed that big account last week, Victoria bought me a couple of designer suits. I have way too many now. You should come over and pick one out.” Before I could find my voice, Victoria leaned over and draped a soft cashmere wrap over Brody’s lap. “Don’t worry about it. What’s bought for you is yours. Besides, those cuts wouldn’t really suit Jesse anyway. He doesn’t really have the frame for it.” “He’s… different from you guys.” My hands balled into fists under the table, the nails biting deep into my palms. Different. Of course I was different. I was thirty years old. And Brody was barely twenty-one, in the absolute flush of his youth. The warm amber light from the chandelier washed over Victoria’s face. She looked so perfectly casual, completely oblivious to the casual cruelty of her words. While I sat there frozen, the food arrived. Two beautifully plated steaks. One was placed in front of Victoria. The other went to Brody. I couldn’t breathe. I stood up, turned on my heel, and walked out. Just as the glass doors swung shut behind me, I caught a final glimpse of her through the window. She hadn’t stood up to follow me. Above her head, the numbers shifted. “Disdain Level: 70.” Victoria didn’t come home until long after midnight. The moment she stepped through the door, her phone rang. It was a custom ringtone—the one she had recently assigned specifically to Brody. She answered it almost instantly. “Brody? What’s wrong?” Through the receiver, his voice sounded fragile, trembling with a quiet sob. “Victoria… there’s someone walking around outside my apartment building. I’m really scared…” Victoria’s face went entirely pale. “Stay inside,” she said, her voice tight with panic. “Lock your doors. I’m coming right now.” She kicked her shoes back on and grabbed her keys. As she turned toward the door, I finally spoke. “Victoria.” She stopped. Her back was to me, her shoulders stiff. “Just because I don’t say anything doesn’t mean I’m blind,” I said quietly. “Please don’t treat me like an idiot.” For a long moment, she didn’t move. She stood perfectly still in the entryway. But she didn’t explain. She didn’t look back. She opened the door and hurried out into the night. Before the door clicked shut, the red numbers above her head flashed one last time. “Disdain Level: 75.” The door slammed shut. The apartment fell back into a heavy, suffocating silence. She had left in such a rush that she hadn’t even taken her coat. Another night alone. I didn’t call her, and I didn’t text. The next morning, I took a cab to a lawyer friend’s office. I asked him to draft a divorce agreement. My friend stared at me, trying to talk me out of it. “Jesse, are you sure? Women like Victoria—successful, brilliant—don’t come around often. You should be fighting to pull her back, not just handing her over to some kid.” “Ending a five-year marriage like this… it’s a waste.” I took a slow sip of my black coffee, letting the bitter taste settle on my tongue. I didn’t offer an explanation. Walking away was painful, yes. But holding onto something that was already dead was worse. Our marriage had cracked open, and once the foundation of trust was gone, the rest of the house was bound to collapse anyway. There was nothing left to salvage. Sometimes, letting go is the only way to save yourself. A few hours after the papers were drafted, my phone rang. It was Brody. “Let’s meet up,” he said, his voice dripping with smug satisfaction. “I have some things I think you’d love to see.” He was young and reckless, clearly riding high on the victory of the night before, eager to rub my face in it. I didn’t back down. I agreed to meet him at a quiet park nearby. The moment I arrived, Brody pulled out his phone and thrust the screen in front of my face. It was a photo of the two of them. They were in his bed, tangled in the sheets, pressed close. Victoria was looking at him with a look of soft, dizzying adoration I hadn’t seen on her face in years. “Victoria spent the whole night in my bed,” Brody sneered, his eyes narrowed with triumph. “She promised me she’d give me everything I ever wanted.” “To her, you’re just a glorified housekeeper who cooks her meals and does her laundry. I’m the one who actually belongs by her side.” I stared at the screen. A dull, heavy ache settled in my chest, but I forced my expression to remain entirely flat. “Good for you,” I said, my voice steady despite the tightness in my throat. “I hope you two are very happy.” Brody’s smile faltered, irritated by my lack of reaction. He grabbed my wrist, his grip surprisingly tight. “Oh, come on, Jesse. A simple blessing isn’t enough.” Before I could pull away, his face twisted into a performance of sheer terror. He grabbed my hand and yanked it toward his own cheek, striking himself hard. “Ah! Victoria, help!” Before I could comprehend what was happening, a violent force shoved me from behind. I stumbled backward, my head colliding hard with the stone base of a nearby statue. A sharp, blinding pain exploded at the back of my skull. Through the high-pitched ringing in my ears, Victoria’s furious voice cut through the air. “Jesse! If you have a problem with me, take it out on me! Don’t you dare touch Brody!” Warm blood began to trickle down my neck, dripping onto the concrete. I forced the words past my lips. “Victoria… call an ambulance.” Even though I wanted a divorce, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live my life. But Victoria’s attention was entirely consumed by Brody. “Victoria, I was just trying to apologize to him…” Brody whined, clutching his cheek. “It hurts so bad. Do you think it’ll scar?” Victoria held him close, her voice thick with worry. “Shh, it’s okay. I’m taking you home right now to get some ice. It’ll be fine.” She didn’t look back at me. Not once. She helped Brody to his feet and hurried him toward her car. In my fading consciousness, I saw the crimson numbers above her head spike to their absolute limit. “Disdain Level: 98.” I let out a bitter, silent laugh. Summoning the absolute last of my strength, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911. An hour later, after Victoria had dropped Brody off at his apartment, her phone rang. It was the hospital. “Is this Victoria Crawford? Your husband, Jesse Crawford, was admitted with severe head trauma resulting in an intracranial hemorrhage. He is currently in emergency surgery. We need you here immediately to sign the consent forms.” Her breath caught. The world seemed to stop spinning. “Intracranial… hemorrhage?” When reality crashed back in, she ran out of the building, driving like a maniac toward the hospital. At that exact moment, the bright red numbers above her head plummeted for the first time in months. “Disdain Level: 20.”

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I can see how much people love me. Literally. When my lab partner asked to copy my homework and I refused, his number plummeted to zero in a blink. The day I caught my boyfriend cheating, his stat took a nose-dive off a cliff. The only number that ever truly terrified me was my mother’s. I lived in constant dread of watching her percentage drop. Fortunately, for eighteen years, the flashing neon digits above her head remained a steady, unwavering 100. She was the kind of mother who would sever ties with judgmental relatives just to shield me, who would bring home the absolute best of everything and lay it at my feet. Countless times, I whispered a silent prayer of gratitude for having the best mother in the world. Until two weeks ago. She came to visit me at school. I looked up, and a sharp, blinding glare pierced my eyes: [85]. My chest tightened as if squeezed by an invisible fist. Panic set in. I spent the next fortnight in a manic spiral, picking apart every conversation, every grade, desperately searching for what I had done to disappoint her. Until today. Today, she brought home a girl. A girl in faded, oversized clothes, with large, trembling eyes. The biological daughter. Switched at birth eighteen years ago in a chaotic county hospital. My mother held my hand so tightly my knuckles turned white. Tears streamed down her face as she swore to me, “Diana, don’t be afraid. Even though she’s back, you will always, always be my favorite girl.” But the exact millisecond the word “favorite” left her lips, the digits above her head flickered violently, tumbling downward like a malfunctioning stock ticker: [20]. Looking up at that bleeding, crimson number, a strange, quiet relief washed over me. It wasn’t that I hadn’t been good enough. It was simply that I didn’t belong here anymore. … I gently pulled my hand from my mother’s grip. “Mom, I’m fine.” The girl stood in the marble entryway, looking so fragile and raw it made my heart ache. Her name was Bella. Eighteen years ago, in a busy hospital ward, a tired nurse on shift-change mixed up our ankle bands. Bella and I were sent home with the wrong families. My adoptive parents eventually struck gold in real estate, moving us into a sprawling estate in Westchester, while Bella stayed with my biological parents in a rundown Appalachian town, scraping by through eighteen years of poverty. “Come in, Bella. Come,” my mother said, her voice dropping to a soft, reverent whisper, as if she were handling blown glass. “This is your home now.” Bella stepped over the threshold. Her eyes darted from the ten-foot oil painting in the foyer to the dripping crystal chandelier, then down to the polished marble floors. Her fingers instinctively clawed at the frayed cuffs of her sweater. My mother noticed. She leaned down, closing her manicured hands over Bella’s rough ones. “Don’t be afraid, sweetheart. All of this… it’s yours now.” It was an exquisitely tender gesture. I stood frozen in the hallway, trying to remember the last time she had held my hand with that kind of desperate, protective warmth. I couldn’t. After dinner, my mother led Bella upstairs. “Bella, I’ve put together a room for you. Let me know if there’s anything else you need.” She threw open the double doors of the south-facing guest suite. Floor-to-ceiling windows, a walk-in closet, a soaking tub. It was the crown jewel of our guest wing. Bella hovered at the threshold, shifting her weight. “This… this is too big. I don’t think I can sleep here. Just give me a small closet or something.” Her voice was thick with genuine, overwhelming humility. My mother pulled her into a tight embrace. “You’ve suffered for eighteen years, my sweet girl. I want to give you the world to make up for it.” She guided Bella through the room, sweeping open the double doors of the closet. “Tomorrow, we’re going to Fifth Avenue. We’ll get your measurements taken, and we’ll have your wardrobe custom-tailored every season.” Bella didn’t say a word. She bit her lower lip, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. That was all it took to break my mother. She pulled Bella to her chest, her own voice cracking with a maternal agony. “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry I let you suffer out there for so long.” Bella buried her face in my mother’s shoulder, her frame trembling with quiet sobs. I leaned against the doorframe, watching the tableau play out. Above my mother’s head, the red numbers flickered again. From [20], they ticked down to [17]. I turned on my heel and walked back to my own room. Before bed, there was a soft knock on my door. “Diana,” my mother murmured. She sat on the edge of my mattress, taking my hand in hers. “I know this is incredibly hard on you. But Bella… she’s had such a brutal life. I have to make it right.” She looked at me, her eyes still red and swollen. “You’re the older sister here. Can you help me look after her? Please?” “Of course, Mom.” When I said yes, the number above her head didn’t budge. A cold, static [17]. She let out a long sigh of relief, leaning down to press a soft kiss to my forehead. “My good, sensible Diana. I knew I could count on you.” She stood up and left. Her soft footsteps padded down the hallway, but instead of turning toward the master wing, they veered off, slipping into Bella’s room. Through the thin drywall, her muffled voice carried over to me. “Bella, sweetheart? Are the blankets warm enough? Do you want me to stay with you tonight?” I stared blankly at the ceiling. Quietly, without my permission, tears began to track down my temples. A week after Bella arrived, my mother enrolled her in my school. Oakridge Prep was the most prestigious private academy in the state, boasting a tuition of forty thousand dollars a year, populated entirely by the heirs of old money and political dynasties. The rumors had spread faster than wildfire. When I walked into homeroom on Monday morning, every eye in the room locked onto me like heat-seeking missiles. The first one to say something to my face was Brittany. She sat directly behind me; her father was a ruthless real estate mogul, and she had inherited his sharp, cutting tongue. “Well, well. If it isn’t Diana Westbrook,” Brittany drawled, propping her designer boots onto her desk. “So, word on the street is you’re a counterfeit. I heard the real Westbrook daughter actually has some decent genes.” I ignored her, unpacking my binder. “Oh, come on, don’t be like that,” she whispered, leaning over my shoulder, her perfume cloying and suffocating. “What does that make you now? A squatter? You’ve been sitting in her throne for eighteen years. Don’t you think it’s time to pay rent?” “Mind your own business, Brittany.” “Just making conversation.” She smirked, leaning back in her chair. “It’s just that your social stock just took a major hit. We all need to know where we stand with you now, right?” I gripped my pen so hard the plastic groaned under my knuckles. Between periods, the whispers in the hallway were intentionally, performatively loud. “Did you hear? Her biological parents are literally blue-collar townies in West Virginia.” “So those Chanel bags and Saint Laurent boots she wore last semester… she bought all of that with someone else’s trust fund?” “Ugh. If I were her, I’d have crawled into a hole and died of embarrassment by now.” I quickened my pace, keeping my gaze fixed on the floor, pretending the words weren’t tearing through me. But the real blow didn’t come from the bullies. It came when I realized my best friend had already jumped ship. Her name was Lauren. We had been inseparable since sixth grade. Seven years of sleepovers, shared secrets, and late-night panic attacks. On Wednesday, I went to find her at lunch. From across the cafeteria, I spotted her sitting at our usual table by the window. Sitting across from her was Bella. They were laughing. Lauren’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second when she saw me approaching. “Diana! Hey! Come sit down.” I slipped into the booth beside her. Bella offered me a soft, timid smile. “Hi, Diana.” Lauren pushed her plate of chicken tenders toward Bella. “Eat up, Bella. You’re practically skeletal. We need to fatten you up.” She turned to me, her expression a mix of guilt and forced cheerfulness. “Bella doesn’t really know anyone yet. I figured I’d show her around, help her get adjusted.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Sure.” Throughout lunch, Lauren kept her focus entirely on Bella, asking about her life in West Virginia, her favorite music, whether she wanted to go to the mall this weekend. Bella answered every question with a quiet, fragile gratitude. “You’re so nice to me, Lauren. I’ve never been to a place like this. I feel so out of my depth…” Lauren beamed, practically glowing with the satisfaction of being a savior. She threw an arm around Bella’s shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about it. If anyone gives you trouble, you come straight to me. I’ve got your back.” I sat beside them, chewing on dry food that tasted like cardboard. By the time the bell rang, Lauren hadn’t directed more than three sentences to me. That afternoon, I texted her: “Hey, still down for the gallery opening this Saturday?” Her reply came back almost instantly: “Actually, I promised Bella I’d take her shopping this weekend. Next time!” She had never canceled on me before. Never. On Friday, I stood by the school gates, waiting for our family driver. Bella came jogging up behind me, breathless, her cheeks flushed pink. She reached out and lightly caught my sleeve. “Diana, wait. Lauren is taking me to get a new phone tomorrow. Can you please come with us?” Her face was a mask of sweet, earnest pleading. But as she let go of my arm, I caught the tiniest, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of her lips. A flicker of triumph. I kept my voice flat. “I have plans.” “Oh. Okay,” she said softly. She didn’t press. Instead, she spun around and skipped back toward Lauren, who was waiting near the parking lot. They linked arms and walked away. I climbed into the back of the town car and closed my eyes. I could feel my life, my relationships, slipping through my fingers like dry sand. No matter how hard I clenched my fists, I couldn’t hold onto any of it. On Monday, I finally received the recommendation letter I had been dreaming of. My gut instinct, a relic of eighteen years of habit, was to share the joy with my mother. I had been preparing my application for Oxford University since my sophomore year. I had taken the SATs twice, completed two research programs with Columbia professors, and won awards in four national academic competitions. And now, I had the golden ticket: a personal recommendation letter written by the headmaster himself. Only one student per graduating class received it. When I got home that evening, the excitement was practically vibrating under my skin. But when I walked into the living room, my mother was already waiting for me. The sealed envelope containing my letter was resting on the marble coffee table. “Diana, sit down. I need to talk to you about something,” she said, her expression tight and conflicted. “Bella’s education in West Virginia was… lacking, to say the least. She doesn’t have the grades to get into a top-tier state school here. I want to send her abroad, but she has no extracurriculars, no research papers, nothing.” She looked up at me, her eyes pleading. “Diana… can you let Bella have this recommendation letter?” I stared at her, convinced I had misheard. “Mom, I’ve spent two years building my portfolio for this.” “I know, I know,” she said, catching my hands. “But you’re brilliant, Diana. Your SAT scores are perfect. You could get into any Ivy League school on your own merit. Bella isn’t like you. Without this letter, she has no shot at a future.” “This is my dream, Mom. I earned this.” “Diana, please. It’s not that I don’t care about your hard work—” “Then don’t ask me to give it away,” I snapped. It was the first time in my life I had ever spoken back to her. My mother’s expression instantly hardened. The warmth vanished from her eyes, replaced by a cold, sharp distance. “Diana Westbrook,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. “Even if you keep that letter, who do you think is paying your tuition? Fifty thousand dollars a year. Do you have that kind of cash lying around?” I froze. My throat closed up. “Every single thing you’ve eaten, worn, and used for eighteen years was paid for by our money. Bella is my biological child. She suffered in poverty while you lived in luxury. If I want to give her a chance at a real education, is that really so terrible of me?” The look she gave me was stripped of all maternal warmth. It was the gaze of a creditor collecting a debt. “If you feel so hard done by, then fund your own life.” I stood there, the blood draining from my face. My whole body went numb. “Fine,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “If you think you’re so independent, then don’t touch a single dime of our money,” she said, standing up and pointing a perfectly manicured finger toward the foyer. “Get out. Don’t come back until you’re ready to apologize.” I looked up. The number above her head had dropped to a sickening, bleeding [6]. I swallowed the tears threatening to spill, grabbed my backpack, and walked out into the cold night. I spent that night huddled on a bench in a public park, shivering. The next afternoon, a text came through from my mother. “Diana, I was too harsh yesterday. Come home. Bella’s welcome-home party is tonight, and I want you there. We’re a family, we can work this out.” My resolve crumbled. I told myself she was still my mother, that eighteen years of love couldn’t just vanish. I went back. The party was an extravagant affair at a luxury hotel, with over two hundred guests from Westchester’s elite. Bella stood on the elevated stage, draped in a custom-designed silk gown, bathed in a warm spotlight. My mother held her hand, raising it slightly as she addressed the crowd. “This is my biological daughter, Bella. Today, she is finally home.” The room erupted into thunderous applause. I stood in the dim shadow of the back corner, wearing a simple black dress I’d hastily pulled from my closet. Up on stage, my mother was practically glowing with pride, her arm wrapped tightly around Bella’s shoulders. The number floating above her head was [5]. Halfway through the evening, I went to the restroom to escape the noise. But as I pushed the heavy door open, I froze. Resting on the marble vanity was a delicate diamond necklace. It was a Tiffany pendant—the very one my mother had given me for my seventeenth birthday. I knew I had left it in my jewelry box at home this morning. How was it here? Suddenly, a sharp gasp sounded behind me. “Oh my god!” Bella stood in the doorway, flanked by three of our mother’s wealthy friends. Her eyes were wide, staring at the vanity. “Diana… that’s the necklace Mom gave me as a welcome gift. Why do you have it?” “What?” “I left it in the powder room earlier, and when I went back, it was gone. I’ve been looking everywhere for it…” Bella’s eyes welled with tears, her voice trembling. “Diana… did you… did you take it by mistake?” She didn’t use the word “stole.” But she didn’t have to. The silent accusations from the women standing behind her were loud enough. “I didn’t touch your necklace,” I said, my voice hardening. “This is my—” “What’s going on in here?” my mother’s voice cut through the tension. She walked in, her gaze darting from the diamond pendant to Bella’s tear-stained face. “Diana, why do you have Bella’s necklace?” “This isn’t her necklace, Mom. This is the one you gave me last year—” “Don’t lie to me!” my mother snapped, her brow furrowing deep. “I bought this piece last week specifically for Bella.” She snatched the necklace off the counter and flipped the pendant. Engraved on the back was a small, delicate letter “B”. Not my initials. Bella’s. It wasn’t mine. My mouth opened, but no sound came out. Bella whispered, “Maybe Diana just got confused… it’s okay. Please don’t be mad at her.” The more gracious Bella tried to appear, the sharper the glares from the onlookers became. My mother handed the necklace back to Bella, then turned her full attention to me. There was no rage in her eyes. Instead, there was something far worse, something that suffocated me from the inside out: utter disappointment. “Diana, is it really so impossible for you to share this life with her?” she asked, her voice quiet but heavy. “I am so incredibly disappointed in you.” Above her head, the digital display flickered violently, crashing from [6] straight down to [1]. I stared at that [1]. A cold, hysterical laugh escaped my lips. I spun around and walked out of the restroom, and then out of the hotel. When I reached the lobby, I stopped and looked back one last time. The heavy oak doors of the ballroom were shut, but the muffled swell of classical music and polite laughter leaked through. Bella was in there, basking in the light and the blessings of my former life. And I was out here in the dark. No longer a Westbrook. That night, I packed a single suitcase of my own belongings. I spent the night at a cheap motel near the highway, and the next morning, I bought a one-way bus ticket to West Virginia. It was a grueling six-hour ride. The highway eventually gave way to winding mountain roads, the lush pine trees of the Appalachians closing in around us. My phone signal steadily dropped from four bars to one, before blinking out entirely. The bus sputtered to a halt in a fading, dusty mining town. I paid a local guy twenty bucks to take me the rest of the way on the back of his pickup truck. When we pulled up to the edge of the dirt road, I saw a middle-aged woman standing by a rusty mailbox. Her skin was deeply tanned and weathered from years of outdoor work, her hands rough and red. She was wearing a bright red winter coat that was clearly brand new; the paper price tag was still dangling from her sleeve. She was clutching a wrinkled school portrait—my photo. She kept looking up from the paper, frantically scanning the road. The moment our truck stopped and I climbed down, she froze. The photograph slipped from her fingers, fluttering into the dirt. “Diana?” she breathed, her voice cracking. I looked up at her head. Above her weathered hair, a soft, warm green number hovered: [83]. We had never met. Not once in eighteen years. Yet her love for me was already at eighty-three percent. “Mom,” I said. The word felt heavy and foreign on my tongue. Martha Greer’s tears spilled instantly. She lunged forward, throwing her arms around me and pulling me against her chest. There was no expensive French perfume. No soft cashmere. She smelled of cheap laundry detergent, woodsmoke, and sweat. “My baby… my baby is home,” she sobbed, her entire body shaking. Her calloused hands cupped the back of my head, holding me so tightly as if she feared I might evaporate if she let go. Their house was a small, wood-plank cottage with a tin roof, but inside, it was meticulously clean. On the worn wooden kitchen table, six steaming dishes were carefully laid out. A quiet, broad-shouldered man walked out of the kitchen carrying the final platter. His hands were thick with callouses, coal dust permanently embedded under his fingernails. When he saw me, his hands trembled, and he nearly dropped the dish. He set it down quickly, then wiped his palms on his stained apron over and over again. “Eat,” he muttered, his voice incredibly raspy. Just that one word. I glanced up. Above his head: [85]. Martha pulled me down onto a wooden chair, immediately piling food onto my plate. “We didn’t know what you liked,” she said, her eyes shining. “I made your dad buy everything we could find at the market. Try the trout—he caught it fresh from the creek this morning.” I took a bite of the fish. It was full of small bones, but it was incredibly sweet and fresh. “It’s delicious,” I whispered. Martha beamed, quickly standing up to ladle some soup for me. I lowered my head, and a hot tear slipped quietly into my bowl. That afternoon, Martha insisted on walking me down the town’s single main road. To every neighbor we passed, she proudly declared, “This is my daughter! My real girl!” Her smile was deep, carving lines into her face, far more radiant than my adoptive mother’s polished smile at the gala. Her number ticked up to [89]. Still rising. At dusk, she boiled a large pot of water on the stove and poured it into a plastic tub for me to soak my feet. “The mountain air gets cold at night,” she said softly. “Keep your feet warm so you don’t catch a chill.” I slipped my feet into the warm water, feeling the heat rise through my bones. At that moment, my phone buzzed. A single bar of signal had finally found its way through the valley. A deluge of notifications flooded my screen. Thirty-four missed calls from Catherine Westbrook. And right before my eyes, the number representing her love began to fluctuate wildly: [19]… [67]… [82]… still climbing.

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I was sixteen when my father fell from a scaffolding on a construction site, shattering his spine. The hospital demanded fifty thousand dollars upfront for the surgery. After scraping the bottom of every drawer we owned, my family managed to gather exactly three hundred and eighty. I was standing near the high school gates, clutching my withdrawal slip, when Wright intercepted me. He was the quietest, most brilliant kid in our class, and he sat right behind me. That day, he pressed a faded savings passbook into my palm. “Get your dad the surgery,” he said. “I’ll cover it. Don’t you dare drop out.” I told him I could never pay it back. He only said, “I’m not asking you to. Just get into college.” After that, he sent me allowance money every single month. Each check came with a slip of paper containing just three words: “Don’t give up.” My father survived, and I made it to an Ivy League university. Wright never once mentioned the money. Ten years later, I owned three manufacturing firms, my net worth sitting comfortably in the nine figures. And Wright’s name popped up on a court-ordered public default registry. “Former tech startup founder, held liable for a joint-guarantee debt of $4.2 million, blacklisted as a delinquent debtor.” I put down my phone, opened my desk drawer, and pulled out the old savings passbook—the one I’d filled with millions long ago. This time, it was my turn to knock on his door. … 1 “Who the hell is knocking? Stop pounding!” The rusted screen door creaked open with a harsh, grating shriek. It wasn’t Wright. It was a woman in a faded tank top, a thin gold chain dipping into her collarbone, smelling heavily of cheap tobacco. I looked past her shoulder. The apartment was a disaster. Empty beer bottles littered the floor, the sofa cushions were ripped open, and the word “PAYUP” was spray-painted in angry red letters across the drywall. “What are you staring at? Who do you want?” She flicked ash onto the floor, her expression impatient. “Wright,” I said. “Who are you?” She sized me up, her eyes lingering on the Patek Philippe on my wrist. Her gaze sharpened. “A relative? Good. He owes our boss 1.2 million. You here to write the check?” I ignored her and glanced back at Diana. Diana had been my assistant for five years. She didn’t talk much, but she got things done. She stepped forward, shoved the woman aside, and walked right in. “Hey, what the f—” Before the woman could finish her curse, Diana grabbed her wrist, twisting it downward with a firm, practiced grip. The woman dropped to her knees on the scattered glass, hissing in pain. I stepped over the trash and pushed open the bedroom door. Empty. The closet doors hung open, bare of hangers. The mattress-less bedframe was coated in a thin layer of dust. He’d been gone for at least a week. “Where is he?” I turned back to the woman. “How should I know!” she spat, grimacing. “The bank foreclosed on this place. My boss broke the lock last week to use it as a temporary crew house. That kid ran off before we even got here.” I didn’t answer. A heavy, suffocating weight settled in my chest, like wet cotton. Four point two million. To me now, that was just two weeks of profit from a couple of assembly lines. But to an ordinary man, it was a mountain designed to crush a spine. A memory flashed in my mind. Winter of sophomore year. The city got hit by a massive blizzard. I couldn’t afford the dorm heating fee and had been locked out, hiding in a tiny maintenance shed under the bleachers of the school track. I had a raging fever that night. I was shivering so violently I couldn’t even stand. Then, the metal door creaked open. Wind and snow swirled in, framing Wright. He was wearing his oversized school jacket, his nose bright red from the cold, clutching a glass jar wrapped in a thick towel. He didn’t ask why I was sleeping there. He didn’t offer pity. He just walked over, pressed the piping-hot jar into my arms, and left two boxes of fever reducers and two warm ham-and-cheese biscuits beside me. “Eat,” he said, and turned back into the storm. I held that jar all night. It burned my chest red, but it kept me alive. I never forgot that heat. “Sir,” Diana said, releasing the woman and stepping closer. “Just checked the street cameras. Mr. Chester… went to the South Flats.” The South Flats. The city’s notorious underbelly. A maze of sweatshops, scrap yards, and homeless encampments. I slipped my hand into my coat pocket, my fingers brushing against the frayed edges of the old passbook. “Let’s go.” “Where?” Diana asked. I cast a cold glance at the shivering woman on the floor. “The South Flats. Tear the place apart if you have to, but find him.” 2 By the time we drove into the South Flats, night had fallen. The streetlights were mostly broken, and the air carried a heavy mix of grease from cheap diners and the damp stench of old storm drains. My Maybach felt ridiculously out of place parked here—like a tuxedo in a pigsty. But I didn’t care. Diana pointed toward a greasy-spoon diner with a flickering, grease-filmed neon sign. “Our contact says Mr. Chester has been washing dishes here for the past few days. Sixty dollars a day, meals included.” Sixty dollars a day. I closed my eyes, my jaw clenching. I pushed the door open and walked in. Before I could even take in the room, a sharp voice shrieked from the back. “Are you blind? This is a limited-edition dress!” The voice was painfully familiar, carrying that cloying, practiced sweetness I had always despised. Through the grime-smeared glass of the kitchen partition, I saw Wright. He was wearing a stiff, oversized gray waterproof apron. His hair was cropped short, his face pale and hollow, his collarbones sharp against his thin frame. He was kneeling on the sticky linoleum, clutching a rag. On the floor lay a spilled bowl of greasy chicken soup. Standing over him was a man in an expensive, tailored suit: Brody, Wright’s old college roommate and former employee. And sitting next to him was Margo, Wright’s ex-fiancée, wearing a faux-designer suit, her legs crossed. “Oh, Brody, babe, don’t be mad. I’m sure he didn’t mean to,” Margo said, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy. “I can’t help it, Margo,” Brody sneered, leaning into her. “It’s our company’s pre-IPO celebration dinner, and a dishwasher spills soup all over my pants? It’s bad luck.” He spat out the word ‘dishwasher’ like a curse. Margo patted his hand, looking down at Wright. “Wright, I don’t know what to say to you.” She sighed, her tone heavy with a nauseating sense of charity. “You insisted on taking on all that debt yourself. Look where it got you. You don’t even look like a college graduate anymore.” Wright didn’t look up. He just kept wiping the floor with mechanical, numbed movements, as if they were speaking to a ghost. Looking at his hunched shoulders, my mind dragged me back to high school. Senior year. Someone had stolen five hundred dollars from the class fund. Because I was the poorest, everyone pointed fingers at me. The principal called me in, demanding I empty my pockets. I refused, squeezing my hands into fists until my nails drew blood. Just when everyone was ready to brand me a thief, Wright walked in. He slammed a physics competition registration form on the desk. “He didn’t do it,” he said, pointing to the schedule. “From noon to one, he was helping the physics teacher calibrate lab equipment. Check the cameras.” Then he turned to the whispering crowd, his voice quiet but razor-sharp: “Being poor doesn’t make you a thief. Shut up if you don’t have proof.” After school, he stopped me by the track. No comfort, no pity. Just a look straight into my eyes: “Larry, never bow your head.” But now, the boy who told me never to bow his head was kneeling on a greasy floor, bowing his head to these parasites. “Where’s the manager? Get the manager out here!” Brody was still shouting. The sweating owner ran out, apologizing profusely. “If you employ people this clumsy, I’ll report you to the health department!” Brody threatened. The owner looked at Wright, embarrassed. “Wright, look… maybe you should just take your pay for today and head out.” 3 Wright finally stood up. He untied the apron, placing it on the table without a word of protest or plea. “Okay,” his voice was hoarse, barely a whisper. Diana whispered behind me, “Do you want me to clear them out, sir?” “Dig,” I said, my gaze locked on the couple inside. “Find out exactly how Margo saddled him with 4.2 million in debt.” Wright left through the back. I didn’t follow him immediately. I needed to know who drove him to the edge first. Diana worked fast. By the next morning, a thick folder sat on my desk. I flipped to the first page, my knuckles turning white. Three years ago, Wright and Margo co-founded a tech startup. Wright handled the core R&D; Margo handled public relations and finance. A year ago, Margo claimed they landed a massive project and needed a loan to expand. She brought him a personal guarantee document to sign. “What did she tell him?” I asked, staring at the photocopied signature. “According to the audio transcripts we recovered from their old office,” Diana replied, “she said, ‘Wright, I’m your fiancée. Would I ever hurt you? This project is a goldmine. Once we get through this, we’ll get married.’” I let out a harsh laugh. “And then?” “The moment the funds cleared, Margo transferred the money through various shell companies to a primary account.” Diana flipped the page. “The owner of that shell company was Brody.” I closed my eyes, taking a deep, shaky breath. No wonder Brody was so arrogant at the diner. He was living off Wright’s sweat and blood, mocking him with his own money. “Once the funds were drained, Margo filed for bankruptcy liquidation,” Diana continued. “Because Wright had signed an unlimited personal guarantee, the entire $4.2 million debt crashed down on him alone.” Margo walked away clean, rebranding herself as a ‘senior partner’ in Brody’s new firm, while Wright was blacklisted, unable to even buy a train ticket, forced to work under the table in the shadows. “There’s one more thing,” Diana hesitated. “Speak.” “Mr. Chester’s mother. She’s in the late stages of renal failure. She’s at St. Jude’s Hospital.” Diana placed a hospital invoice on the desk. “If they don’t pay the twenty thousand dollars for dialysis by this afternoon, they’ll stop her treatments.” Twenty thousand. Again, twenty thousand. It felt like a sick, cruel loop. My freshman year of college, my father’s rehab bills were overdue. The hospital gave me a final notice: I was short eighteen hundred dollars. I was ready to sell my own blood. Then, a wire transfer of two thousand dollars hit my account. No name, just a memo: “Don’t give up.” I knew who it was. That month, I sneaked back to our hometown and saw Wright in the cafeteria. He ate nothing but plain instant ramen for thirty days. I leaned back in my leather chair, my heart aching as if pierced by a blade. Ten years ago, he went hungry so I wouldn’t have to. Ten years later, he was washing dishes in filth just to pay for his mother’s dialysis, letting himself be trampled. “Larry Michell,” I whispered to myself, “you’re a pathetic excuse of a man.” 4 Ten years. I had so many chances to come back and find him. But I was afraid of not being successful enough, of not being worthy to stand before him. I waited for success, and meanwhile, he fell into hell. “Get the car,” I stood up, grabbing my keys and the old passbook. “St. Jude’s Hospital.” In the hospital hallway, the sharp smell of antiseptic hung thick in the air. As soon as I stepped out of the elevator, I heard a mocking laugh. Near the billing window, Wright was leaning against the wall, clutching a payment slip. Margo and Brody stood opposite him. “Oh, Wright, why do you have to be so stubborn?” Margo sighed, her hands in her pockets, putting on a show of pity. “Your mother can’t wait. Just sign this waiver relinquishing all rights to the patents, admitting I was the sole developer.” She pulled out a stack of cash—about ten thousand dollars. “Think of this as a loan. You don’t have to pay it back. Call it a favor for old times’ sake.” Wright stared at the cash, his fingers trembling. “Margo,” his voice was barely a whisper, but it carried a deadly weight. “Those patents… you stole them from my computer while my mother was in the ICU. You drained the company, set me up to take the fall, and now you want to cut off my mother’s life support.” He looked up, his once-bright eyes bloodshot. “Aren’t you afraid of karma?” Margo flinched slightly, embarrassed by the public accusation, but quickly recovered her cold sneer. “Wright, watch your mouth. You signed the papers. You’re a blacklisted debtor now. Who’s going to believe you? If you don’t sign this waiver today, your mother gets evicted from her room tomorrow.” “Come on, Margo, why waste your breath?” Brody smirked, grabbing her arm. “I told you, Wright’s always been too proud for his own good.” He turned to Wright, mock-sympathetic. “Wright, don’t look at me like that. We’re doing you a favor. Margo pulled some strings to get this cash from the company account. Just take it and pay the bill before your mom runs out of time.” Wright didn’t look at him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and when he opened them, they were dead. Empty. He slowly reached out his hand toward the cash. For his mother, he was going to bend the spine he had kept straight his entire life. Just as his fingers were about to touch the bills, a hand shot out from the side, grabbing his wrist. Wright froze, turning his head in shock. I looked at him—at his hollow cheeks, at the lingering despair in his eyes. The rage inside me exploded like a volcano. I pulled him firmly behind me, turning to face Margo. “The money,” I said, my voice low, carrying a dangerous, quiet malice. “I’m paying it.”

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I was famous for my cold, deadpan stare on “The Spark”. To me, everyone on that beach looked like a walking corpse, and speaking even a single word to them felt like a chore. The network wanted to prop up their favorite “sweetheart couple,” so they deliberately paired me with Ryder—a shameless player so greasy the internet was practically screaming to have him canceled. We were the designated trainwreck. Our director pointed a finger right at our noses. “One’s a brick wall, the other’s a sleazebag. You two make the perfect contrast to get the audience rage-watching.” Ryder ran his hands through his hair, putting on a cheap show of desperation, misery, and helplessness. But underneath the act, I caught the faint twitch of his lips curving upward. One of us was a peacock desperate for an audience, a textbook performer who lived off emotional validation. The other was an iceberg who refused to throw him a single lifeline. Individually, we were toxic reality TV rejects. But together? That was pure gold: “The Player Begging for Scraps, the Ice Queen Pulling the Strings.” The ultimate slow-burn romance. I kept my hands in my pockets, watching him put on his little show. When he realized I wasn’t giving him an ounce of feedback and awkwardly peeked at me to check my reaction, I said quietly, “Your acting is absolute trash. If you actually want to make it through this, from now on, you follow my lead.” … “Daisy’s group: five thousand dollars in starting cash and the oceanfront villa.” “Maeve’s group: fifty dollars and Cabin 3 on the shore.” The director’s voice boomed through the megaphone. I stood with my hands tucked in the pockets of my windbreaker, watching a crew member slap a crisp fifty-dollar bill onto the rickety wooden table. The sea breeze whistled through a gaping hole in the window. Daisy stepped over the threshold, wearing a designer sundress and sandals. Two cameras followed her every move, one practically pressed against my face. “Oh, Maeve… how are you guys even going to live here?” She pulled a hundred-dollar bill from her purse and held it out to me. “Don’t be mad at the director, Maeve. He’s just following the rules. Take this. Get yourselves a warm meal tonight. I’d hate for you to starve while we’re filming.” Her eyes welled with performative tears. I stared at the bill, unmoving. Ryder instantly slapped on his signature grin. “Daisy, you’re an absolute angel. Unlike some people who don’t know how to appreciate anything.” He reached for the money, his fingers lingering just a second too long as they brushed against the back of Daisy’s hand. “Smack.” I kicked the back of Ryder’s knee. He stumbled forward, his hands slamming hard onto the wooden table. “Ow—Jesus, Maeve! Are you insane?” he yelped, clutching his hand. I ignored him, stepped forward, and snatched the hundred-dollar bill from Daisy’s fingers. A tiny, triumphant smirk played on her lips. I flicked my wrist, tossing the bill right back into her chest. “Get out.” Daisy’s tears spilled over instantly. “I was only trying to help, Maeve! Why do you always have to humiliate me?” She turned, burying her face in her hands, and ran straight into the arms of Trent, her screen partner, who had just arrived at the door. Trent glared at the camera. “Seriously, Maeve? Don’t be ungrateful. Daisy was just trying to do something nice. Have some class.” Daisy sobbed against his chest as he ushered her away. The damp cabin fell quiet, leaving only me and Ryder. He stormed up to me, his finger practically brushing my nose. “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you trying to prove? That was a hundred bucks! That’s two decent meals! You want to starve out here in the wind? Let me tell you something, Maeve. I was playing women before you even knew how to write your own name. Don’t try that dead-eyed routine on me!” When he finally stopped to catch his breath, I walked over to the corner, picked up a heavy splitting maul, and hefted it. Ryder took a sharp step back, his hands defensive. “Whoa, what are you doing? We’re live! Murder is a felony!” I walked out to the small dirt yard, propped a thick piece of driftwood onto the chopping block, gripped the handle with both hands, and brought it down with the full weight of my hips. “Crack.” The wood split cleanly down the middle, a stray splinter grazing Ryder’s cheek. I held the axe in one hand, turning my cold gaze toward him. “Get over here and carry the wood.” Ryder swallowed hard. His throat bobbed, and his loud mouth shut tight. He walked over, rolled up his linen sleeves, and began stacking the logs I had split. 8:00 PM. On the table sat two bowls of watery, plain oatmeal and a tiny dish of preserved pickles. Ryder stirred his bowl listlessly with his spoon. He looked up, winking at the cameraman stationed in the corner. “Come on, man. Look at how pathetic we are. Can’t you talk to the director? Throw us a bone, maybe a piece of chicken?” I reached out, grabbed the back of his head, and shoved his face straight down toward the table. “Ow!” His nose smacked against the rim of the bowl. I let go, reached into my pocket, and pulled out a small plastic bag containing half a cold, hard-boiled egg I had pocketed from the morning buffet. I tossed it into his bowl. “Eat. Then go patch the hole in the roof.” I pointed up at the gap where the night stars were visible. “If it’s not fixed, you’re sleeping on the beach.” Ryder looked at the half-egg in his oatmeal. He looked up at me, his eyes slightly raw, his cheeks flushing a sudden, deep red. He looked down quickly, scraping his bowl clean, eating every last bite of the oatmeal. Amid the ocean of hate comments on the live stream’s chat, a few strange remarks began to slip through: “Wait… why is the player suddenly acting so… submissive around the ice queen?” I picked up my bowl and took a slow, quiet sip. “Hurry up. The boards are outside.” The next morning, the top trending hashtag on X was: #MaeveAggressiveLove. Ryder climbed down from the roof with dark circles under his eyes, carrying a hammer. “You’re seriously looking at your phone right now? My reputation is completely shot because of you!” He threw the hammer aside. I locked my phone, ignoring him. “Attention, guests,” the director’s voice boomed over the speakers. “Today’s challenge is Island Treasure Hunt. Your points will directly determine the quality of your dinner tonight. Daisy’s group, head to the East Beach. Maeve’s group, head to the West Cliffs.” Ryder yelled at the camera, “Are you serious? The west side is nothing but jagged rocks and sheer cliffs! There isn’t even a path! You want us to die out there?” The director’s voice held a sickening amusement. “Ryder, you two are currently public enemy number one. Be glad you’re even getting airtime. If you don’t like it, pack your bags and pay the thirty-million-dollar breach of contract fee.” Ryder clenched his fists. I walked up to him and pulled a length of climbing rope from my backpack. “Stop whining. Give me your hand.” He hesitated, then held out his left arm. I tied the safety rope securely around his waist in a double knot, wrapping the other end tightly around my own wrist. “Stay close,” I said, looking him dead in the eye. “If you fall, nobody is coming to save you.” The waves crashed violently against the moss-covered rocks. The ground was slick and treacherous. I led the way with steady, practiced steps, while Ryder slipped and stumbled behind me. “There’s literally nothing out here. What kind of treasure is hidden on a cliffside?” “Maeve, slow down! Is there a fire?” The cameraman struggled behind us, trying to find a stable angle from a distance. Ryder’s eyes flickered with an idea. As we reached a steep, muddy slope, he accelerated, catching up and stepping beside me. “Hey, Maeve, careful. It’s slippery. Let me help you.” His voice dropped to a low, husky register as he reached out to wrap an arm around my waist. I saw his hand out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t even turn my head. I simply dropped my shoulder, shifting my weight half a step to the left. Ryder’s hand grabbed empty air. His foot lost traction on the mud, and he went tumbling down the embankment. “Holy shit—!” He rolled down the slope, landing straight in a deep, stagnant pool of muddy seawater and silt. “Splash.” Mud flew everywhere. When he finally stopped moving, his designer windbreaker was covered in black slime, and his face was caked with muck. He sat there in the puddle, stunned. Ryder slowly lifted his head. I squatted at the edge of the slope, looking down at him. I pulled a bottle of water from the side pocket of my backpack, unscrewed the cap, and tossed it down. The bottle landed in his lap, splashing water over his chest. “Wash your face. You look hideous.” Ryder stared at me, his jaw clenched. He opened the bottle, poured water into his palms, and aggressively wiped his face. Muddy water dripped from his chin. When he looked up again, his eyes were bloodshot. “Maeve, do you actually have a heart?” His voice was raw. “Can’t you just give me a normal reaction? Even calling me an idiot would be better than this!” I looked at his reddened eyes. “Is this how you usually play the devoted gentleman? By staging dangers, forcing a display of chivalry, and then demanding gratitude?” Ryder froze. His mouth parted, but no words came out. He looked down, squeezing the empty plastic bottle until his knuckles turned white. “Wait… now that Ryder isn’t acting greasy, him sulking like that is actually… kind of hot?” “The tension is insane.” I stood up, tugging the safety rope on my wrist. “Once you’re clean, climb back up. Don’t waste my time.” That night, the crew set up a bonfire on the beach. The director stood with his megaphone, announcing the rules of the mid-season game. “Tonight, we’re playing Anonymous Vote. You will write down the name of the guest you believe performed the worst today. The person with the most votes faces the ultimate penalty: handing over their safety gear and spending the night alone in the deep woods of Devil’s Cove.” The guests whispered nervously. Devil’s Cove was a notorious thicket on the north shore—even local fishermen avoided it. Spending a night there with zero gear was a nightmare scenario. Daisy sat across the bonfire, the flames dancing across her face. During a camera transition, I saw her whispering to the other guests, her lips silently forming the name: “Maeve.” I looked down, adjusting the collar of my windbreaker. My finger brushed the power switch of a tiny, high-grade recording pin hidden on my lapel. A faint red light flashed once. Recording started. “Before we begin the anonymous vote, does anyone want to say anything?” the director asked. Daisy immediately raised her hand, her eyes glistening. She looked at the camera. “I think this rule is really harsh, but if I have to choose…” She bit her lip, turning her gaze to me. “I have to vote for Maeve. This afternoon, Ryder fell into that horrible mud pit, and Maeve just stood up there, watching him. She didn’t even offer a hand. I don’t think partners should be so heartless to each other.” The moment she finished, Trent chimed in. “Daisy’s right. People with zero team spirit are just dead weight.” Several other guests nodded in agreement. I sat on my folding stool, hands clasped over my knees, entirely silent. I turned to look at Ryder, who sat next to me with his head bowed. His body was rigid. I knew the director was screaming in his earpiece, ordering him to vote for me. Ryder gripped his voting pen, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. He looked up, scanning Daisy, then the other nodding guests, and finally me. I didn’t return his gaze; I just stared into the fire. Suddenly, Ryder stood up. “Slam!” He smashed his voting board onto the table, snapping it clean in two. Silence fell over the beach. Ryder pointed a finger directly at Daisy’s face, laughing coldly. “She didn’t pull me up because I tripped over my own damn feet! But are you people blind? Didn’t you see the safety rope tied to her wrist? If I had actually slipped down the cliff, she would’ve gone down with me!” He yanked his collar open, glaring at Daisy. “You play the fragile little flower day in and day out. Aren’t you tired of the act? Because watching it makes me want to throw up. I’m voting for Daisy. Anyone got a problem with that?” The bonfire crackled in the dead silence. Daisy’s tears froze on her eyelashes. The director’s voice boomed through the megaphone, furious. “Enough! Ryder, you are openly soliciting votes and verbally abusing another guest! That is a severe violation of the rules! Ryder’s vote is void! Maeve has the most votes, her penalty stands! And because Ryder broke the rules, you will both serve the penalty. You’re spending the night at Devil’s Cove together!” Staff members stepped forward to remove our safety ropes. I stood up, brushing the sand off my pants. Without a word, I walked toward the dark tree line. As I passed Ryder, I paused. “You actually acted like a man for once. Get ready to freeze tonight.” Ryder stood frozen for a second, then looked at my back and laughed. He jogged to catch up. “Hey, Maeve! Wait up!” The north shore housed an old, abandoned cannery. The glass roof was mostly shattered, the rafters creaking loudly in the wind. There were no lights, no heat, nothing. Tonight was the show’s “Heartbeat Live Connection Night.” All guests were forced to wear black heart-rate monitors, with their data synced in real-time to the live-stream screen. While Daisy and the others sat in the heated studio sipping hot cocoa, Ryder and I were locked inside this drafty, leaking ruin. “Boom—” A flash of lightning ripped through the sky as a sudden squall hit the island. Cold rain began pouring through the shattered roof. In the studio, the main screen displayed our split-screen feed. Daisy cradled her warm mug, pointing at Ryder’s heart rate on the screen, letting out a soft laugh. “Oh, where did Ryder’s legendary charm go? Alone in a dark room with Maeve, and his heart rate is flatlining at seventy? He looks practically dead. I guess the rumors are true—their chemistry is totally fake.” “Keep the cameras rolling!” the director hissed into his headset. “Don’t open those doors! I want to see them drenched, miserable, and tearing each other apart!” Rainwater quickly pooled on the concrete floor. Ryder was soaked, his lips turning blue from the cold. But he didn’t complain. He didn’t even look at the cameras. Instead, he gently pushed me toward a dry corner of the room. “Stay back there. Don’t get wet. There isn’t even a basic first-aid kit on this godforsaken island.” His voice trembled slightly from the cold. I leaned against the damp concrete wall, watching his broad shoulders block the wind for me. My heart monitor still read a steady seventy. “Crack—Crash!” A sudden gust of wind sheared off a heavy wooden support beam from the ceiling. A massive sheet of glass, along with half the timber, came hurtling straight down toward my head. I closed my eyes. But the impact never came. Ryder threw himself over me, shielding me with his body, his back taking the brunt of the falling debris. “Thud. Shiver.” Something warm and thick dripped onto my collarbone. The copper smell of blood cut through the salty rain. I opened my eyes and looked at Ryder. His face was contorted in pain, his jaw clenched so hard his muscles shook. In the studio, Daisy’s smile vanished. Her mug slipped from her hand, shattering on the floor. Every guest stood up in shock. On the screen, Ryder’s flatlining heart rate of seventy began to climb. …120… 140… It tore past 160. A flashing red warning light lit up the screen. Through the static-heavy audio feed, Ryder’s ragged, breathless voice cut through: “Cut the crap…” His warm, shaky breath brushed against my neck. “Maeve… are you okay?” The director screamed into his microphone: “Cut the feed! Cut the feed now!” The live stream went completely black.

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I drove all the way to the airport cargo terminal to pick up a crate of fresh peaches, shipped overnight from back home in the South. They were ripe, heavy, and smelled of the sweet, humid summers I’d left behind. My heart was light as I dialed Elliot’s number. Once. Twice. Nineteen times. No answer. My best friend, Daphne, picked up my FaceTime call on her second ring. She was flush-faced and breathless, clearly in the middle of a jog. “Still no answer?” Daphne panted, wiping sweat from her forehead. “Megan, for God’s sake, have some self-respect.” “He’s probably just in a meeting,” I defended weakly. “If a man isn’t there when you call nineteen times, he’s not worth the battery life. What if you were in a ditch somewhere? He wouldn’t even know.” I forced a laugh, trying to play it off with my usual easygoing optimism. “Don’t be dramatic. He’s just busy. Make sure you come over early tonight, okay? I’m making a feast.” She rolled her eyes, shaking her head at the camera. “You are utterly hopeless, Megan. A textbook romantic fool.” I ended the call and slipped my hand into my coat pocket, tracing the crisp edges of the positive pregnancy test. I wanted to surprise them both tonight—my husband and my best friend. But twenty minutes later, standing outside the door of the private VIP room at Elliot’s gym, my world fell apart. The door wasn’t fully closed. Through the narrow crack, a conversation drifted out, stripping the strength right out of my bones. “After today, we have to end this,” Daphne’s voice was a low, breathless murmur. “If Megan finds out, it will destroy her.” Elliot’s response was immediate, sharp, and dripping with an intensity he hadn’t shown me in years. “End it? You want to kill me, Daphne? Then we just don’t let her find out. We take it to our graves.” Seven years of freezing in this brutal northern city, trying so hard to adapt, to make this place a home. “Give up, Megan,” a cold, quiet voice inside me whispered. “Just give up.” … I stepped back into the shadows of the hallway. Ten minutes later, Elliot and Daphne walked out, one after the other. The moment Elliot saw me standing there, a flash of pure panic crossed his eyes before he quickly masked it, hurrying his pace. “Megan? What are you doing here?” He pulled out his phone, staring at the nineteen missed calls. “I’m so sorry, babe. I was in a meeting and had it on silent. Is everything okay?” The worry in his eyes looked so genuine, so real. But the faint scent of Daphne’s signature perfume clinging to his collar made me want to throw up. I flinched, stepping back to avoid his hand as he reached out to touch my forehead. “Megan, don’t let him off too easy,” Daphne chimed in, glaring playfully at Elliot before grabbing my hands. “Look at you, your hands are freezing.” Her cheeks were flushed, her breathing still slightly uneven. “Don’t be mad, sweetie. Once we get back, I’ll make sure he pays for keeping you waiting.” In her mouth, the word “pays” sounded heavy with a sickening intimacy. “Daphne,” I said, my voice eerily calm. “I thought you were jogging outside.” Daphne’s expression stiffened for a fraction of a second. She forced a bright, easy smile. “Oh, it was way too noisy on the street. I ran into Elliot in the lobby, and he offered to show me some form adjustments in the private room.” She looped her arm through mine, leaning in. “What, are you auditing my gym sessions now? Afraid I’m going to steal your husband?” It was phrased as a joke, but her eyes held a sharp, calculating scrutiny. I looked down at her hand resting on my arm. Around her wrist was the delicate, hand-woven red friendship bracelet I had crafted for her birthday. Gently, but firmly, I pulled my arm away. “I was worried you’d be hungry. I got the peaches. They’re already in the car. I’m going to make dinner for us.” Elliot let out a subtle sigh of relief and stepped forward, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “You’re the best, honey. Come on, let’s go home.” When we reached the SUV, I automatically reached for the front passenger door. But Elliot’s hand shot out, gently but firmly blocking the handle. “Megan, why don’t you take the back seat?” I froze, staring at him. He avoided my gaze, looking over at Daphne instead. “Daphne just had a crazy workout. She’s soaked in sweat, and the AC vents in the back blow directly on you. She’ll catch a cold.” Daphne waved her hands in mock protest, her tone sweet and dripping with false consideration. “Oh, no, really, I’m fine! Megan gets carsick so easily. She should definitely sit up front.” She made a show of refusing, yet her feet were already moving toward the open passenger door. Elliot glanced at my pale face. “Are you feeling sick again? Did you eat something bad? Just bear with it for a few minutes, honey. We’ll be home soon.” Without giving me a chance to reply, he opened the passenger door wider for Daphne. Daphne slid into the leather seat with an apologetic pout. “Well, I guess we’re putting our sweet Megan out a little bit.” I climbed into the back alone, pulling myself into the darkest corner of the seat. Up front, Elliot was adjusting the seat angle and the AC vents for her. His movements were so practiced, so completely natural. “Is this angle okay? Not too cold?” he asked, his voice softening to a register he rarely used with me anymore. Daphne gave a soft hum of approval. Leaning my head against the cold window, I watched their quiet, synchronized interactions. My mind drifted back to when I first moved up North. The brutal winter air, the dry heat indoors, and the foreign food had triggered a massive allergic reaction. I had been miserable, covered in hives, throwing up for weeks. Elliot had held me through the long, freezing nights, kissing the tears from my swollen eyes, whispering vows into my hair. “I swear to God, Megan, I will never let you suffer. I will spend the rest of my life making sure you’re protected.” “If I ever betray you, may I rot.” Seven years. The vows were still fresh in my memory, but the man holding them had already rotted from the inside out. I gently rested my hand against my flat stomach, letting my tears fall silently in the dark. Daphne leaned back, closing her eyes to rest. Every few seconds, Elliot’s eyes would drift from the road to steal a glance at her, his face filled with an aching tenderness he couldn’t hide. It was only when we pulled into our driveway that he finally remembered I was in the car. He caught my eye in the rearview mirror and asked casually, “So, what are we having for dinner?” I stared back at his reflection, holding his gaze. “Let’s have the peaches,” I said, my voice thick and slow. “One last time.” Elliot was busy draping his jacket over Daphne’s shoulders to keep her warm. He just nodded absently at my response, completely missing the raspy weight of my voice, or the finality in my words. Inside the house, Elliot stood by the kitchen island, slicing a peach for me. As the sticky sweet juice ran down his fingers, his brow furrowed, his movements tightening with a subtle irritation. “Megan, let’s stop buying these Southern peaches,” he said, tossing the knife into the sink. He pushed the plate of sliced peaches toward me and turned on the faucet to wash his hands. “We’ve been importing them for seven years. To be honest, I’m getting tired of them.” The knife in my hand slipped. The blade sliced clean into my index finger, and a bright bead of blood welled up instantly. “How are you still this careless?” Elliot sighed, grabbing my hand and pulling it under the cold running tap. I stared down at the crown of his head. My chest felt as if it were packed with frozen cotton wool. Every breath I took scratched the inside of my lungs. When I first arrived in this city, I couldn’t stomach the heavy, starchy foods. I lost fifteen pounds in the first two months. Elliot had been so worried that he spent his entire weekend driving around specialty organic markets, spending half his paycheck to order a crate of Southern peaches just to see me eat. When he peeled the first one and fed it to me, his smile had been so pure, so full of devotion. “As long as you love them, Megan, I’ll peel them for you for the rest of our lives.” The rest of our lives had only lasted seven years. I pulled my hand back gently, wrapping a paper towel around the cut. “It’s fine. Just a scratch.” Daphne leaned against the kitchen doorframe, chewing on a slice of peach. “Don’t mind him, Megan,” she murmured around the fruit, her voice dripping with casual familiarity. “As long as you like them. He’s just always hated sticky things.” Elliot didn’t deny it. Instead, he flicked a few drops of water from his hands onto her face, offering a mock scowl. “Keep your mouth shut.” Then, he naturally took the knife from my hand. “Let me finish up. Go sit down.” I forced a polite smile. “No, I’ve got it.” I turned back to the stove, sliding the chopped vegetables into the hot pan. The loud, crackling sizzle of the oil drowned out my quiet sigh. “You’re right,” I murmured. “I won’t buy them anymore.” Elliot seemed surprised by how easily I’d yielded. He cast a sideways glance at me, opening his mouth as if to say something, but ultimately picked up the bowl of peaches and walked into the dining room. From the dining room, Daphne’s voice drifted back, playful and teasing. “Come on, Elliot, peel another one! Nobody peels them as well as you do.” “Watch it, you’ll get a stomachache,” Elliot replied, his voice soft with indulgence. I brought out the last dish. Elliot was carefully pulling the bones out of a piece of fish, placing the clean meat onto Daphne’s plate. “Megan, Daphne’s stomach has been acting up lately,” he said without looking up. “Try not to make things so oily next time.” He added a piece of steamed fish to her bowl, then tossed a lonely stalk of broccoli onto my plate. “Thanks for cooking tonight.” Daphne took a bite of the fish. She chewed twice, and then her face went completely white. Suddenly, she clutched her throat, her chest heaving as she gasped for air. “Water… I need water…” Elliot scrambled to pour a glass, but when Daphne tried to drink, she choked and threw it back up. Bright red, angry hives began blooming across her neck and chest at a terrifying speed. “Elliot… I can’t… I can’t breathe…” Elliot’s face drained of color. He gathered her into his arms as she began to slump over, his voice cracking with pure terror. “Daphne! What is happening? Daphne!” She pointed a trembling finger at the plate of fish. “The glaze… there’s… peanut oil…” Elliot spun around, his eyes wild and bloodshot as he roared at me, “Megan! You know she has a severe peanut allergy! What the hell did you put in this?!” I froze, my hands shaking. “I didn’t… I only used the regular sesame glaze. I didn’t put any peanut oil in it!” “Stop lying!” Elliot shrieked. He lunged forward and shoved me out of his way. The force of his push caught me entirely off guard. I stumbled backward, my lower back crashing violently against the sharp edge of the wooden dining table. A sharp, white-hot pain flared through my abdomen. I doubled over, clutching my stomach, barely able to breathe. But Elliot didn’t even look back. He swept Daphne up into his arms and kicked the front door open, sprinting out into the night. I crumpled onto the hardwood floor, the cramping in my womb growing sharper, deeper, and heavier. Something warm and wet began to trickle slowly down the inside of my thigh. Staring at the empty, open doorway, I gathered every ounce of strength left in my body and screamed into the void: “Elliot, I’m pregnant!” But my voice only dissolved into the cold, empty air of the apartment. With shaking fingers, I pulled out my phone and dialed 911 myself. At the hospital, the doctor stood over my bed, his expression grim as he reviewed my charts. “You have signs of a threatened miscarriage,” he said softly. “We need to keep you for observation. Strict bed rest. No moving, do you understand?” I lay there, staring at the sterile ceiling, listening to the muffled chatter of two nurses changing the IV bags nearby. “ER was a madhouse tonight. They brought in a girl with anaphylactic shock. Almost didn’t make it.” “Yeah, her boyfriend was practically on his knees begging the doctors to save her. Talk about true love.” A cold chill ran down my spine. “Excuse me,” I croaked, my voice dry. “The patient in the ER… what was her name?” “I think it was Daphne,” one of the nurses offered gently. Despite everything, a lingering sense of worry made me crawl out of bed. I dragged my IV pole down to the second-floor observation ward. “Daphne,” I whispered, seeing her lying pale and fragile under the white blankets. The swelling in her face had subsided. I reached out to touch her hand. But Elliot’s hand shot out, shoving me away. “She just fell asleep. Don’t wake her.” He carefully tucked the blanket around her chin, then grabbed my wrist, pulling me roughly out of the room. “How is she?” I asked, my voice trembling. “Is she going to be okay?” “Megan!” Elliot snapped, releasing my wrist with a look of absolute disgust. “She is your best friend. How could you do this to her?” “I didn’t! I swear I didn’t!” My voice cracked, my fingers icy cold. “I didn’t touch anything with peanuts. I know how dangerous it is for her. Why would I ever want to hurt her?” Elliot let out a harsh, bitter laugh. “You were the only one in that kitchen, Megan. Who else could have done it?” I held my aching abdomen, taking a step back. “Is that really who you think I am?” He turned his face away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Just go home. I’ll stay here with Daphne. We’ll talk when she wakes up.” I couldn’t bring myself to go back to my empty room. I waited in the far corner of the hallway, desperate to make sure Daphne was safe, desperate to make him believe me. Hours later, the ward doors opened. Elliot was gently supporting Daphne as they walked out. I took a step forward, but the words that came out of Daphne’s mouth froze me in my tracks. “Elliot, it’s been three years. I can’t keep doing this. I want to tell Megan.” “Tell her? Tell her what?” Daphne’s voice rose, trembling with a fragile hysteria. “Tell her that three years ago, when she was crying in a hospital bed waiting for her appendix surgery, we were hooked up in a hotel downtown?” “Tell her that I’ve been sleeping with her husband behind her back?” “We made a mistake, Elliot! We betrayed her!” “Don’t you dare say that!” Elliot’s voice was fiercely protective. I bit my lip so hard I tasted the warm, metallic tang of blood. “Three years ago.” I remembered that night. I had been rolling in agony on a hospital cot, calling Elliot over and over. He told me he was stuck at a last-minute corporate retreat. I had called Daphne, and she had cried on the phone, claiming she was stuck on a business trip out of state. I had actually spent my energy comforting “her”, telling her it was fine, that I would be okay. How could I have been so incredibly blind? “You almost died tonight, Daphne!” Elliot urged, his voice thick with emotion. “I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to be with you openly!” Daphne let out a broken sob, her voice softening. “I don’t blame her, Elliot… but think about how much this will destroy her. She moved all the way up North for you… seven years of her life…” She wept into his chest. Elliot cupped her face, tenderly wiping away her tears before pulling her into a desperate, passionate kiss. “I won’t let her hurt you again, Daphne. I promise. I’ll handle everything, okay?” Watching them hold each other in the dim light of the hospital corridor, something inside me clicked shut. I turned around, walked back to the doctor’s office, and scheduled the earliest appointment for a termination procedure. It was late afternoon by the time I returned to the apartment. Elliot was waiting in the living room. The moment I walked through the door, he rushed toward me, trying to grab my hands. “Megan, where the hell have you been? You look terrible. Do you have any idea how worried Daphne and I were?” I slipped my hands behind my back, avoiding his touch. “I stayed at a friend’s place.” Elliot’s hands hovered awkwardly in the air before slowly dropping to his sides. “Well… as long as you’re okay.” “Megan!” Daphne leaned against the doorframe of the guest room, her face still slightly washed out. “I’m so sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to keep Elliot away from you.” Seeing her, Elliot immediately rushed to her side, offering his arm. “You’re still weak. Why are you out of bed? Megan’s back now, you can rest easy.” Daphne looked at me, a tight smile on her face. “Megan, let’s just put last night behind us. Tomorrow is Elliot’s birthday. What secret gift did you plan for him?” She was desperate to steer the conversation away from the kitchen. “It’s a surprise,” I said quietly. I walked over to the coffee table, picked up my phone, and opened a forum link I had saved. “Daphne, I saw a thread online earlier. I thought it was pretty interesting and wanted to get your take on it.” I turned the screen toward her. The headline was bold: “I just found out my partner of seven years has been sleeping with my best friend for three. What should I do?” Daphne’s face drained of what little color she had left. She shot a panicked look at Elliot. Elliot froze, staring at the screen, his breathing suddenly heavy and ragged. “Why… why are you reading garbage like that?” Daphne forced a laugh, her voice trembling violently. “Just curious,” I said, looking her dead in the eye. “If you were the girlfriend, what would you do?” Daphne bit her lip, her eyes darting around the room. “I… I’d dump him, obviously. Start over.” “Exactly,” I nodded. Elliot’s jaw clenched, his posture incredibly stiff. “Daphne and I need to go make reservations for tomorrow night before they fill up.” He grabbed his coat, pulled Daphne with him, and slammed the front door behind them. The moment the lock clicked, a massive wave of relief washed over me. I walked into the bedroom and packed my bags. I didn’t take a single thing Elliot had bought me over the last seven years. I only packed the worn-out clothes and personal keepsakes I had brought from the South. I slipped my engagement ring off my finger and placed it in the center of the kitchen island. Next to it, I laid my house key. I rolled my suitcase out of the building and hailed a cab straight to the airport. As the plane roared down the runway and lifted into the night sky, I looked out at the city lights shrinking below me, and finally let go. That night, Elliot and Daphne didn’t come back to the apartment. The following evening, Elliot’s birthday dinner was held at an upscale downtown restaurant. Friends were laughing, clinking glasses, and Daphne was tucked close to his side, radiant. “Where’s Megan?” one of their mutual friends asked. “Didn’t she say she had a surprise for you?” Elliot frowned, pulling out his phone. The last message from me was still from three days ago. Just then, a waiter approached their table carrying an elegant, beautifully wrapped box. “Pardon me, is one of you Mr. Elliot? A local courier just dropped this off from a Ms. Megan.” Elliot’s face relaxed into a smug smile. “I knew it. She might be stubborn, but she’d never miss my birthday.” He proudly opened the box in front of everyone. But the moment he saw what was inside, the blood completely drained from his face. “No… this can’t be…”

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On the eve of our wedding, my fiancé, Tyler, snuck off to the county clerk’s office and got a marriage license with my best friend, Cassie. She posted it on her private Instagram—a caption dripping with bittersweet regret. She had forgotten to exclude me from her Close Friends list. “Husband and wife, if only for a day. From now on, we walk our separate paths.” The second my finger tapped the heart icon, the post vanished. A heartbeat later, Tyler’s name flashed on my screen. He sounded breathless, stumbling over his words. “It was just a stupid game of Truth or Dare, Rebecca. Cassie lost, okay? She used my name and Photoshopped a marriage certificate. I already chewed her out for it. Please don’t overthink this.” “Our wedding is tomorrow, and you’re carrying our baby. You need to rest.” Before I could say a word, the line went dead. I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and immediately called my OB-GYN’s clinic to schedule an abortion. There was no way I was walking down that aisle. But the moment I walked into the clinic, Tyler rushed in. He claimed he was from the past—the eighteen-year-old version of himself. His teenage eyes were soft, brimming with a desperate affection, asking over and over if we were married yet in this timeline. Before I could even process what was happening, translucent lines of text—like a live chat overlay—began to float right in front of my eyes. [God, the heroine is so pathetic. Surely she doesn’t believe his BS? He’s only pretending to be eighteen because the clinic staff tipped him off that she was here for an abortion.] [Honestly, she should just marry him. A few days after the wedding, that toxic best friend dies in a car crash while they’re hooking up. After that, he becomes completely devoted to her.] I stared at Tyler, my eyes burning with unshed tears. “Tomorrow is our wedding,” I said quietly. “I just came to pick up some prenatal vitamins and cold medicine.” … Tyler let out a massive sigh of relief. “That’s… that’s amazing,” he murmured, playing the part of a wide-eyed boy. “I can’t believe I get to see my future wedding.” I kept my face perfectly still, though my chest felt hollow. The real eighteen-year-old Tyler would have lost his mind if he thought I was sick. He would have badgered me with a thousand questions, wishing he could catch the cold for me. The man standing in front of me couldn’t even bother to put effort into his performance anymore. Tyler looked down, avoiding my eyes. “Rebecca, I only have a short time here in the future. I want to look around the city on my own for a bit. Can I come back to you tomorrow?” I squeezed my hands into fists. “Sure.” The floating chat feed flared up again. [She actually believed him? He’s using the “looking around” excuse to go hook up with Cassie again!] [He is trash. No wonder the groveling arc later is so brutal. My poor girl is being so blind right now.] [Right? Has she seriously not noticed Cassie’s entire social media is basically a shrine to him?] I pulled out my phone and scrolled through Cassie’s feed. She was a chronic poster, always chasing likes. In the past, I’d merely double-tapped out of habit, never looking closely. Now, the truth stared back at me in high definition. Her most recent post was a grid of nine photos. My eyes locked onto one of them—a shadow cast on the pavement. I knew the silhouette of Tyler’s shoulders anywhere. And there, glinting on the wrist, was the Omega watch I had bought him for our anniversary. I scrolled up. Nearly every post had a piece of Tyler hidden in plain sight. A hand on a coffee cup, a pair of legs stretching out on a patio chair, a set of keys. But never his face. If it hadn’t been for that accidental Close Friends post, I might have gone to my grave blind. I locked my phone and sat on a park bench for a long time, watching the autumn leaves drift across the concrete. The silence was deafening. While I sat there, my phone buzzed. Cassie had posted again. She was holding a massive bouquet of red roses, her arm looped through Tyler’s. His face was cropped out, but his physical presence was unmistakable. Her caption: [You are the love of my youth.] A tear slipped down my cheek, hot and heavy, blurring the screen. The chat overlay scrolled by: [Finally, she’s seeing it! He’s literally all over her right now. It’s disgusting. Why isn’t she catching them in the act?] [They’re literally hooking up in a car parked on the street nearby. If she just walks over, she’ll catch them red-handed.] I looked across the street. A familiar pink sedan was parked by the curb. Cassie’s car. The vehicle was rocking with rhythmic, unmistakable motion. I grabbed my purse, stood up, and walked over. As my shadow fell across the tinted windows, the motion abruptly stopped. Total silence. I knocked on the glass. No response. Instead of making a scene, I stood there, pulled out my phone, and called the local parking enforcement line to report an illegally parked vehicle blocking a fire hydrant. Panicked, the doors flew open. Cassie and Tyler scrambled out, their clothes desperately disheveled. Tyler’s button-down shirt was misaligned, his collar turned inside out. It was pathetic. He tried to look bewildered and innocent. “Rebecca! What’s wrong? Why didn’t you recognize Cassie’s car?” My eyes drifted to the faint red smudge on his neck. I hung up the phone. “What are you two doing here?” Cassie’s jaw was tight, but she shot a glance at Tyler, her eyes filled with a smug, defiant confidence. Tyler stammered, “I… I just ran into her. I asked her to show me around the neighborhood. You know, since I’m eighteen again, everything looks so different. I wanted to find you a perfect wedding gift.” I forced a polite smile. “Oh, I see. Then let me join you. A lot has changed in ten years. Let’s go together.” The chat feed went wild: [Is she seriously buying this? Look at their clothes! Cassie’s dress literally has stains on it!] [Keep watching, I can’t take this frustration.] Cassie’s face contorted. “Oh, sweetie, you’re the bride. You shouldn’t be running around exhausting yourself.” “I’m fine,” I replied. Reluctantly, they let me in. Cassie drove, Tyler sat in the passenger seat, and I sat in the back. Neither of them seemed to realize how absurd this was. From the back seat, I saw the lipstick mark on the back of Tyler’s neck. My throat tightened. “Cassie,” I said quietly. “Are you going to explain why you Photoshopped a marriage license with my fiancé?” She laughed, a high, forced sound. “It was just a joke, Becca. Don’t be so sensitive. You’re my best friend—what’s wrong with borrowing your husband for a laugh?” The chat overlay chimed in: [What is going on? She knows the truth, so why is she just asking questions? Don’t tell me she’s going to forgive them.] [Ugh, she’s so codependent. In the original timeline, she forgave him because Cassie died in the crash. She’s going to do it again, isn’t she?] I dug my nails into my palms until the pain cleared my head. “Pull over.” Tyler flinched, looking back at me with sudden panic. “What’s wrong?” “I said, pull over.” Cassie hit the brakes, pulling the car onto the shoulder of the busy road. My voice remained dead calm. “Tyler. Slap Cassie. Ten times. Hard.” Tyler gasped, turning around to glare at me. “Rebecca! Have you lost your mind? She’s your best friend!” My gaze was icy. “Tyler, when you were eighteen, you did whatever I told you. Back in high school, when those kids bullied me, you didn’t hesitate to throw a punch. Why is this any different? I don’t like other people touching my things. Even her.” Cassie started to cry. “Becca, please. It was just a stupid post.” “Do it, Tyler,” I commanded. They wanted to play games? Fine. Let’s play. The chat overlay lit up: [Oh my god, yes! She’s making them turn on each other!] [This is brilliant! Let them tear each other apart!] [He’s trapped. He claimed to be his younger, devoted self—he has to prove it now.] Tyler was sweating, his face tense with anxiety. He raised his hand, looking at Cassie with genuine pain in his eyes. Cassie stared back at him, her eyes wide with betrayal. She couldn’t believe he would actually do it. “Becca, we’ve been friends for ten years. You can’t do this to me,” she sobbed. Ten years of friendship, and she was sleeping with my fiancé. Tyler gritted his teeth and let his hand fall against Cassie’s cheek. It was a weak, soft slap. “Harder,” I whispered. “I’m not satisfied.” Tyler closed his eyes and delivered a stinging slap that left a red mark on her face. Cassie burst into tears, clutching her cheek. Seeing the agonizing sympathy in Tyler’s eyes made my stomach turn. He loved her. He loved her so much he didn’t even realize he was blowing his own cover. What did our ten years together mean to him? The sound of slaps echoed in the tight space of the car alongside Cassie’s quiet whimpering. No one spoke. Finally, Cassie couldn’t take it anymore. She threw open the driver’s side door and ran out into the street. Tyler instinctively reached out after her. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Does it hurt you to see her cry?” He snapped his hand back, his voice too high. “Of course not! I was just… I was thinking about you. You two have been friends forever. It’s a shame to ruin that over a misunderstanding.” “Is it? I thought you always hated her.” When Tyler was pursuing me in college, he complained constantly about Cassie taking up too much of my time. He’d written in his journal back then that he wished she would just disappear. I had scolded him for it. Tyler frozen. “I… I do hate her. I’m just worried you won’t have any friends left.” “I don’t need friends like her.” Tyler had no comeback. “Rebecca, what happened to you? You used to be so kind, so forgiving.” “People change,” I said simply. He looked deeply unsettled by that. On the drive back, Tyler’s phone buzzed incessantly. We both knew it was Cassie. He wanted to check it, but he couldn’t—not while playing the innocent eighteen-year-old. Once we reached our apartment, Tyler tried to sound domestic. “Get some rest, okay? My parents are so excited about the baby. We can’t let them down. I have to return Cassie’s car keys to her, so I’ll be back in a bit.” I leaned against the window frame. “Tyler, how did you know I was pregnant?” He blinked, his eyes darting away. “Oh… Cassie told me.” “Right. Go on, then. Just make sure you’re back tonight.” Relieved, he hurried out. I watched his car disappear down the street. Tyler had severe oligospermia—a low sperm count. The fertility specialists had told us even IVF might not work. We had accepted that we might never have a child. But then, against all odds, I had gotten pregnant naturally. His family had been ecstatic, rushing us to the altar. That baby was the only reason Tyler cared enough to lie to me now. I placed a hand over my stomach. “I’m sorry, little one,” I thought. “Find a happier home in your next life.” An hour later, Cassie posted another update. It was a direct provocation. [A woman with real power never fears losing her man.] The photo showed Tyler from behind, standing in her kitchen, making coffee. She was bold now; anyone who knew him would recognize his posture. I smiled and tapped the heart icon. The chat overlay floated up: [Look at this audacity! He’s back in her bed, promising her this is the “last time.”] [Oh my god, I can’t. Why is the heroine just sitting there? Do something!] [Is she really going to marry him? She didn’t even get the abortion.] Unbothered, I opened an app on my phone. It connected to a hidden security camera in Cassie’s living room. I had installed it for her years ago after her apartment was broken into. Now, it was going to serve a different purpose. I adjusted the camera angle remotely toward her velvet sofa. There they were, completely oblivious, tangled together. Cassie wrapped her arms around his neck. “You behaved well today. I suppose I can forgive you.” Tyler kissed her forehead. “I’m sorry, Cassie. I can’t give you a ring. I can’t leave Rebecca.” “It’s fine. Once you’re married, we’ll pretend none of this ever happened.” Tyler’s eyes softened with guilt as he pulled her back down. I pressed the record button. The chat feed erupted: [I knew she had a plan! This video is going to destroy them!] [Oh, the wedding tomorrow is going to be spectacular!] [Let’s see him try to play the innocent eighteen-year-old after this.] I didn’t sleep a wink. The next morning, Tyler showed up at the venue just in time, holding a bouquet of white peonies. He didn’t offer any explanation for where he’d spent the night, assuming I’d forgotten his promise to return. I stood on the stage, looking down at Cassie sitting in the third row. The smile on my face widened. “The eighteen-year-old Tyler never broke a promise,” I whispered as he stood beside me. Tyler’s chest tightened. “Rebecca, what do you mean?” I reached up, gently adjusting his crooked tie. “When do you think you’ll go back to your own time?” He stammered, “Soon, I guess.” “Tyler, the boy I loved at eighteen wanted to be near me every second. He would never have left me alone on the eve of our wedding, and he certainly wouldn’t have spent the night at Cassie’s.” “You’ve got it wrong,” he whispered frantically. “I wasn’t with her.” “Stop acting. You’re terrible at it.” His eyes widened. A split second later, a collective gasp echoed through the chapel. The giant projection screen, which was supposed to show our romantic photo slideshow, began playing the high-definition footage of Tyler and Cassie on her living room sofa. I had spent the entire night editing it. From the crowd, Cassie let out a bloodcurdling shriek. “That’s not me! It’s a deepfake!” Tyler screamed at the tech booth, “Turn it off! Shut it down!” But the guests were already staring, whispering, recording with their phones. Under the intense stress and the judging eyes of everyone we knew, Cassie’s body stiffened. She fell to the floor, having a severe stress-induced seizure. Tyler froze, looking at her, then back at me. Panic overtook him. He rushed off the stage, lifting her into his arms. I picked up the microphone, my voice echoing through the speakers. “Tyler! If you walk out that door with her, this pregnancy is over.” Tyler paused, caught in a terrible, agonizing hesitation. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. And then he ran. The chat text scrolled by: [Let him go. He’ll find out the truth soon enough.]

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