At noon, my online girlfriend sent me a picture of my lunch, asking for compliments. It was a spicy tuna poke bowl . [Baby, I ate lunch properly, I was so good, praise me~] I was about to send “Good girl” when I noticed four large red characters printed on the plate in the photo: AETHER INC.. This immediately made my heart skip a beat. Because… my company is also called “AETHER INC.”. I froze on the spot. No way, are you kidding me? My online girlfriend of over a year works at the same company as me?! 1 Lunch hour. I was sitting in the company cafeteria, mindlessly forking a spicy tuna poke bowl into my mouth—my absolute go-to comfort food. I was scrolling through my phone, thinking about the girl I’d been talking to online for over a year. She’d mentioned earlier that her workload was insane lately, the kind of grind that makes you forget to eat entirely. Being the dutiful virtual boyfriend, I’d sent a gentle reminder: No matter how crazy the deliverables get, don’t skip lunch. Be a good girl for me and go eat. Ten minutes later, my screen lit up. A reply from Kitten. Babe, look at me being all responsible. I’m eating. I’m being so good… don’t I deserve a little praise? Attached was a photo. It was a steaming hot bowl of ramen, the broth glistening under overhead lights. I was halfway through typing “That’s my girl” when my thumb hovered over the send button. I froze. There was something unsettlingly familiar about the photo. I zoomed in. It wasn’t the food; it was the tray. Printed in bold, unmistakable red letters on the rim of the dining tray was a logo: AETHER INC. My stomach dropped. Because… I work at Aether Inc. I sat there, stone-faced, my brain trying to process the statistical impossibility of this. You have to be kidding me. The girl I’ve been sexting, pouring my heart out to, and falling for over the last year… she’s in this building? She works at my company? I looked down at my own tray. Then back at the photo. Suddenly, the tuna didn’t taste so good. The Aether cafeteria is strictly employees-only. There was no way around it. My internet girlfriend was a colleague. I was speechless. 2 Babe? Where’s my praise? (Sad kitten face) I’m really listening to you. I’m eating well. (Crying cat GIF) Are you mad? Did I do something wrong? (Cat hiding in a corner) The notifications were stacking up, buzzing against my palm like a frantic heartbeat. I still hadn’t recovered from the shock. I knew we lived in the same city—San Francisco is small, but it’s not that small. But the same office building? The same payroll? It was a cosmic joke. I started typing: “Kitten, which department are you in?” Deleted it. “Wait, you work at Aether?” Deleted that too. I didn’t know what to say. If I asked, she’d ask where I worked. She’d figure out I was here too. She’d want to meet. And then what? The thought of walking past someone in the hallway, making polite copy-machine small talk while knowing we call each other “Baby” and “Kitten” at 2:00 AM, made my skin crawl with second-hand embarrassment. Before I could spiral further, another text came through. Babe, you’re ignoring me. Are you eating lunch with someone else?? Babe, seriously, my anxiety is spiking… talk to me. I couldn’t let her spiral. I needed to play it cool until I figured this out. Sorry, was just stuffing my face and didn’t see the screen. You’re such a good girl. Proud of you. That seemed to defuse the bomb. Yay! I’m all done now. Heading back to the grind. Love you! 3 I exhaled a breath I didn’t know I was holding and scanned the cafeteria. It had thinned out. Mostly guys from Engineering left, plus one older gentleman near the recycling bins. Definitely not her. I needed to think rationally. I needed a strategy. I had three burning questions: a. Who is she? b. Is she actually a decent person in real life? c. Once I find her, do I come clean? Keep it virtual? Or break up? (Because, let’s be honest, the potential for awkwardness here is nuclear.) I replayed our entire relationship in my head. We had been rigorous about privacy. No names, no addresses, no face pics. The most I’d ever gotten—at my persistent begging—were a few mirror selfies of her abs, cropped at the neck. That wasn’t much to go on. I couldn’t exactly walk around the open-plan office asking women to lift their shirts so I could compare oblique definitions. That was a one-way ticket to a lawsuit. 4 Back at my desk, I felt paranoid. I looked at the women in my department—Marketing. I shuddered. I spent my days fighting passive-aggressive email wars with half of them. If Kitten turned out to be Sarah from Accounting or Jessica from HR, I would simply have to fake my own death. I scrolled back through months of chat logs, hunting for clues. And then, I found something. Last month, she was agonizing over which travel mug to buy. Babe, I’m at Santana Row with my bestie. I need a new cup. Help me pick? I’ll buy you one too. She’d sent a dozen photos of high-end drinkware. I’d pointed her toward a limited-edition, hand-thrown ceramic tumbler from Heath Ceramics—the “Midnight Glaze” version. I had declined her offer to buy me one to protect my address. “Just knowing you chose the one I liked is enough,” I’d said. Smooth. She bought it right then. All I had to do was find the Midnight Glaze mug. I took a “lap” around the office, acting like I was stretching my legs. I walked past rows of cubicles. Nothing. I went back to my desk and texted her: Are you using that new mug today? She replied instantly. Yes! It’s right here looking pretty. Photo attached. There it was, sitting on a white desk. Weird. I hadn’t seen it. I was still analyzing the background of the photo when a Slack notification popped up on my desktop. It was Harper, my boss and the CEO of our division. Wes, there are still holes in the pitch deck. Come to my office. I walked into the glass-walled office. Harper was on her cell, her back to the door, voice dropped to a husky whisper. “Babe, I miss you too. Come by the office tomorrow.” “Oh, and Blaire is coming in tomorrow, so you can catch a ride with her.” “I just worry about you driving alone, you know?” “Okay, fine, listen to you. Drive safe. I have to go. Mwah.” I stared at the carpet, trying to make myself invisible. Gross. I had never seen Harper, the “Iron Lady” of Aether Inc., act so… soft. She hung up, cleared her throat, and spun around with her usual professional smile. “Wes. The investors looked at the draft this morning. Overall, they’re happy, but they have notes. I’ve left comments in the doc. Need you to turn it around ASAP.” “Got it, Harper.” I turned to leave, and that’s when I saw it. Sitting on the corner of her mahogany desk. The Heath Ceramics “Midnight Glaze” tumbler. It was identical. I felt like I’d been tasered. I froze, my feet rooted to the floor. Harper looked up from her laptop. “Wes? Something else?” Her voice snapped me out of it. I took a deep breath, forcing a casual expression onto my face. I pointed at the mug. “Nice cup, Harper. Where’d you get it?” She barely glanced at it. “Santana Row.” I felt the blood drain from my face. Harper smiled, her eyes crinkling in a way that was terrifyingly familiar. “Why? You like it?” I arranged my face into a mask of indifference. “Oh, no. Just making conversation.” I fled her office. My brain was screaming a single, horrific conclusion: Harper is Kitten. But wait. If I’m her online boyfriend… then who was she just calling “Babe” on the phone? Who was coming to visit tomorrow? Is Harper cheating on me? Holy shit. 5 The rest of the day was a blur. I was a zombie. I ignored Kitten’s texts. I couldn’t deal with it. I mechanically updated the pitch deck, filed it, and drove home in a daze. When I finally collapsed on my couch, my phone was full of notifications. Babe, what are you doing? Hello? Why are you ignoring me? Babe, you’re acting weird today. Did Kitten do something wrong? Tell me and I’ll fix it! You’re scaring me… My hands shook as I typed a reply. Kitten, is there anything you’re hiding from me? She replied instantly. No, babe! I’ve always been honest with you. Why would you ask that? Are you misunderstanding something? No, I typed. I needed to calm down. Okay. Hypothesis: Harper is Kitten. Fact: Harper was talking to a “Babe” on the phone who is coming to the office tomorrow. I needed to confirm if Harper was cheating. Maybe I misunderstood the phone call? Maybe “Babe” is a pet dog? (Unlikely). Then, a new text came in. By the way, babe, that new Valentino collection dropped. Help me pick a top? I want to wear it tomorrow! Photos attached. This was my chance. I deliberately chose a distinct, black knit sweater with the V-logo embroidered subtly over the left breast. It was specific. It was recognizable. If Harper walked in wearing that Valentino sweater tomorrow, she was Kitten. And if she was also meeting her “Babe,” then she was a cheater. And I was the other man. 6 The next morning, I walked into Harper’s office with the revised deck in hand. Harper was sitting on her sofa, sipping tea. She was wearing the black Valentino sweater. It was black as night, and the logo seemed to mock me. “Deck is ready, Harper.” She flashed me that warm, professional smile. “Great work, Wes. The lead investor is coming in this afternoon. Be ready.” “Will do.” I stared at the sweater. I had to be sure. “Never seen you in that knit before, Harper. It suits you.” She touched the fabric lightly. “Thanks. Bought it yesterday.” That was the nail in the coffin. Harper was Kitten. I went back to my cubicle and stared through the glass walls at her office. She had said her “Babe” was coming in today. I needed to see who this guy was. If it was what I thought it was, I had to end it. 7 An hour later, a guy walked in. Tall, handsome, confident. He strolled right into Harper’s office like he owned the place. I grabbed my water bottle and walked past the open door, slowing my pace. I heard laughter. “Babe, I missed you,” the guy said. “That sweater looks amazing on you. You really pull off black.” Harper’s voice was dripping with honey. “I’m glad you like it, babe. I picked it out specifically for today. Since we’re meeting your parents tonight… I didn’t want them to think I was too flashy.” “Are you kidding? I love you, so they’ll love you.” I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. She asked me to pick her outfit so she could wear it to meet her real boyfriend’s parents. What was I? A digital plaything? A dirty little secret? Rage, cold and sharp, flooded my chest. I pulled out my phone. I didn’t hesitate. You are absolutely rotten. We’re done. Block. Delete. 8 I watched through the glass as Harper held hands with the guy—let’s call him Carter—and walked him to the elevator. She didn’t look heartbroken. She looked radiant. I felt like the world’s biggest clown. Every sweet text, every late-night confession… it all turned to ash. The only silver lining was that I’d used a burner account. She didn’t know it was me, Wes, her employee. If she did, I’d have to move to Antarctica. I told myself to get a grip. I’m a professional. I’m not going to quit a good job over a catfish. I just needed to bury my feelings and focus on the money. 9 That afternoon, a message popped up from Harper. Wes, the investor reviewed the deck. She thinks it’s viable but wants you to come in and walk her through the strategy. I straightened my tie, swallowed my pride, and marched into the office. “Wes, meet our lead investor and, coincidentally, my best friend—Blaire. Don’t be nervous. Just tell her what you told me.” I ignored Harper and looked at the woman on the sofa. My eyes met hers, and the air left the room. Unlike Harper’s warm, chaotic energy, this woman was ice and steel. She radiated ‘old money’ and ‘don’t touch me’. She was wearing a sharp, black blazer with a plunging neckline that revealed a simple black camisole underneath. She held a teacup with slender, pale fingers, taking a delicate sip. Her presence was overwhelming. I audibly gulped. “Go on,” Harper nudged me. I went into autopilot. I delivered the pitch. Once I started talking work, the confidence returned. When I finished, Harper clapped. “See? He knows his stuff. Blaire, what do you think?” We both looked at the woman on the sofa. Blaire didn’t look at the screen. She was staring at my neck. “Mr. Davis,” she said, her voice cool and low. “That is a very unique silver chain.” My hand flew to my collar. I was wearing a slightly unbuttoned shirt today, and my silver chain was visible. Panic flared. When I bought this chain, I had sent a close-up photo of it to Kitten. Kitten, look at the new chain. Thoughts? Attached: Close up of my neck and collarbone. Kitten: Babe makes anything look good. If she recognized the chain… I glanced at Harper. She looked bored, just waiting for Blaire’s approval on the business deal. Right. She has a boyfriend. She’s meeting his parents tonight. She probably deleted my photos the second she looked at them. I was just entertainment. I buttoned my collar, hiding the silver. “Just something I picked up. Cheap trinket.” 10 Harper sat down next to Blaire. “Okay, enough about the jewelry. What’s the verdict?” Harper was looking at Blaire. But Blaire was looking at me. Intensely. Finally, she spoke. “Exceptional.” Harper let out a whoop and slapped Blaire on the shoulder. “I knew you’d like it! She’s tough to please, Wes.” I exhaled. Thank God. All those sleepless nights paid off. Blaire brushed Harper’s hand off her shoulder with a look of distaste, but then the corner of her mouth quirked up. She looked right at me. “Mr. Davis is clearly very talented.” It was the first time we’d met, but the weight of her gaze made my ears burn. Harper looked shocked. “Whoa. Blaire offering a compliment? That’s a collectors’ item. Usually, you just tear people apart.” Harper laughed. “But then again, Wes is great. Who wouldn’t praise him? Unlike you—you finally compliment a guy and it’s an employee. Maybe the breakup is making you soft? Oh, wait—” Harper covered her mouth. “Oops. Shouldn’t mention the ex-fiancé who dumped you. My bad.” My ears perked up. The Ice Queen got dumped? Who on earth would dump a woman who looked like a billionaire supermodel? Then, I felt a chill. Blaire was glaring at me. I looked down, feeling inexplicably guilty. Blaire turned her gaze to Harper. “Keep talking, and I pull the funding.” Harper raised her hands in surrender. “Okay, okay! Sorry. You have zero sense of humor.” My heart was hammering against my ribs. “Harper, Ms. Vanderbilt… if that’s all, I’ll get back to work.” I practically ran out of the room. Back at my desk, Harper messaged again. Wes, are you free tonight? Blaire has a few lingering questions about the scaling strategy. She wants to take you to dinner to discuss. I typed back: No. If you go, I’ll double your end-of-year bonus. I’m a man of principles, but everyone has a price. Fine. Send the address. I put my phone down. Harper was off to meet her boyfriend’s parents, and I was being pimped out to her scary best friend for a bonus. Wes, I told myself, unlucky in love, lucky in money. 11 I arrived at the address. It wasn’t a business dinner spot. It was Lumière, one of the most romantic, expensive French restaurants in the city. Blaire was waiting in a private booth. “Sorry I’m late,” I said, checking my watch. “You’re not. I was early,” she said.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “394530”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

Just before the holidays, my younger boyfriend dumped me out of nowhere. My mother issued an ultimatum: If you don’t bring a man home for Christmas, don’t bother bringing the dog either! In a panic, I posted an ad online to rent a date. My only requirement was supposed to be: Must be willing to sit with my dog in the backseat. The next morning, my inbox exploded. My ex-boyfriend had completely spammed my DMs:[We’ve barely been broken up for a few days and you’re already looking for a dog?!][Fine, if you had just said that’s what you were into, I wouldn’t have held back.][Answer me! Did you actually find someone?!] [Who could be a better dog than me?! I’ll rip his throat out!!] I blinked, thoroughly confused, and pulled up my original post. My vision went dark. How did the words “sit with” get deleted?! 1 I stared at the row of exclamation points on my screen, picturing Chase’s face—a face that looked unfairly handsome even when he was throwing a tantrum. I felt absolutely nothing. A week ago, I had reminded him. When you come home with me for Christmas, you don’t need to pack that many heavy coats. The South is pretty mild this time of year. He had paused, looking down at his phone. “Sure.” That very night, I got an automated email notification that his flight had been canceled. I called him immediately, asking what was going on. It rang for a long time. When he finally answered, the deafening, pulsating bass of a crowded club flooded the speaker. Chase said he was out having drinks with some guys from his graduating class. His tone dripped with obvious impatience, like my call was a nagging disruption to his big night out. Worried he couldn’t hear me, I yelled over the noise, asking if he had accidentally canceled the ticket. I had moved heaven and earth to book that holiday flight; we couldn’t just lose it. He hesitated. It took him a long moment to formulate an excuse. “Oh, that. I lost a bet playing Truth or Dare. The dare was to cancel my flight right then and there and go snowboarding in Aspen with them instead.” The music pounding in my ear grew louder. I genuinely thought I was having auditory hallucinations. I asked again, slowly, “You canceled your ticket to meet my parents… so you could go snowboarding with other people?” “Harper, just listen to me—” “Chase! Stop using the phone as an excuse to dodge shots! Get your ass back in here~” A bright, flirty female voice cut through the background noise, urging him on. Chase laughed and yelled back at her, “Shut up! I’m talking to my girlfriend. Keep drinking, it’s on my tab.” Then, his voice shifted back to that practiced, lazy charm. “Baby, they were egging me on, and I just got caught up in the moment. I’m graduating this year, and I won’t have many chances left to just wild out with my friends. How about we go see your parents next year?” I took a deep breath, fighting to maintain the calm, collected demeanor expected of the older girlfriend. “Chase.” I enunciated every word. “I am giving you two options right now.” “Option one: when you sober up, you buy a new ticket immediately. I will pretend tonight was just a bad, drunken joke.” The bass through the phone seemed to lower slightly. “Or, option two… we’re done.” I tilted my head back, swallowing down the sharp, acidic lump in my throat. “Let’s break up.” Before Chase could even process the choice, someone else chimed in nearby: “Ooh, drama. Lexi was just crying saying you told her to get lost, even though you promised you’d take her to Aspen to clear her head.” “Is your older girlfriend giving you a curfew again? Good boy, always rushing home to mommy~” A chorus of mocking, mean-spirited laughter erupted. I don’t know how much time passed before Chase finally spoke again. “Harper, do you have to be so intense about everything? I’m twenty-four. You keep pressuring me to go home with you for the holidays—what is that? A hint that I need to put a ring on it the second I graduate? I am under a massive amount of stress right now. Can’t we just keep things light and easy?” His sudden explosion of anger caught me off guard. But looking back, the signs had been there all along. For the past six months, Chase had stopped dropping by my office. Whenever I wanted to plan a weekend date, he either had “school stuff” or “bro time.” His texts devolved from clingy voice notes to brief messages, and finally to indifferent emojis. When we did manage to see each other, his face was perpetually buried in his phone. Whenever I brought up going home for Christmas, he found an excuse to change the subject. So that was it. He thought I was trying to trap him into marriage. I was twenty-seven. But it wasn’t a death sentence if I didn’t get married at twenty-seven. My mother knew I had been dating someone for three years. But in those three years, she had never once met him. She was beginning to suspect he was entirely made up. This year, she laid down the law: if I didn’t bring my boyfriend home, I wasn’t allowed to bring Lucky back for the holidays either. Lucky was my dog. I’d had him for ten years, and his health had been rapidly declining lately. There was no way I was leaving him in a boarding facility. The dog was coming home with me. That was non-negotiable. As for the boyfriend… “Got it. I know your answer then.” Adults are supposed to keep things dignified. You part ways amicably. Even if your heart feels like it’s being dragged over broken glass, watching three years of your youth swirl down the drain. Facing a boy three years my junior, my last shred of pride absolutely forbade me from becoming hysterical. Chase froze. He probably thought his little outburst would force me to back down and coddle him. He never expected me to just flip the board and walk away. He gritted his teeth. “You want to break up? Fine! We’re broken up!” 2 My inbox was still flooded with aggressive interrogations from my ex. I didn’t scroll down. I just blocked him. Over the past three years, blocking me whenever he threw a tantrum was his favorite party trick. He would unblock me shortly after, but every time I had to type out paragraphs of apologies just to be met with that red “Message Not Delivered” icon, it felt like a punch to the gut. I never thought the day would come where I would be the one blocking him. The world went blissfully quiet. Just before I logged out, I noticed a separate, unread message in my inbox. [Hello. Do you have any specific physical requirements?] Someone actually applied? I hesitated. I was terrified this person had also completely misinterpreted my post. Missing the words “sit with” made the “be my dog” typo incredibly compromising. Should I just ask what he meant? That felt borderline insulting. My phone buzzed. It was my sister, Claire. She was already laying it on thick. “Harper, Mom has been bragging to literally everyone in the neighborhood that you’re bringing a guy home. The extended family is practically camping out in the living room waiting for the show.” “Please tell me you’re not going to flake.” I hung up, feeling too nauseous to eat. Tell Mom the truth? Would she even believe me? And even if she did, the humiliation in front of the relatives would crush her. After wrestling with it for ten minutes, I opened the DM and rapidly typed back: [Hi. No special requirements. Just be a normal human being.][For payment, you can choose: 1. If you also need a fake date to get your family off your back, we can swap favors. 2. Cash.][But this has to be a mutual fit. You can look at my picture first.] I attached a photo. To my surprise, the user was online and replied almost instantly: [Can I have some time to think about it?] Me: … [Sure. Let me know.] Before bed, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror. I leaned in close, inspecting my forehead, the corners of my eyes, the lines around my mouth… No deep wrinkles yet. But somehow, the face I used to carry with such effortless confidence had reached the age of being “evaluated.” Was I really getting old? 3 It was the final office holiday party before the break. Everyone in my department was getting trashed. I tried to pace them, reminding them that even though we had tomorrow off, a hangover was still a hangover. One of the fresh-out-of-college trainees nudged me, giggling. “What are you worried about, Harper? Your hot younger boyfriend is totally going to pick you up and take care of you, right?” The table erupted in teasing laughter. I forced a tight smile. “Quit it, you guys. Keep having fun, but I’ve got to head out early. Put the drinks on my card.” “You’re the best, boss!” Even though it had all crashed and burned, Chase and I did have moments that made other people jealous. When he didn’t have classes, he would come to my office. If I was in a meeting, he’d sit quietly in the lobby, reading a book. He’d pick me up from the airport after my business trips, even for the red-eye flights. He loved buying matching couples’ stuff, leaving his specific neck pillow in the passenger seat of my car so everyone knew it was his spot. We used to kiss in that car, talking about everything we were going to do together. Back then, I really thought we were going to make it. Three years isn’t that long in the grand scheme of a lifetime. But the years from twenty-four to twenty-seven? Those are long. Heavy. 4 On the ride home, the algorithm served me a video of a young girl. It was a sensual, choreographed couples’ dance. The girl was adorable, practically radiating youthful energy. The guy had his baseball cap pulled low, hiding half his face, but their bodies moved together in tight, suggestive synchronization to a heavy bassline. The comments were mostly shipping them, praising their chemistry. But one comment stood out:[The guy looks super familiar. Isn’t that the hot guy from NYU? But didn’t he already have a serious girlfriend? Did they break up?] I refreshed the page. The comment vanished. I hit the ‘Like’ button on the video. When I got home, I immediately checked on Lucky. Lately, I’d been waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of his wet, rattling breaths. Yesterday, he had thrown up. One look told me he was getting worse. I gently scooped him into his carrier and mapped the nearest 24-hour emergency vet. It was approaching midnight. There was only one doctor on duty. He was young. He wore a surgical mask, but the eyes above it were sharp, calm, and striking. He glanced at the dog, then up at me, a slight crease forming between his brows. My heart instantly lodged in my throat. “How is it? It’s not good, is it?” He lowered his gaze, leaning over the metal table to examine Lucky with quiet precision. Finally, he spoke. His voice was steady. “He is trying very hard.” My knees buckled. I had to grip the edge of a plastic chair to keep from hitting the linoleum. “How much time?” I heard my own voice, thin and trembling. “Two weeks. Maybe two months. It’s impossible to be certain. In human years, he has already lived a very long, full life.” I knew. Of course I knew. I was just a kid when we brought Lucky home. Now I was staring down thirty. To stabilize him, the doctor suggested keeping him overnight for observation. “Here is my personal number,” he said, handing me a card. “If anything comes up, or if you just need an update, text me anytime.” I fought back the burning behind my eyes and took one last look at my sweet, tired boy. “Thank you, Doctor. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.” He looked up, his eyes softening. “Just call me Miles.” 5 One girl and one dog left the apartment. Only the girl came back. Stepping into the freezing December air, a chill wracked my entire body. And there, slumped in front of my door, was a dead-drunk pile of garbage. It was Chase. 6 When he saw me, his eyes lit up. He scrambled up and grabbed my arm. He immediately started demanding answers—why did I block him? Why wasn’t I replying? I was drained. The absolute last thing I wanted to do was argue. “What exactly do you want from me?” You don’t want to go home with me? Fine. You want to break up? Also fine. What else was I supposed to give him? He suddenly went quiet. That perfectly sculpted face crumpled. He wrapped his arms around me, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “You were suffocating me. I’m at an age where everyone else my age is out living their lives…” “Other people are skiing for the holidays, and I’m supposed to meet your parents, plan a wedding, have kids, take responsibility for someone else’s entire existence…” “Just thinking about it makes me feel like I can’t breathe.” “You were twenty-four once. Can’t you just understand that? Can’t you just give me some grace?” For a split second, an echo from the past rang in my ears. Harper, can’t you just like me? Just believe in me a little, just love me? Chase had chased me for six months, and I had remained completely unmoved. I was getting ready to graduate; he was only a sophomore. On the day of my graduation, he confessed his feelings again in front of everyone. I turned him down again. Even though my heart had fluttered. Logic told me we were at different stages in life. That night, he got blackout drunk and passed out right in front of my apartment door. When I tried to help him up, he just stared at me with these big, tear-filled eyes. And then he started crying, begging me to give him a chance. That night, I didn’t have the heart to push him away. But now… I shoved him off me, looking dead into his bloodshot eyes. “And that gives you the right to treat me like garbage and mess around with other girls?” I knew that even if there was no one else, we still might not have survived. But the absolute betrayal of being cheated on—it was a vicious, biting pain. The kind that wakes you up at 3 AM crying into your pillow, making you want to claw your own skin off. “I just wanted to introduce you to my mother. I was stressed too, even if we were just going through the motions to keep her happy. Of course, if we made it in the long run, great. But meeting parents doesn’t mean you’re signing a marriage license tomorrow.” He was the man I had considered marrying, but he wasn’t the only man I could marry. “I…” Chase ran a hand through his hair. “I only went to Aspen to keep Lexi company. She just went through a bad breakup.” “Then go to her,” I said flatly. No one is stopping you. Chase blinked. “You’re not mad anymore?” “No.” I put my key in the lock. “We’re broken up.” Hearing that, Chase slammed his hand against the door, pinning it shut. “Broken up? Are you really so sure you can find someone better than me?” “Let’s be brutally honest here. You’re twenty-seven. The only reason you’re posting online to rent a date is because you literally have no one else.” “Or do you honestly think guys are lining up for a woman pushing thirty? Even guys with weird kinks have standards.” His face twisted into something ugly and cruel. He pulled out his phone, shoving his contact list in my face. It was an endless scroll of beautiful, young girls. “I have twenty pages of girls in my phone who are younger and prettier than you. But I kept my distance from all of them, for you.” “I’m just taking a junior on a ski trip to cheer her up. It’s not even just the two of us. Did you really have to blow it up like this?” “I am giving you one last chance. Harper, tell me you don’t want to break up. Say it!” He grabbed my shoulders, shaking me like a lunatic. “Excuse me.” A deep, quiet voice drifted out from the shadows of the hallway. “Are you quite finished? I have business with Ms. Harper.” A tall man in a tailored wool coat stepped out of the dim lighting. I had no idea how long he had been standing there. He had an imposing, elegant presence, but his voice was as cold as ice. He was incredibly handsome. And slightly familiar. But I definitely didn’t know him. Chase glared at him. “Who the hell are you?” The man ignored him completely, keeping his eyes fixed on me. “It’s me,” he said, raising a hand to cover the lower half of his face. It was Dr. Miles, the emergency vet! Panic spiked through me. Did something happen to Lucky?! I rushed toward him, only then noticing he was holding my empty pet carrier. I had left it at the clinic. I could have just picked it up next time. Why did he personally deliver it in the middle of the night? Seeing my confusion, Miles gave the bag a gentle shake. “I’m here to interview for the position.” The position? What position? Chase had been rolling his eyes, completely unbothered, until he saw what was inside the mesh bag… His expression violently shattered. His face drained of color. Inside the bag, was the leather dog leash I had left at the clinic. 7 Chase looked like his brain was short-circuiting. How could any man willingly debase himself to be a woman’s dog? Let alone his discarded, aging ex-girlfriend? “Bro, how much is she paying you?” Chase let out a sleazy, mocking laugh, reaching out to clap Miles on the shoulder. Miles smoothly sidestepped him. “I’m doing it for free. Purely voluntary.” Miles offered a polite, devastatingly innocent smile while delivering the most unhinged sentence imaginable: “Why? Are you looking to submit an application too?” Realizing he wasn’t going to get a rise out of Miles, Chase spun back to me, sneering. “Harper, I know what you’re doing. You hired an actor to piss me off, didn’t you?” He eyed the leash in Miles’ hand. “Otherwise, what are the odds he just happens to show up the second I come looking for you?” “We have three years together. You can’t just throw all of that away over one stupid fight.” Watching Chase throw a tantrum like a spoiled toddler in front of my veterinarian, I felt only one emotion. Profound embarrassment. “Chase, you love bringing up those three years,” I said, my voice dropping to a freezing register. “But how exactly did you treat those three years?” Some things lose their meaning once spoken aloud. But if it meant cutting this cancer out of my life once and for all, I didn’t mind making a scene. I pulled out my phone and hit play on an audio file. The background noise was a chaotic, thumping club.[Chase, are you actually serious about Lexi?] The voice coming from the speaker was crystal clear.[What does ‘serious’ even mean? She confessed her feelings, but I didn’t say yes. Are we not allowed to be friends?] [Man, that’s kinda messed up. Your girlfriend is obviously looking to settle down.][I never said I wouldn’t marry her. But she’s my first real girlfriend from college. If I just marry the very first girl I dated, aren’t I missing out on the rest of my twenties?][So you’re stringing the older girl along for marriage security while hooking up with freshmen to gain experience. Damn, you’re cold.] … “Enough!” Chase lunged forward, panic flashing in his eyes. “Who gave you that?!” I stepped back, dodging his grasp. “Who gave it to me doesn’t matter.” Chase lunged again, reaching for my arm— Smack! A heavy leather leash whipped through the air, striking the back of his hand with a sharp, brutal crack. A bright red welt bloomed instantly across his skin. He hissed in pain, jerking his hand back. Miles stood there, leash in hand, his eyes darker than a winter lake. Chase sucked in a breath, glaring daggers at Miles. Then, his eyes shifted back to me. He held up his red, stinging hand, shoving it into my line of sight. “Harper… it hurts.” His eyes were wide, wet with unshed tears. His voice caught in a pathetic whimper. I knew that look entirely too well. For three years, anytime he got a scrape, a headache, a minor inconvenience, I was the one panicking. No matter how swamped I was at work, I would take PTO to pick him up from campus and nurse him back to health. But today… I stepped right past him, completely ignoring his outstretched hand. I reached out and grabbed Miles by the wrist. “Let’s go inside.” I pulled him in and slammed the door in Chase’s face. Leaving him to rot in the hallway. 8 For the first time since moving in, my apartment with its ten-foot ceilings felt incredibly cramped. How did adding one 6’2″ man instantly consume all the oxygen in the room? I awkwardly scratched the back of my neck. “Dr. Miles… thank you for bailing me out out there.” I took the pet carrier from his hands, catching a glimpse of the leash inside. Remembering what had just transpired in the hallway… my face burned so hot I could have fried an egg on it. “Ms. Harper, you do realize I’m the one who messaged you online, right?” “I’m not blind,” I forced a laugh. “Your WhatsApp profile picture and the forum avatar are the exact same cat.” Miles chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. “Very observant.” “Just call me Harper. But I really think you misunderstood the post… I wasn’t actually looking for… that.” Thinking about the typo, I actively wanted the floorboards to open up and swallow me whole. Miles let out a quiet, muffled laugh. “I know. I’m perfectly capable of understanding context clues and auto-correct fails.” Translation: I’m not as brain-dead as the guy out in the hall. But that just raised more questions. If he knew it was a typo, why was he volunteering to be my fake boyfriend? “Dr. Miles… is the clinic going bankrupt or something?” He blinked, taken aback. “No.” “So if you don’t need the money… why are you doing this?!” Miles thought about it for a second. “Consider it me hitching a ride. I’m originally from the coast too.” “Wait, seriously? We’re from the same area?” Thank God I didn’t actually cry over the typo. “More or less,” Miles said. “But I had a falling out with my family. I haven’t been back in years.” “Dr. Miles, what if I told you…” I took a deep breath. “You got the job. Do you want to come to my parents’ house for Christmas? Since we’re from the same state, consider it a taste of home. My mom is a terrifyingly good cook.” Miles stared at me for a long moment, then a slow, genuine smile spread across his face. “I’d love that.” 9 Since I had officially “rented” a boyfriend, we needed to commit to the bit. “Do you mind if we take some photos?” “Not at all.” Miles didn’t ask a single question. He just let me direct him—stand here, look here, tilt your head. The man had the bone structure of a Renaissance statue. There wasn’t a bad angle on him. Standing next to him in selfies was genuinely intimidating. After applying an aggressive amount of filters, I set our best selfie as my phone’s lock screen. He caught it out of the corner of his eye, a flicker of surprise crossing his face. “Is that…?” “The devil is in the details!” I showed him the phone, establishing the fake-dating lore. “My mother is a detective. She knows I’ve been dating a guy for three years. If she checks my phone and there isn’t a single photo of you, she’ll smell blood in the water.” Click. The flash went off. I looked up to see Miles aiming his phone at me. He immediately looked down, tapping away to set his own lock screen. I was about to say, You don’t have to do that, my mom isn’t going to audit your phone. But seeing how intently he was focusing on it, I thought it was kind of sweet. I didn’t want to ruin the moment. “By the way, how well do you hold your liquor?” He considered it. “I do alright,” he smiled. “Oh, thank God.” I let out a breath. “My dad judges a man’s entire character based on how he drinks. He’s definitely going to corner you with a bottle of scotch. Don’t worry, I’ll run interference for you.” Miles raised a brow slightly. “Understood. Thank you, Harper.” That night, right before I went to sleep. Miles texted me: Goodnight. I stared at the screen, thinking that Dr. Miles was an incredibly thorough guy. He wasn’t missing a single detail of the ‘doting boyfriend’ act. Though, I had my own selfish reasons. Having Miles in the car meant if Lucky took a turn for the worse during the drive, I had a literal doctor on hand. 10 The next afternoon, we packed up the car for the long drive down the coast. We were supposed to leave in the morning, but an emergency came up at the clinic, and Miles had to go handle it. I told him it was fine; a few hours wouldn’t kill us. When we finally met up in the afternoon, Miles didn’t just have a duffel bag. He was dragging a massive, heavy-duty suitcase. Inside were premium vitamin supplements, La Mer skincare sets, imported teas, and high-end LEGO sets—a demographic spread covering every possible age group. I stared at him. “What is all this?” His tone was perfectly even. “You can’t meet your future mother-in-law empty-handed.” I burst out laughing at his deadpan delivery. “Alright, alright. Employee of the month over here. What kind of bonus are you expecting for this?” I meant it as a joke, but Miles fired back instantly: “I’ll let you know when the time comes.” Lucky’s condition really wasn’t suited for a long road trip, but thankfully, the drive wasn’t grueling. And having Miles in the backseat gave me immense peace of mind. I drove. Miles sat in the back, tending to Lucky the entire way. Every time I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the two of them together, the knot in my chest loosened a little more. Hours later, we finally pulled into my parents’ driveway. The moment the engine cut, my sister Claire heard the gravel crunch and bounded out of the front door. She slapped me hard on the shoulder. “Damn, Harper. You weren’t kidding. He is gorgeous.” Miles was undeniably gorgeous, though I still hadn’t asked his age. He felt older, more grounded than me. The tall doctor unfolded himself from my tiny sedan, rubbing his lower back. My car was practically a clown car for a guy who was 6’2″. Being cramped back there for hours couldn’t have been fun. He efficiently popped the trunk, grabbed both our bags with one hand, and hoisted Lucky’s supply tote with the other. All I had to do was hold Lucky’s leash. It was bizarrely domestic. Claire watched Miles unload the car, her eyes wide. “And this handsome specimen is…?” Miles immediately set the bags down and extended a polite hand to my sister. “Hi, I’m Harper’s boyfriend. Miles.” “Hi, boyfriend, I’m Harper’s—wait, hold on.” Claire froze. Her eyes darted from me to him, bugging out of her skull. She pointed a shaky finger toward the living room window. “You’re… her boyfriend?” “Yes.” Claire looked like her brain had bluescreened. “Then who the hell is the guy currently sitting in our kitchen?!” I froze. What guy in the kitchen?

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The day before my wedding, a notification popped up on my phone: a hotel reservation confirmation in my fiancée’s name. I didn’t scream. I didn’t call her. I sat in our living room, surrounded by half-packed suitcases and wedding favors, waiting for her to come home and give me a reason to keep the ring on her finger. But she didn’t come home. Instead, her “childhood best friend,” Riley, posted a photo to his Instagram. They were tangled together in a hotel bed, the lighting soft and intimate, her face tucked into the crook of his neck. The caption read: “If I’m going to lose you to someone else tomorrow, at least let me truly have you today.” … Caught red-handed at a Marriott with another man, and Brooke didn’t even try to explain. She just sent a text that read: “Everything is ready on my end. I’ll see you at the altar tomorrow.” A bitter laugh escaped my throat as I stared at the screen. What was I to her? A safety net? A “sensible” choice to please her parents? The air in the apartment felt heavy, like I was trying to breathe underwater. I looked around at the meticulously decorated room—the white orchids, the curated photos of us—and it all felt like a curated lie. I took a shaky breath, forcing the lump in my throat down, and typed back: “The wedding is off. We’re done.” Brooke didn’t reply. I didn’t know if she’d even seen it, and frankly, I didn’t care to speak to her again. I felt… tainted. Not by what she did, but by the fact that I’d shared a life with someone so hollow. I packed my custom-tailored suit back into its charcoal-gray garment bag. Brooke was beautiful, brilliant, and powerful—a Director at a top-tier consulting firm, the kind of woman people called “the pride of the city.” To the world, she was the ultimate prize. People always told me I was “punching above my weight.” Even before the wedding, friends hinted that I should be the “supportive husband,” the one who made sacrifices to keep a woman like her happy. And I had tried. I’d learned how to be the man she needed. But betrayal isn’t a one-time mistake; it’s a character flaw. I wanted a marriage built on glass-clear honesty, not a life spent sweeping dirt under a rug. I couldn’t live like that. Only my mother and my best friend, Zack, knew about the wedding. I sent them the news first. My mother was horrified, pleading with me not to be impulsive, to “think about the logistics.” Then I told her what I saw. The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. Finally, she whispered, “Okay, Gary. If this is what you need, I’m with you.” I spent the next few hours stripping the apartment of anything that looked like a celebration. The wedding was dead; there was no point in living in its graveyard. I turned off my phone, crawled into bed, and let sleep take me. The next morning, the pounding on my door started. I stayed under the covers, staring at the ceiling. Brooke knew what she’d done. She had to have known this was coming. I thought it was over. I thought I could just move on. But then Brooke showed up at my doorstep two days later. She looked exhausted, her usual polished exterior frayed at the edges. Her dark eyes searched mine, unwavering. “Gary,” she said, her voice raspy. “Are you done throwing your tantrum?” I blinked, stunned by her audacity. “On what grounds are you questioning me, Brooke?” “Stop it. I’ve had a hell of a week.” She sounded like she was trying to be soft, but it felt like a performance. She didn’t mention the hotel. She didn’t mention Riley. I let out a cold, sharp laugh. Must be exhausting, I thought, trying to keep two men on a leash at once. “And why is that my problem?” I tried to push past her to leave, but she grabbed my wrist. Her palm was warm against my skin—a touch that used to anchor me. Now, it made my skin crawl. I jerked my arm away as if I’d been burned. “Don’t touch me!” Brooke flinched. She looked at me as if I were a stranger. Her mouth opened, then closed. “Brooke, if you don’t want this to get ugly, stay away from me.” “Gary!” Her voice sharpened, irritation bleeding through. “I was left standing at the church alone. People laughed at me. I’ve spent the last forty-eight hours cleaning up your mess. Can we just talk like adults?” “Talk about what? What you did in that hotel room? Sorry, but I’m not interested in the details of your extracurriculars.” Her eyes turned cold, her face hardening into a mask of corporate indifference. “A dirty mind sees dirt everywhere,” she snapped. “Exactly. I’m the problem. I’m the ‘dirty’ one who isn’t good enough for the pristine Brooke Miller. So go find someone who is. We’re done.” She took a deep, shaky breath, clearly fighting back rage. “Gary, let’s go back to the house and talk. My parents are expecting us for dinner tonight.” The mention of her parents gave me a momentary pang of guilt. They were nothing like her. Her father was a kind-hearted man who loved to talk shop, and her mother was the warmest woman I’d ever met. They’d treated me like a son from day one. I’d always thought that if they were so good, Brooke had to have that same goodness in her. I’d spent three years catering to her every need, making sure dinner was hot when she got home from the office, just so she could have a moment of peace. But I realized now that she hadn’t been resting. She’d been taking. I knew I had to face them eventually to make the break clean. So, I agreed. But I refused to get in her car. I drove myself. Her face was a thundercloud, but she didn’t argue. We arrived at her parents’ house. Before we even crossed the threshold, I heard her mother’s voice from the kitchen. “We’re out of berries. Go grab some of those blackberries Gary likes, would you?” “On it,” her father called out. He walked toward the door and paused when he saw us. A warm, genuine smile broke across his face. “You’re back! Come in, come in. I’m just heading out for some fruit, I’ll be right back.” I felt like an imposter. In my head, I’d prepared for them to scream at me, to blame me for the canceled wedding. Instead, they were welcoming me with open arms. I couldn’t even bring myself to call them “Mom and Dad” like I used to. Brooke pulled a pair of guest slippers out for me. I looked at them, then at her. “Thanks,” I said flatly. She hesitated, her gaze lingering on me for a second too long before I brushed past her. Her mother came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on an apron. “Gary, honey! Sit down, relax. Dinner’s almost ready.” They acted as if the wedding scandal had never happened. The guilt deepened, but it didn’t change my mind. I sat on the sofa, staring at the black screen of the TV. Brooke set a glass of water in front of me. “You’ve been here a hundred times. Why are you acting so stiff?” I didn’t look at her. “Because this isn’t my home. And this is the last time I’ll be here.” Brooke gripped her own glass so hard her knuckles turned white. Her lips thinned into a hard line, but she said nothing. Then, the doorbell rang. Brooke went to answer it, and a loud, cheerful voice echoed through the hallway. “Hey, Brooke! Smells amazing in here. What’s cooking?” It was Riley. He walked in, kicking off his shoes with the familiarity of someone who owned the place. He was carrying a gift bag. When he saw me, he froze for a fraction of a second, a strained, smug smile tugging at his lips. “Oh, hey, Gary. You’re here too.” My gaze dropped to his feet. He was sliding into a pair of blue slippers with a little bear embroidered on them. They were a matching set with the pink bear slippers Brooke was wearing. A cold, mocking smile touched my lips. I swallowed everything I wanted to say. Dinner was a slow-motion car crash. Her mother kept trying to bridge the gap, asking Brooke to pass me food, acting as if we were still the golden couple. Brooke’s brow was furrowed the entire time. She’d always hated the intimacy of sharing food—she thought it was unhygienic, “swapping spit,” she’d called it. Once, she’d even made a scene about it in front of my own family. But tonight, the disgust in her eyes was palpable. “It’s fine, Mrs. Miller,” I said softly. “I can get it myself.” Her mother’s smile faltered, and she shot Brooke a look of disappointment. Riley, sensing the tension, picked up a piece of honey-glazed salmon and dropped it onto Brooke’s plate. “Here, you need the protein, B.” Brooke didn’t flinch. She didn’t look disgusted. She just ate it. I wanted to laugh. She hated my touch, but she accepted his “spit-swapped” offerings without a second thought. If her parents hadn’t been sitting right there, I think I would have lost it. “Don’t ignore Gary,” her mother said, her voice tight. “Take care of your fiancé.” Brooke glanced at me, and with a heavy sigh of obligation, she dropped a grilled shrimp onto my plate. I stared at it. We had been together for three years. Three years, and she still didn’t know I was deathly allergic to shellfish. I didn’t touch the food after that. The shrimp sat there on my plate, a pink, curled monument to her indifference. “Thank you for having me,” I said, standing up abruptly. “But I need to be clear. Brooke and I have broken up. I’m sorry to disappoint you both, but it’s over.” The room went silent. Her parents stared at me, stunned. Brooke sat with her fists clenched, staring at the table. Riley was the one who spoke up. “Gary, come on. You’re being dramatic. You don’t just throw away a marriage over a misunderstanding. Don’t be a child.” I looked at him, my expression dead. “You know exactly why I’m doing this, Riley. Don’t pretend you don’t.” “Gary!” Brooke snapped, standing up. Her eyes were dark with warning. “I’ve told you, Riley is like a brother to me. Stop being so insecure.” I looked at her, and for the first time, I just felt… tired. I turned to her parents. “Thank you again for everything. I’ll make it up to you some other time. I have things to handle.” Her mother stood up, her eyes watery. “Gary, wait…” “It’s okay, Mrs. Miller. You’re always welcome to call me, but I can’t stay here.” I walked out. The air outside was cool and crisp, but the heaviness didn’t lift. I drove straight to Zack’s place. He’d helped me coordinate the limo for the wedding, and I needed to settle the bill. He saw me at the door and immediately pulled me in, grabbing a bowl of popcorn and settling onto the couch. “Alright, man. Lay it out. What happened?” “Incompatibility,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Different values.” “You were together for three years and you just now realized your values don’t align? Bullshit.” I stayed silent. Zack’s eyes widened. “Wait. Did she… did she cheat?” I didn’t have to say anything. My silence was his answer. “Motherfucker,” Zack breathed. “I knew she was cold, but I didn’t think she was a snake. She was just looking for a ‘nice guy’ to settle down with after she got tired of playing around, wasn’t she?” “Doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Everyone makes choices. I’m just making mine.” “Well, good for you,” Zack said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Plenty of fish in the sea, man. Better ones. Ones that don’t come with a ‘brother’ attached.” Talking to him helped. By the time I left, I felt a little more like myself. I wasn’t the problem. I was a good man who had been taken for granted, and I didn’t need to punish myself for someone else’s lack of integrity. I went back to work the next Monday. My colleagues, unaware of the drama, offered their congratulations on the “wedding.” I smiled and thanked them, feeling a hollow ache in my chest every time I saw a leftover piece of wedding cake in the breakroom. “So, Gary,” my coworker whispered during lunch. “Are you guys going for a honeymoon baby? Everyone knows that manager position is yours, but if you take paternity leave now, it might get tricky.” I leaned back in my chair. “You don’t have to worry about that. No kids in the cards for me anytime soon.” “Oh? Parents not nagging you yet?” I smiled thinly. “Nobody has the right to dictate my life. Whatever happens, happens naturally.” He looked impressed. “I wish I had your clarity, man. You’re right. It’s your life.” I threw myself into my work, scrubbing Brooke from my daily routine. It was surprisingly easy to avoid someone when you finally stopped trying to find them. For five days, I was free. Then, she showed up at my apartment again.

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Sometimes I wonder if people spend too much time binge-watching trashy soap operas and completely forget that in the real world, we have something called the police. It all started during gym class. My period decided to make a surprise, heavy-handed appearance, so I ran back to the empty classroom to grab a pad from my bag. That was it. That was my “crime.” Now, Kaylee Miller—our resident “clean-cut” sweetheart—was stood there, eyes welled with performative tears, claiming I’d stolen the ten thousand dollars in graduation trip funds. She called me a shameless thief, her voice trembling just enough to sound convincing. Madison Paige, the class vice-president and Kaylee’s loyal shadow, jumped up immediately. “You’re the only one who came back to the room, Riley! If it’s not you, then who? Just give it back now, and we can pretend this never happened.” Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Henderson, shot me a look so sharp it could have drawn blood. His voice was cold, authoritative. “Riley, those funds belong to the entire class. Bring the money tomorrow, and I’ll make sure this goes no further. Consider it a mercy.” A cold laugh bubbled up in my chest. I didn’t sit down. I stood up, my chair screeching against the linoleum. “Actually, Mr. Henderson? Let’s call the police. Ten thousand dollars is grand larceny. That’s a felony.” 1 I watched the piece of chalk in Mr. Henderson’s hand snap as he froze mid-sentence at the blackboard. Before he could find his voice, Kaylee spoke up, her tone dripping with faux-concern. “Mr. Henderson, please, let’s not blow this out of proportion. It would be so bad for the school’s reputation. Maybe we can just… talk to Riley? Give her a chance?” She turned to me, her eyes wide and pleading. “Riley, just admit it. If the cops come, you’ll have a record. You’ll go to jail. We’re classmates; it doesn’t have to end like that.” Madison rolled her eyes, scoffing at Kaylee. “Kaylee, you’re too soft. You think of her as a friend, but she clearly doesn’t feel the same. She’s just banking on the fact that you’re too nice to call her out.” Mr. Henderson finally turned around, adjusting his glasses. “Riley, sit down. Let’s finish the lesson. We’ll settle the fund issue after class. Let’s not waste everyone else’s time.” My father raised me with one golden rule: Handle things now. Delay gives the devil time to move. I didn’t know what their next move was, but I wasn’t going to wait to find out. I didn’t care if the sky fell down today; those cops were being called. And more importantly, I was calling my dad. This felt staged. This felt like a trap. The school was Henderson’s turf, and I needed an adult in the room who wasn’t afraid to set the place on fire to keep me warm. “No,” I said, my voice steady. “We call the police. Now. That money belongs to every student in this room, and my reputation belongs to me. I’m not letting either of them stay ‘missing.’” A few guys in the back started thumping their desks, the rhythm catching on. “Cops! Cops! Cops!” They weren’t being supportive; they were bored teenagers smelling a scandal, their faces lit up with the primal excitement of watching someone else’s life go up in flames. Mr. Henderson’s face turned a mottled shade of purple. “This involves the school’s standing. I have to consult with the Principal first.” Excuses. Always excuses. I knew he’d never call them for me. Unfortunately, the school had a strict ‘no phones in class’ policy, and mine was locked in my locker. I softened my tone just a fraction, playing into his desire for an easy out. “Fine. Then let me call my dad. Since the money is gone, I’ll have him bring ten thousand dollars to cover the gap while we investigate. Just let me use your phone.” Mr. Henderson’s expression relaxed slightly. He reached into his pocket and handed me his iPhone. As I took it, I heard Madison whisper loudly, “See? I told you she took it. Why act so tough if you were just going to pay it back?” I ignored her and dialed my father’s number. It rang twice before a gravelly, deep voice answered. “Yeah?” The moment I heard him, the knot of tension in my stomach unraveled. “Dad. It’s me.” 2 I could hear the frantic clicking of a mechanical keyboard in the background. My dad was clearly mid-chapter. “Using someone else’s phone to call me? What’s wrong, kid?” For a man who looked like he spent his time fixing engines or breaking bones, my dad had the most intuitive mind I’d ever known. He was a suspense novelist—a man who got paid to think ten steps ahead of the villain. I told him the “prom funds” had been stolen. I made sure to emphasize the part about him bringing ten thousand dollars in cash. With my dad, you didn’t need to spell things out. He knew I was asking for backup. The typing stopped instantly. I heard the rustle of him grabbing his leather jacket. “Don’t say another word to anyone,” he said, his voice dropping into that low, dangerous register he used for his protagonists. “Wait for me. I’m coming.” With that, the weight of the world lifted. “Got it.” I handed the phone back to Mr. Henderson, who was watching me with a suspicious, squinted gaze. “My dad’s on his way,” I said, stepping back to my desk with a newfound sense of calm. When my father’s massive frame finally appeared in the classroom doorway, I didn’t wait for permission. I grabbed my bag and bolted. “Dad!” He caught me by the shoulders, his eyes scanning me like a searchlight, checking for any signs of distress. Once he was satisfied I wasn’t hurt, he took my hand. “Let’s go find this teacher of yours.” My dad was a mountain of a man, built broad and looking like he’d stepped out of a gritty noir film. He used that to his advantage. He didn’t just walk into a room; he invaded it. Mr. Henderson was already sweating through his button-down. Dad leaned against the doorframe, looking perfectly menacing. “You want to talk here in front of the kids, or do we go to your office?” Mr. Henderson wiped his brow. “Mr. Carter, I assume? Let’s… let’s go to the office.” Dad tilted his chin toward the hallway, a silent command for the teacher to lead the way. “Self-study for the rest of the period!” Henderson barked at the class before scurrying out. The second the office door closed, before Henderson could even open his mouth, my dad slammed his hand onto the desk. The sound was like a gunshot. “You the one accusing my daughter of being a thief?” His voice boomed, vibrating in the small space. Henderson practically shriveled. “Now, hold on, Mr. Carter. There’s no need for that kind of language—” “I’ll use whatever language I want when you’re cornering my kid!” Dad bellowed, making sure every person in the administration wing could hear him. “If I hadn’t shown up, God knows what kind of hell you would’ve put her through!” Right on cue, the Dean of Students poked his head in, drawn by the noise. Seeing his audience had grown, my dad dialed up the performance. “Their class funds go missing, and he points the finger at my daughter? No evidence, no witnesses, just vibes? She asked to call the cops to clear her name, and he refused! Why? You hiding something, Henderson?” My dad reached down and gave my hand a little squeeze. I took the hint and let a few tears spill over, looking as small and broken as I could. “I told him it wasn’t me,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “But he told me I had to come up with the ten thousand dollars or else.” Dad’s eyes went wide, a perfect picture of righteous fury. “You hear that? Is this a school or a shakedown? I don’t care what your ‘policy’ is. We are calling the police. Right now.” 3 High school administrations are all the same: they aren’t afraid of the “civilized” parents who write stern emails; they are terrified of the ones who look like they might flip a car in the parking lot. The Dean’s face went pale at the mention of the police. He stepped forward, hands raised in a placating gesture. “Mr. Carter, please. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. Mr. Henderson was out of line. I’ll make sure he apologizes.” He turned to the Dean, then back to Henderson, his voice hardening. “I promise you, the school will handle this with absolute fairness.” Then, to Henderson: “Apologize. Now.” My dad raised an eyebrow. “An apology to me? I’m not the one who was bullied.” The Dean glared at Henderson. “To the student, Joe. Apologize to Riley.” Henderson’s face turned a brilliant shade of crimson. In the history of this school, a teacher had probably never been forced to apologize to a student in front of the Dean. “I… I was just trying to handle it internally,” Henderson stammered, his voice weak. “For the sake of the school’s reputation. A police report would be… damaging for everyone.” The Dean didn’t care about excuses anymore. He just wanted my dad to stop shouting. “Apologize!” Henderson bowed his head slightly, a stiff, forced smile on his face. “Riley, I am sorry.” I wiped my eyes, looking up at the Dean. “Sir, I didn’t take that money. I just want to know the truth.” The Dean glanced at my dad, whose expression had finally moved from ‘murderous’ to ‘deeply annoyed.’ “Rest assured, Riley,” the Dean said. “We won’t let a single guilty person go free, and we won’t punish an innocent one. We’re going to the security office to check the tapes right now.” Dad nodded. “Good. Because if your cameras don’t show the truth, the forensic team the police send definitely will.” The threat of the police hung over the Dean like a guillotine. No school wants that kind of PR. We walked to the server room. The IT tech, a guy named Mike, looked up in surprise as the small parade entered. “Mike, pull up the footage for Room 302, during the gym period,” the Dean ordered. “You got it.” We huddled around the monitor. Mike sped through the footage. At 2:30 PM, the bell rang, and students swarmed out. By 2:40 PM, the room was a ghost town. Then, at 2:50 PM, there I was. I ran into the room, went straight to my desk, grabbed something from my bag, and ran back out. I was in there for less than sixty seconds. From then until 3:20 PM, the room remained empty until the rest of the class returned. Henderson pointed a triumphant finger at the screen. “There! You see? She was the only one there. Riley, what do you have to say for yourself now?” 4 Everyone turned to me. My dad let out a roar of a laugh. “Say for herself? Are you blind or just stupid? My daughter touched her own bag, and she didn’t even go near that Miller girl’s desk. What is there to explain?” Henderson muttered, “Who knows what kind of tricks she has? The fact remains, she’s the only one who entered that room.” The Dean frowned. “It does look suspicious, Mr. Carter. She is the only person on tape.” My dad grinned. It wasn’t a nice grin. “I’m laughing,” Dad said, “because I’ve realized the teachers at this school are morons. You should all quit and go work at a car wash.” The Dean’s face tightened. “First of all,” Dad continued, “there is zero evidence that the money was stolen during gym class. Second, even if it was, the video shows she didn’t touch the desk where the money was supposedly kept. Unless you’re suggesting my daughter has telekinetic powers, in which case, I’d like to see the school’s policy on X-Men.” I tugged on my dad’s sleeve. “Dad, I told them this already. They wouldn’t listen.” Dad tapped his temple. “That’s okay, kid. Let’s give them something they can’t ignore. I know exactly where that money is.” Henderson scoffed. “Of course you do. Your daughter took it.” Dad rolled his eyes. “Shut up, Joe.” He turned to me. “Riley, when was the money collected?” “The deadline was today, right before gym,” I said. Dad nodded. “So the money is still on campus.” He reached into his bag, pulled out the stack of ten thousand dollars he’d brought, and slammed it onto the IT desk. “Dean, do me a favor. Go to the intercom. Announce to the class that the stolen funds have been ‘found’ and are sitting in the office. Tell them the investigation is over.” “And then what?” the Dean asked, skeptical. “And then,” Dad said, pointing to the monitor, “we watch who suddenly needs to ‘go to the bathroom’ the second they hear the news.” Henderson looked shifty. He tried to follow the Dean out, but my dad stepped in front of the door. “Not you, Henderson. You stay here.” The Dean went to the office. On the monitor, we saw him enter our classroom. He held up a bag of cash, said something to the class, and walked out. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Kaylee Miller stood up. She grabbed a small pack of tissues, whispered something to Madison, and hurried out of the room. “Bingo,” my dad whispered. He didn’t wait. He grabbed my hand and we bolted out of the security room. The hallway was short; we reached the girl’s restroom just as the door was swinging shut. Dad handed me his phone. “Riley, this part is yours. Go.” I shoved the door open and kicked the stall door Kaylee had just entered. She jumped, nearly falling into the toilet, her face pale as a ghost. She was clutching a black plastic trash bag she’d just fished out of the sanitary bin. “Whatcha got there, Kaylee?” I asked, my eyes narrowed. She saw the phone in my hand, recording. Her voice went shrill. “You’re filming me in the bathroom? I’m telling! That’s illegal!” “Go ahead,” I said, stepping closer. “But before you do, maybe you should explain why you’re digging through the trash for a bag full of hundreds.” She clutched the bag to her chest, trying to hide it behind her back. “It’s… it’s nothing. Leave me alone.” “Is it?” I yelled toward the door. “Dad! Dean! I found the money!”

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“Professor Davis, is this some kind of power trip?” On the very first day of the new semester, Madison tagged me in the massive class GroupMe for the entire junior cohort: “Connor skipped class all semester, and you gave him a final grade of a C-minus. I sat in the front row every single day, and you gave me a D-minus? Just because I’m a woman?” I pulled up the university grading portal. Madison’s raw score on the final exam was a 42. Terrified she would fail the course entirely, I had maxed out her participation and attendance points to 100, dragging her final grade up by the skin of its teeth to a 60—a D-minus. Connor, the slacker she mentioned, had scored a 98 on the brutally hard final. Because I gave him a near-zero for his nonexistent participation, his final grade averaged out to exactly a 70. A C-minus. I typed my reply in the group: [Those are indeed your accurate final grades.] Madison fired back immediately.[Professor, this isn’t just favoritism anymore. This is textbook, internalized misogyny. You’re an academic pick-me!][I’m going straight to the Dean’s office to file a formal complaint. I am getting the real grades back for every girl in this class!] 1 Academic pick-me. The words sat on the screen, feeling like a physical slap across the face. I taught Advanced Calculus. Right after the finals finished last semester, I had flown straight to Germany to lead a panel at an international teaching symposium. I didn’t get back to the States until right before the new term started. It was only when I sat down to grade the finals that I realized the disaster. The exam had been drafted by a new, notoriously rigorous adjunct professor from the East Coast. It was sadistically difficult. I couldn’t alter the raw exam scores. All I could do was desperately pad their participation grades to keep their GPAs afloat. And yet, my quiet grace had somehow been twisted in Madison’s mouth into a weapon of the patriarchy. I took a deep, steadying breath, pushing down the rising heat in my chest. [Madison,] I typed.[Per university policy, if you dispute your grade, you have one week to submit a formal review request to the Registrar.][However, be aware that once a formal audit is initiated, the final exam will be regraded, and your participation score will be strictly recalculated based on actual attendance logs and homework submissions.][If the audited grade is lower than your current grade, you will bear the consequences.] The group chat went dead silent for three seconds. Then, an audio message popped up from Madison, her voice dripping with condescension: [Oh, are you threatening me now?][Everyone in this chat knows the syllabus. The final grade is 70% exam, 30% participation.][I checked my answers against the key right after I walked out. I got at least a 95 on that test!][But my final grade is a 60!][Which only means one thing—Professor Davis gave me a zero for participation!][@ClassPresident @StudyGroupLead: Was I not in the front row every single lecture? Did I not turn in every single assignment?][A model student with perfect attendance gets a zero for participation! And the guy who skips all semester gets a passing grade!][Professor Davis, are your grading rubrics based entirely on what’s between our legs?] 2 I stared at the cascade of notifications. The blood was throbbing at my temples. Part of me wanted to screenshot her actual, miserable exam sheet and drop it right into the group chat to end this once and for all. But professionalism pulled me back from the ledge. Student grades are protected by privacy laws. With a heavy sigh, I opened a private direct message with Madison and sent her a screenshot of her portal breakdown. [Madison, stop posting in the main chat.][Your raw exam score was a 42. I gave you 100% on participation just to drag you across the passing line to a 60.][Connor scored a 98 on the final. I gave him a 5% for participation.][If you trigger a formal audit, the Registrar will see that you missed two lectures. They will not let you keep the 100% for participation. Your final grade will automatically drop to an F.][If you fail, your academic scholarships and your grad school recommendations are gone.] I hesitated, watching the cursor blink, before adding one last warning.[I also happen to know that the internship offer you secured at the consulting firm requires a spotless transcript for onboarding. No failed classes.][If you fail, that offer is automatically rescinded.] [Think carefully before you do this.] 3 I set my phone face down on the desk. I thought that would be the end of the tantrum. Less than ten seconds later, my phone violently vibrated against the wood. Madison had screenshot our private messages and dumped them straight into the 300-person cohort chat. “Look at this, guys! Professor Davis is trying to use my internship offer to blackmail me into shutting up!” “She even photoshopped a fake transcript! She’s trying to say I only got a 42!” “If I hadn’t checked my answers with the rest of you, I might have actually believed her. Even if I didn’t get a 95, I easily scored a 90!” “And the funniest part? She claims Connor got a 98! Too bad for her, I sat right behind Connor during the final! He wrote for thirty minutes, put his head down, and slept the rest of the time! He’d be lucky to get a 30!” The second Madison’s message landed, a “witness” eagerly jumped in.[I can vouch for that! I was in the same testing hall as Connor. Madison is telling the truth!] 4 With a witness backing her up, the chat exploded.[Holy shit, there’s a witness?] [Then what the hell did Connor actually score…][Wait, did Professor Davis actually photoshop a transcript?] Madison tagged me again.[Do you see this, Professor?] [A guy who slept through more than half the exam magically gets a 98?] [Do you really think everyone in this cohort is stupid?] The tide turned instantly. The digital mob had found its rhythm. [Yeah… that literally makes no sense.][@ProfessorDavis, can you explain your grading metrics? I’m a girl, I came to every class, and my final grade was super low too!][Beware the academic pick-mes! Tearing down other women’s futures just because she hates herself!] Fueled by the validation, Madison went in for the kill.[Thank you guys so much for standing with me! This has been so incredibly unfair!][Today she’s using grades to hold me down. Tomorrow she’ll be holding our diplomas hostage! We work our asses off for our degrees, why should we let some misogynistic academic fraud step all over us?!][Ladies, light up the Dean’s phone lines! We need to get her fired!] 5 I stared at the screen, reading the venomous, entirely fabricated reality Madison had just constructed. My heart felt like it had been plunged into ice water, then pulled out and smashed against the concrete. Seven years. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the little girl I had been secretly sponsoring for seven years would turn out like this. I started anonymously funding Madison when she was in the eighth grade. Her father had been paralyzed in a factory accident, and her mother had eventually left to remarry. A local non-profit had sent me her file. In the attached photograph, she was a tiny, painfully timid girl, carrying a defensive, cornered-animal look in her eyes that no kid that age should have. It broke my heart. I set up a recurring monthly transfer of five hundred dollars. She didn’t text the proxy number often, but whenever she did, the messages were so heartbreakingly earnest. Big Sister, the money is enough. Please don’t send more. Big Sister, I made the top fifty in my grade. Big Sister, when I get to college, I want to meet you and say thank you in person. Eventually, she was accepted into the exact university where I taught. To keep the pressure off her, I never revealed my identity. I just kept communicating through my burner phone. She had no idea that “Professor Davis” was her “Big Sister.” Our paths shouldn’t have crossed. Until last year. The original Calculus professor for her cohort went on emergency maternity leave. I was pulled in as a temporary substitute. 6 I recognized Madison in the very first lecture. She sat in the front row, playing a game on her phone. Her nails were meticulously manicured—the kind of intricate acrylics that cost at least a hundred and fifty dollars at a high-end salon. At first, I chalked it up to wanting to fit in. But week after week, she sat in the front row, phone in hand. Between classes, I’d overhear her chatting with the girls behind her. “I literally waited three months on a waitlist for these shoes.” “We went to that new omakase place downtown. It was like two hundred a person, but honestly, just okay.” Her Instagram was a highlight reel of expensive brunches and aesthetic travel spots, always accompanied by the same caption: A girl’s gotta treat herself. Meanwhile, on my burner phone, the texts came in rapid succession. Big Sister, textbooks are three hundred this semester. Big Sister, I need a hundred for the mandatory lab equipment. Big Sister, the deposit for the grad school prep course is eight hundred. I transferred the money every single time. I knew she was vain. I knew she was putting on a show. But I told myself that she was a young woman with a traumatic childhood, desperate to blend in with her affluent peers. Then I heard the whispers among the other students. They all thought Madison was old money, a wealthy heiress keeping a low profile. I had considered cutting off the sponsorship. But seven years is a long time. I figured I would just see her through to graduation. Let the story have a proper ending. This year, as a junior, she couldn’t land a decent internship. She cried to “Big Sister” over text. My heart softened, one last time. I pulled a massive favor with a friend and got her an internal referral for an internship at a top-tier firm. My friend had been blunt. “I’ll take her, but the company has strict rules. If an intern fails a class—even if they pass the makeup exam—the offer is void.” 7 The memory fractured and dissolved. The group chat notifications were pinned at 99+. Drunk on the power of the crowd, Madison issued her final ultimatum. [Professor Davis, playing dead won’t work!][Are you scared now? Too late!] [You want me to let this go? Fine.][First, you add an immediate 20-point curve to my final grade, and to every other girl’s grade in this class!][Second, you send one hundred voice memos to this chat, apologizing one by one. You admit you are a misogynist, an academic pick-me, and unfit to teach!][Miss even one, and I send a zip file of these screenshots to the board of education, the ethics committee, and every local news station!] [I will make sure you never work in academia again! Make your choice!] I read the lines of text. The sheer, blinding audacity burned away the last lingering traces of my patience and my pity. Instead of panic, a cold, quiet laugh slipped from my throat. I tapped the screen, my fingers steady and deliberate. [No need.][I have just submitted a formal request to the Dean and the Registrar. Tomorrow morning, we will initiate an official, fully transparent audit of your Calculus grade.] 8 The chat flatlined. A few agonizing seconds passed. Madison’s reply popped up. The tone was still aggressive, but the cracks of panic were visible in the syntax. [Oh, so you finally stopped hiding?][Audit me! You think I’m scared of you?!][My raw score is over a 95, you can’t photoshop your way out of this!] I didn’t send another word. I powered off the phone. Madison, you chose this road. Tomorrow, I hope you have the spine to carry the fairness you just begged for. 9 The next morning, before I even pulled into the faculty parking lot, the university’s PR director called me, her voice shrill with panic. “Harper, have you checked Twitter?” I froze, pulling up the app. Trending at number nine: #UniversityProfessorForgesGradesToThreatenFemaleStudent I clicked the hashtag. It was a sprawling, multi-paragraph post from Madison, painting herself as a martyr for women’s rights in STEM. She spun a narrative of a brave student standing up to a corrupt, male-pandering professor who artificially suppressed women to elevate men. The post wouldn’t have gained much traction on its own. Except, several students from my class had quote-tweeted it, using their real names to corroborate her story.[I’m in Professor Davis’s class. Her relationship with Connor isn’t just academic. I went to her office hours once, and through the door, I could hear him literally whining like a kept boy.][The funniest part is how cold she is when she calls on anyone else, but the second she looks at Connor, she’s practically undressing him with her eyes!][If you know, you know. They’re definitely sleeping together.] 10 The internet had caught fire. The comments were a mob of absolute rage, demanding the university fire me immediately and mandate a massive grade curve for the entire class. But as I sat in my car, I was paralyzed by a profound, agonizing confusion. I had mentored this cohort for a year. I stayed late for office hours, I practically rewrote their resumes, I fought to get them resources. Just last month, I had cashed in every ounce of goodwill I had in the corporate world to secure every single student in that class an internal referral code for Cole Enterprises. It was the most coveted, impossible-to-get internship in the country. I was planning to announce it to them as a surprise this week. Why would they do this? Why would they follow Madison into such a blatant, easily disprovable lie? My chest felt tight, the air thinning in the car. My phone buzzed. It was a private text from the class representative.[Professor Davis, I’m so sorry. Last night, Madison posted on her private story saying her fiancé is Harrison Cole, the CEO of Cole Enterprises. People believed her.][She called everyone in the class individually. She told them if they helped her get you fired, she would guarantee them all internships at Cole Enterprises.][I swear I didn’t join in on the rumors, but I was too scared to stop them…] 11 The bottom dropped out of my stomach. I clicked over to Madison’s Instagram. A carousel of nine photos. The sprawling gardens of the Cole estate in the Hamptons. Two Rolls Royces in the driveway. A candid side-profile of Harrison Cole driving. And a heavily blurred shot of his passport. The caption read: My Mr. Cole. Unless you lived in that house, there was absolutely no way you could get those photos. The comment section was flooded with my students.[Holy shit Madison, your fiancé is the CEO of Cole Enterprises???] [Harrison Cole?? Are you serious??] [Girl, you kept that so quiet!] Madison’s replies were sickeningly coy: [Keeping it lowkey. He prefers his privacy.] I stared at the candid photo of the sharp jawline—a jawline I knew intimately. A laugh bubbled up in my throat, sharp and hysterical. Still laughing, I dialed Harrison’s number. “I need you to come to the university’s Registrar office right now.” “I have something to ask you.”

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I was lying in bed, the heavy swell of my pregnancy weighing me down, doom-scrolling through local news on my phone, when a push notification slid across the top of the screen. [Local Breaking News: Green-wood Heights Wife-Killer Apprehended. Suspect brutally stabbed his pregnant wife to death after she refused intimacy.] My thumb hovered over the screen. A cold drop of unease landed in my stomach. I tapped the notification. The timestamp on the article was dated tomorrow. And the name of the murderer was my husband. I stared at the screen, convincing myself it was a glitch, a sick prank, some algorithm gone wrong. Then I saw the photo. It was our wedding picture. My face was heavily pixelated to protect the victim’s identity, but the man standing next to me, smiling that charming, practiced smile, was unmistakable. My heart hammered against my ribs, skipping a beat. At that exact moment, the bedroom door creaked open. My husband stood in the doorway. He licked his lips, a slow, predatory smile spreading across his face that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up. “Hey, babe. I need you tonight.” 1 “Bennett… I—I’m not feeling great. The baby is kicking up a storm.” My voice trembled, fracturing under the weight of the headline burned into my retinas. Bennett’s smile didn’t drop, but it hardened. The warmth evaporated from his eyes, replaced by a sharp, jagged impatience. “Not feeling well? Again? What is it this time, Claire? What kind of drama are we playing at now?” I froze. Bennett never spoke to me like that. He was the picture of patience, the man who brought me ice water at 2:00 AM. Before I could stammer out a defense, he crossed the room in two long strides and seized my wrist. His grip was iron. “Is there someone else? Is that it? Is that why you have a new excuse every single night to keep me away?” I gasped, the pain in my wrist sharp and immediate. A dark, suffocating dread washed over me. The news article… it wasn’t a glitch. I scrambled backward, trying to kick myself off the mattress, desperate to put distance between us. But he was impossibly strong. He yanked me back, throwing me down against the sheets with a violence that knocked the wind out of me. My stomach hit the mattress. A blinding bolt of pain shot through my abdomen. Bennett didn’t even blink. He scanned the room, his eyes landing on the nightstand. He grabbed the paring knife I’d used earlier to slice an apple. The metal was cool against the frantic pulse in my neck. “If you’re so unwilling,” he whispered, his voice devoid of humanity, “then I’ll just send you and that bastard child on your way.” The pain was white-hot. Warmth flooded my chest. I stared up at his face—twisted, unrecognizable—as the room began to dissolve into shadows. … My eyes snapped open. I bolted upright in bed, my lungs heaving, gasping for air like a drowning woman breaking the surface. I looked down. My chest was smooth. My skin was unbroken. My phone screen was still glowing in the dark room. The time had jumped back ten minutes. And then, the notification slid down from the top of the screen again. The bloody headline. Click. The bedroom door handle turned. The same face appeared. The same predatory smile. The same bone-chilling words. “Hey, babe. I need you tonight.” 2 This time, I didn’t fight. I forced my breathing to slow. I plastered a weak, apologetic smile onto my face and softened my voice to a whisper. “Honey, the baby is really restless tonight. I’m completely drained. Can we… can we take a rain check?” I thought gentleness might buy me time. A negotiation. But the contempt on his face arrived even faster than before. “That same old line. Claire, do you think I’m an idiot? Do you get off on playing me?” He stalked toward the bed, the obsession in his eyes dialing up to a fever pitch. “Claire, do you even love me anymore?” I didn’t get a chance to answer. He lunged at me like a feral animal. But I was ready. I rolled off the other side of the bed, landing heavy on my feet. He crashed into the mattress, grabbing at empty air. Humiliated and enraged, he snatched the paring knife from the nightstand. It’s over, I thought. I’m going to die again. He raised the knife, the blade catching the moonlight. In that split second, my eyes locked onto his hand—specifically, the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. There was a faint, jagged brown birthmark. My pupils dilated. Bennett didn’t have a birthmark there. The only person who had that mark was his twin brother. Cole. Bennett and Cole were identical physically, but that was where the similarities ended. Bennett was polished, successful, the golden boy. Cole was dark, erratic, a volatile recluse. I had always been terrified of him. Because their parents were deeply superstitious—believing twins brought bad fortune—Cole had been sent away to live with a grandmother in rural Pennsylvania. He didn’t come back until college. He wasn’t close to us. He wasn’t even close to Bennett. Why was Cole pretending to be his brother to kill me? And where was the real Bennett? A million terrifying questions misfired in my brain, but survival instinct took over. I tried to run. I wasn’t fast enough. The knife found its mark again. Precise. Fatal. 3 Third awakening. I didn’t wait. I launched myself out of bed, slammed the bedroom door, and twisted the lock. An instant later, the handle jiggled violently from the outside. My phone lit up. The nightmare notification arrived on schedule. “Babe, open the door.” I leaned my back against the wood, my heart hammering against my spine. My shaking fingers dialed Bennett’s number. It rang twice before he picked up. “Claire?” Bennett’s voice came through the speaker, warm but laced with exhaustion. Tears instantly flooded my eyes. “Bennett…” “I am so sorry, honey. We hit a crisis with the merger. I’m going to be stuck at the office late. Don’t wait up, okay? Get some sleep.” My heart plummeted into the icy pit of my stomach. The person outside the door was definitely Cole. A heavy thud shook the doorframe. Cole’s voice was losing the facade, becoming jagged and frantic. “Claire! Open this door! What the hell are you doing?” I spoke rapidly into the phone, barely whispering. “Bennett, listen to me. Whatever you hear, do not come home. Call the police! Send help now!” I hung up. I took a deep breath, faced the vibrating door, and screamed with everything I had left: “COLE!” The pounding stopped instantly. One second. Two seconds. Then, a sound like thunder. “How did you know?” The wood splintered. A massive crack appeared in the center of the door. He had a fire axe from the hallway. He swung it again and again, wood chips exploding into the room. Through the jagged hole, Cole’s eye stared at me, manic and cold. “Well, sister-in-law,” he laughed, a dry, rasping sound. “Since the cat’s out of the bag, I guess I can stop pretending. You die tonight.” 4 Fourth loop. I lay in bed, my body cold as marble. I had less than five minutes before Cole walked through that door. I forced the panic down. I needed a plan. I needed a weapon. But I was heavily pregnant; in a physical struggle for a knife, I would lose. He was stronger, faster, and unburdened by a nine-pound baby. My eyes darted around the room, landing on the vanity. In the bottom drawer, tucked behind my skincare, was a canister of pepper gel. I’d bought it months ago after reading about a robbery nearby. I moved fast. I grabbed the canister and slid it under the duvet, gripping it tight in my right hand. I didn’t lock the door. Instead, I walked over and cracked it open just an inch. I got back into bed, heart thundering. When Cole walked in, I didn’t wait for his line. I pulled the duvet down to reveal my shoulder, tilting my head, giving him a sleepy, inviting smile. “Honey, you’re finally home. I’ve been waiting for you.” Cole froze. He stood in the doorway, the script in his head malfunctioning. I sat up, letting the strap of my silk nightgown slip down my arm. I curled my finger at him. “What are you standing there for? Come here.” The suspicion in his eyes warred with something else. Lust. He walked to the bed, his guard dropping. He thought this was going to be easy. He thought he’d won. He leaned over me, his face inches from mine. I pulled the canister from under the sheets, aimed for his eyes, and depressed the trigger. “AHH! GOD! MY EYES!” The scream tore through the house. Cole collapsed onto the bed, thrashing, clawing at his face as the chemical burn set his skin on fire. Now. I rolled off the bed and ran. Adrenaline numbed the heaviness of my body. Hallway. Living room. Foyer. The front door. I grabbed the handle and twisted. Locked. I looked down. A heavy-duty padlock had been installed on the inside of the door. Behind me, the screaming had stopped. Heavy, stumbling footsteps were coming down the hall. “Heh… well played, Claire. You really… you really surprised me.” I froze. 5 I turned around slowly. Cole was leaning against the hallway wall, one hand covering his streaming eyes, the other steadying his swaying body. His face was a mask of red, inflamed skin. “Run,” he rasped, stepping into the living room light. “Why aren’t you running?” He laughed, a wet, ugly sound. “You thought a little pepper spray would stop me?” I looked at the padlock, hope draining out of me like water. “Cole, why?” I asked, backing away toward the kitchen. “Bennett is your brother. I’m your family.” I needed him talking. I needed a way out. “Brother?” Cole spat the word out. “When has he ever treated me like a brother? Since we were kids, he got everything. Mom and Dad’s love, the Ivy League degree, the career. And now? He gets you. The trophy wife.” His face twisted, ugly with decades of rot. “Why him? What does he have that I don’t?” “So you kill me? You think killing me gets you his life?” “Killing you doesn’t get me the life,” Cole smirked, wiping mucus from his nose. “But it destroys his. He’ll be the husband who snapped. The murderer. He loses his reputation, his freedom, everything. And me? I’ll finally watch him suffer while I spend his money.” I understood. This wasn’t just murder. It was usurpation. He wanted to wear Bennett’s skin. “You’re insane.” “Insane? You’re about to join the club.” He lunged. I screamed, dodging behind the kitchen island. We circled the granite countertop. But I was slow. Too slow. He cornered me against the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was nowhere left to go. The paring knife appeared in his hand again. “Stop struggling, Claire. Just accept it.” I stared at him. The proximity of death clarified everything. My mind sharpened into a diamond point. “Wait!” I shouted. “You think destroying him gets you his money? You idiot. Bennett’s company is underwater! The merger failed. The funding dried up. He’s on the brink of bankruptcy!” I was gambling. “If you take his identity now, all you’re inheriting is twenty million dollars in debt and a potential prison sentence for fraud.” I watched his face. He hesitated. “You’re lying.” “Am I? Why do you think he’s been up till 4:00 AM every night? Why do you think he’s so stressed? Check the financial news, Cole. It’s all there.” I was planting a seed. Doubt. It was working. The knife lowered an inch. Then, his pocket buzzed. He pulled out his phone. He answered it, putting it on speaker without taking his eyes off me. A voice filled the room. A voice I knew better than my own. “Cole, is it done? Is she dead yet?” My world stopped. 6 The silence in the room was deafening. I stared at the caller ID on Cole’s screen: Bennett. Bennett’s voice was high-pitched, frantic. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Did you do it? Don’t forget the deal, Cole. Once she’s gone, the ten-million-dollar life insurance payout hits the account. We split it fifty-fifty. That covers the company’s debt and sets you up for life.” Cole hung up the phone. A slow, cruel grin spread across his burned face. “Hear that, Claire? Your perfect husband. He sold you out for a check.” “He planned the whole thing. He knows exactly what I’m doing. Hell, he gave me the key.” Something inside me shattered. It wasn’t the fear of death anymore. It was the total annihilation of my reality. Bennett. The man who rubbed my feet. The man who cried when we saw the ultrasound. He wanted me dead. He wanted our child dead. For money. That’s why the notification was real. Bennett was the murderer. He just outsourced the labor. The betrayal was so absolute it felt physical, like he had reached inside my chest and crushed my lungs. “Why…” I whispered. “Why?” Cole mocked, stepping closer. “Because he loves you, Claire. He loves you so much he couldn’t bear to do it himself. So he sent big bad brother Cole to do the dirty work.” He raised the knife. “You can die happy now. Your death saves the company. You’re a hero.” I looked at him. The tears dried up. The heartbreak calcified into something cold and hard. Screw love. If I had to crawl out of hell to drag them both down with me, I would do it. 7 Fifth loop. I didn’t cry. I lay in bed and waited for the knife. My enemy wasn’t just Cole. It was the two of them. A united front. I couldn’t fight them physically. I had to make them turn on each other. Cole arrived. I didn’t act. “Do it,” I said. He paused, confused by my resignation, but stabbed me anyway. Sixth loop. Seventh loop. Eighth loop. I used each death to study them. To perfect the timing. To analyze the cracks in their relationship. Bennett’s greed and paranoia. Cole’s inferiority complex and rage. Those were my weapons. Ninth loop. I was ready. Before Cole entered, I grabbed my phone. I sent an anonymous email to Bennett’s work address. Subject: Warning. Body: Watch your brother. He plans to keep the money for himself. I deleted the sent mail. I opened the voice recorder app and set it to record. The door handle turned. Cole walked in. Before he could speak, I cut him off. “You’re not Bennett. I know you’re Cole.” He blinked, stunned, then sneered. “So you know. Does it matter?” “I know you and Bennett planned this together. For the ten million dollars.” Cole flinched. He stepped forward, reaching for my throat. I held up the phone, screen facing him. “I’m recording.” He lunged, snatched the phone, smashed it onto the hardwood floor, and stomped on it until the glass was dust. “You think breaking the phone helps?” I said, my voice steady. “I set that recording to auto-upload to a cloud server. If I don’t enter a passcode in three hours, it gets emailed to my best friend, Harper. She goes to the cops.” “Guess who goes down for conspiracy to commit murder? I know you want to replace Bennett, let him take the fall. But think about it… before you walked in, did I record an intro? Did I send Bennett a message telling him I know about your side deal? If he thinks you’re a liability… do you really think he’ll let you live?” I laughed. It was a dark, jagged sound. “Your ending won’t be much better than mine.” Cole stopped breathing. He stared at me, and for the first time, I saw it. Fear. Not of the police. Of Bennett. “You…” He shook with rage, raising the knife. “Kill me,” I said, closing my eyes. “Kill me, and the email goes out. The recording drops. You both rot in prison. Or worse.” The knife hovered in the air.

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In this house, excellence was my scarlet letter. It was a simple, twisted rule of physics: because my younger sister, Bella, was perpetually stuck in second place, the universe had to bend to accommodate her fragility. My mother, terrified of bruising Bella’s ego, funneled everything—designer clothes, the best snacks, the leaked exam prep sheets—directly to her. When the semester finals were posted, I was Valedictorian material. Again. Bella locked herself in her room and wept for three days. My mother, too busy coaxing her out with hot cocoa and promises, forgot my eighteenth birthday entirely. The day after, my mother walked into the principal’s office and reported me. She claimed I had hacked into her laptop—she was a teacher at our school—and stolen the test answers. She told them my ranking was built on fraud. I tried to explain. I begged her to look at my study notes. But she just waved a dismissive hand, her voice airy and detached. “A mother reporting her own child? That is the ultimate proof, Norah. Who would doubt me when I’m sacrificing my own flesh and blood for the sake of integrity? Don’t waste your breath.” She leaned in, her eyes hard. “Just admit it. Make your sister feel better. Let the whole family have a peaceful New Year.” Fine. If my words held no weight. Then perhaps my life would be heavy enough to tip the scales, Mom. 1 School let out late for the winter break. My little farce of a scandal didn’t last long before the holidays swallowed it whole. I chose a good day to die. On New Year’s Day, the city hosts a massive fireworks display over the river. Leaving this world amidst the noise and the light seemed poetic. The headlines would be spectacular. That morning, my parents were bustling around, preparing the annual “Merit Bonus”—our family’s twisted version of a holiday allowance. Every year, Bella got more. I got less. I wasn’t looking forward to the ritual. But today, Mom announced a change. The envelopes would be distributed strictly based on academic performance. I looked at her with skepticism. She doubled down, emphasizing that this was about “absolute fairness” and that the “unfortunate cheating incident” wouldn’t be counted against me here, since the school hadn’t officially expelled me yet. I was surprised. A little elated, even. On my very last day in this house, I was finally going to earn the reward that belonged to me by right. It felt like a small mercy before the end. With a trembling hand, I opened my velvet box. Inside, sitting in the center of the plush lining, was a single, rusted penny. I froze. I turned my head to look at Bella’s box. In front of her sat a thick stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills. Ten thousand dollars. My throat felt like I’d swallowed glass. “Mom… you mixed up the boxes.” Mom was holding her phone up, recording Bella’s reaction for Instagram. She didn’t even look at me. “No mix-up.” “You get first place every time because of talent, Norah. And that talent? Your father and I gave you that. It’s genetic.” She zoomed in on Bella’s teary, happy face. “But Bella’s second place? She stayed up all night crying and studying for that. She fought for it.” “Effort is the only thing worth rewarding.” I watched them—the picture-perfect mother and daughter posing with the cash. The blood drained from my face. I couldn’t process her logic. Did I not try? The only difference was that Bella liked to nap during class and then performatively burn the midnight oil at home, making her struggle visible. “Oh, stop with the funeral face. It’s a holiday,” Mom snapped, suddenly looming over me, arms crossed. The impatience in her eyes stung worse than the slap. “Haven’t you had enough glory at school?” ” The Honor Roll certificates, the scholarships, the trophies—when have you ever gone without? And now you come home and want to fight your sister for a little pocket money?” I closed my eyes, taking a steadying breath. “Mom, it’s not about the money…” “I think it is,” she cut me off, her voice ice-cold. “You are so selfish. You want to monopolize everything. You want the honor, you want the praise, and now you want to snatch this joy from Bella too?” “Did you see how late Bella stayed up? Four in the morning!” “And you? You come home, listen to your French tapes, and you’re asleep by eleven.” “What makes you think you deserve the same as her?” My explanation came out in a rush, desperate and jagged. “That’s not true, Mom. I don’t waste a single minute during the day. I study through lunch, I use every break between classes, I—” “Enough!” “Don’t stand there and brag about your natural gifts. If you hadn’t selfishly absorbed all the nutrients in the womb, maybe Bella would be the one in first place.” “Let me tell you something, Norah. The cheapest thing in this world is effortless intelligence.” I clenched the rusty penny until the copper edge cut into my palm. Mom turned her back on me, her voice instantly softening into honey as she addressed Bella. “Bella, honey, go try on that new red dress. Your Aunt Sarah is coming over later. Let’s make sure you look stunning.” “Okay!” Bella chirped, gathering her stack of cash. As she skipped past me, she shot me a quick, victorious smirk. 2 We had a tradition of a big family dinner on New Year’s Day. By early afternoon, the house was full. Bella, radiant in her new designer dress, flitted through the crowd, collecting compliments like flowers. Only Aunt Sarah noticed me sitting in the shadows. “Why is Norah so quiet? It’s a party, honey. Why the long face?” The room went silent. All eyes pivoted to me. Mom laughed, waving a hand dismissively. “Oh, she’s just having a tantrum.” She recounted the story of the Merit Bonus in a few sentences, shaking her head at the end. “That child, her heart is so small. The school just gave her a brand new laptop for her mid-terms—even with the cheating allegations, they let her keep it.” “And she comes home and fights Bella for cash. She says we’re unfair.” I couldn’t help it. “I didn’t cheat.” Aunt Sarah laughed, trying to smooth things over. “Norah, listen to me. Your mom is doing this for your own good. Getting caught cheating now is a blessing. Better to learn the lesson now than during SATs.” My aunt chimed in, “You used to get first place without cheating, Norah. Why go down this crooked path?” “Your sister is always second, but she never looks for shortcuts. You should learn from Bella.” My uncle sipped his tea, looking sage. “Let’s say you didn’t cheat. Fine. Even if you got first place on your own, you should still let your sister have the money.” “You earn rewards and praise at school. Bella earns them at home. That’s fair. Stop being difficult.” My father and the other relatives nodded in agreement. “Norah is just too calculating.” “You know how these academic types are… arrogant.” The chorus of voices was indifferent and piercing. Fair? The weights Mom had placed on my side of the scale all these years were lighter than that rusty penny. When I was ten, I won Gold in the State Writing Contest. The committee gave me a heavy, gold-plated medal. Bella, who had placed Honorable Mention, was upset. She demanded my medal. I gave it to her. Five minutes later, she tried to throw it in the trash compactor. I tackled her to get it back. Bella fell. She screamed like she was being murdered. Mom came running, scooped her up, and screamed at me. “Why can’t you just let her play with it? It’s just a piece of metal!” “I worked hard for that! She tried to throw it away…” “Win, win, win. That’s all you care about!” She cut me off. “Can’t you just let your sister be happy for once?” The next day, sitting on the most prominent shelf in the living room, was a crystal trophy. The engraving read, in swirling script: To Bella, The World’s Best Girl. At twelve, I placed in the Math Olympiad. The school gave me a hardbound set of classic literature. Bella wanted to read them. I lent them to her. She dog-eared the pages and used markers to draw on the text. Heartbroken, I hid the books on top of my wardrobe. When Mom found them, she mocked me for being stingy. The next day, three different sets of Encyclopedia Britannica, leather-bound with gold leaf, appeared in Bella’s room. Fourteen. Sixteen… Every time, my hard-won honors became the justification for Bella receiving a grander gift. It was as if my excellence was an active assault on my sister. An injury that required financial compensation. I wondered, quietly, what kind of fairness I would receive after I died. 3 Dinner was lavish. The round table groaned under the weight of the dishes. “Hey,” Mom spun the lazy Susan until the poached shrimp were in front of me. “Pass this to your Aunt Sarah.” I reached out. “Hey, the sauce,” Dad pointed to the condiment caddy near my elbow. I slid it over silently. “Hey, get another pair of serving forks. These fell on the floor,” Mom commanded. I got up, went to the kitchen, and retrieved a clean pair. I sat back down, placed the forks on the turntable, and spun it gently to the center. Across the table, my five-year-old cousin, Sophie, stared at me for a long time. Then, she tilted her head, her voice ringing out with the pure, brutal curiosity of a child. “Cousin… do you not have a name?” The dining room went dead silent for a second. The glass in my hand trembled. Shame, hot and liquid, flooded my chest. “Sophie! Don’t be rude!” Aunt Sarah quickly covered her daughter’s mouth, smiling awkwardly at me. “Kids say the darndest things. We live out of state, she hasn’t seen you in forever.” My other aunt ruffled Sophie’s hair. “Of course your cousin has a name. It’s Norah. Like… like ‘ignore-a’ without the ‘ig’. Just kidding! It’s a lovely name.” I lowered my head, a bitter smile touching my lips. Mom didn’t seem bothered at all. She waved her hand. “She’s just a baby. It’s cute.” The conversation moved on. Laughter resumed. Everyone thought it was just a funny little interlude. An innocent misunderstanding. Only I sat there, my hand shaking so hard I couldn’t lift my forks. Because I knew Sophie wasn’t wrong. In this house, I truly didn’t have a name. It started the year Bella took the high school entrance exams and came in second. Again. She locked herself in her room and cried all afternoon. After hours of coaxing, she told my parents why. She had heard classmates talking. “People only remember the name of the person who came in first. Nobody cares about second place.” My parents, heartbroken by her tears, made a decision. From that day on, the name “Norah” was erased from our household. They called me “Hey.” They called me “Big Sister.” They called me “You there.” At first, I fought it. “Mom, my name is Norah.” Mom would frown, annoyed. “Why are you so difficult? It’s all the same. You know I’m talking to you, don’t you?” “The school PA system announces your name every day. Isn’t that enough for your ego?” Her sarcasm made it impossible to argue. So, I got used to turning my head at “Hey.” I got used to being a transparent entity, a pronoun instead of a person. Because remembering the winner hurts the loser. So my existence had to be blurred out. Laughter surrounded me. Glasses clinked. But I was freezing. The pity in little Sophie’s eyes… I don’t think I would have forgotten it, even if I lived to be a hundred. “Hey, why aren’t you eating?” Mom’s voice. I looked up. She was frowning at me, impatient. This time, I didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. Soon, my name would be in every newspaper in the city. People would remember it then. 4 As the time for the fireworks approached, the living room became a chaotic flurry of coats and boots. “Norah, are you really not coming?” Aunt Sarah asked one last time. I shook my head. “She wouldn’t dare,” Bella whispered as she laced up her boots. “Half the school will be at the plaza. She’s afraid of the shame.” Mom’s hands paused as she wrapped her scarf, but she said nothing. The door clicked shut. The voices faded down the hallway. I sat in the silence. I opened my laptop and scheduled the post explaining everything. I set the timer. Then, I walked out into the night. The closer I got to the river, the louder the explosions became. The sky was stained with violently changing colors—neon greens, burning oranges. Beautiful and fake. Cheers drifted from the distant plaza. The dark water of the river churned beneath my feet, reflecting the carnage in the sky. There were fireworks in the water, too—broken, shimmering, like a parallel world celebrating something I couldn’t see. Running from one noise to another. It seemed fitting. I gripped the railing. I didn’t hesitate. I vaulted over. The sound of my body hitting the water was swallowed by a thunderous boom overhead. The cold was instantaneous. It wrapped around me like a shroud. As I sank, the air in my lungs burned away. In those final moments, a memory flashed—vivid and bright. I was three years old. I had brought home my first “Good Job” sticker from preschool. Mom, young and beautiful, put down her papers. She scooped me up, burying her face in my neck, kissing me. “Our Norah is so smart! My wonderful girl!” She did love me, once. But we had both forgotten that a long time ago. Darkness took the rest. When consciousness returned, I was floating. It turns out, the soul survives. The realization made me want to laugh, but I had no voice. I drifted. Not long after, my body washed up on a shallow bank, wedged between jagged rocks. A night jogger found me. He screamed. He called 911. He flagged down others. “It’s a student. Wearing a uniform.” “Oh god, on New Year’s Day…” “Pull her up! Is she breathing?” “She’s gone. Look at her face…” The news spread through the crowd like a virus. More people gathered. Hovering in the air, I saw them. Mom and Bella. “What’s happening over there?” Mom asked a bystander. “Think a student jumped in the river. They pulled her out, but she’s dead.” “They said she’s wearing a Prep High uniform. Terrible. The pressure at that school is insane.” Mom frowned. Genuine worry and teacherly concern washed over her face. “Prep High? Did she have a fight with her parents? Who kills themselves on a holiday?” She muttered to herself, anxious. “I hope it’s not one of my students…” Bella tugged at her hand. “Mom, let’s go. It’s freezing.” “Wait.” Mom pulled her hand away, pushing toward the crowd. “I need to check. If it’s one of mine…” She pushed past one person, then another. “Excuse me. Let me through.” “I’m a teacher at the high school. It might be my student…” The crowd parted for her. She walked closer. Until she could see the body on the muddy bank, half-covered by a silver thermal blanket. Mom stopped dead.

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I am an eternal. I was born with a curse of gold. Every person who has ever tried to kill me for my fortune has only succeeded in making me richer. My net worth is measured in billions, a staggering, icy mountain of numbers that means absolutely nothing to me. Because the truth is, I’m exhausted. I have been murdered in a thousand different ways across centuries. I have no desire to keep going; the light at the end of the tunnel has always been a mirage. To break the cycle of immortality, the rule is simple but impossible: I must find someone who loves me and does not care for my money. After lifetimes of searching, I thought I had finally found him. He didn’t want my money. That much was true. But as it turns out, he didn’t love me either. Instead, he held a scalpel, and he used it to open me up. … I was lying on a cold, stainless steel surgical table. Above me, the reflective surface of the surgical lamp acted like a morbid mirror, showing me the gore of my own opened chest. Another death to add to the tally. New cause of death: +1. But this time, the pain was different. It wasn’t just physical; it was a piercing, psychological agony that reached deep into my marrow. The sensation of my flesh being peeled back was so intense I couldn’t even find my voice to scream. I gritted my teeth, forcing the words out as I looked at Nathan. “Is it money?” I wheezed. “You know I have more than I could ever spend. Just give me a number. I’ll give you everything. Just stop.” Nathan shook his head. His hand trembled as he reached out to stroke my hair. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead. His tears fell fast, splashing onto my cheek, but they felt utterly devoid of warmth. “I don’t want your money, Maren,” he whispered. “It’s you I love. The wealth… it was just a nice bonus. But it’s you. It’s always been you.” I let out a wet, ragged laugh. My limbs were twitching uncontrollably from the shock. He hadn’t used a single drop of anesthesia before he slid the blade into me. He had told me he was going to harvest my organs, one by one. He was going to drain every drop of my blood. And he called this love? I couldn’t wrap my head around it. If he wanted me dead, why couldn’t he just make it quick? “Nathan, please. If you don’t want the money, tell me what you want. I’ll give it to you. Anything. Just… give me a clean kill. Don’t torture me under the guise of ‘loving’ me.” Nathan remained unreachable, his expression a mask of tragic devotion. He just kept insisting he loved me. I didn’t understand where that love was supposed to be—until five minutes later, when the doors to the OR swung open. Another gurney was pushed in. On it lay a young woman. She was beautiful, with skin like porcelain and a face that looked peaceful in her medically induced sleep. They parked her right next to me. I watched, fading, as my blood was siphoned out of my veins and tubed directly into her body. Then, a team of specialized, silent surgeons began to work on her. She looked gravely ill. As they opened her up, I saw the state of her internal organs—withered, failing. One by one, they began to remove her dying parts and replace them with the healthy ones they were taking from me. The realization hit me like a physical blow. This was his plan. I froze, a single tear escaping the corner of my eye. “Who is she?” I choked out. Nathan didn’t answer immediately. He was looking at the woman with a gaze so tender it made my stomach turn. “Nathan! Answer me!” He snapped out of it, reaching down to take my hand. He told me the truth then, his voice steady and clinical. “Her name is Valerie. We were high school sweethearts. We spent three years sitting at the same desk, planning our lives, promising to get married the second we graduated college.” He paused, his eyes clouding over. “But life is cruel. Right after graduation, she was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder. Within five years, her organs began to atrophy. They’re failing, Maren. All of them. There is no cure in the world.” He looked at me with a terrifying kind of clarity. “I couldn’t just stand by and watch her vanish. I couldn’t lose the person who defines my entire youth. So, I found another way.” I stared at him, my mind reeling. “A disease with no cure… and you think swapping my organs into her will work? If it were that simple, wouldn’t a doctor have suggested it years ago? Why wait until now?” Nathan understood the logic. He turned his head, his gaze dropping onto me with a cold, detached intensity. After a long silence, he sighed. “Maren, I know your secret.” He leaned in closer. “I know you’re an eternal.” His words sent a chill through me that outstripped the cold of the OR. It explained everything. He didn’t love my money, but he didn’t love me either. I had thought this life would finally be the one to break the curse, but I had failed again. Nathan’s coldness was breathtaking. Even as he watched me being dismantled, he stood there calmly, stroking my palm with his thumb as if we were having a quiet night in. My entire body revolted against his touch, the pain pulling me toward the brink of a blackout. But Nathan wasn’t finished. He kept talking, narrating the epic tragedy of his life with Valerie. “I took her everywhere. I saw every specialist, every healer. There was no hope. Valerie suffered so much; she cried in my arms more times than I can count. Only I truly understand her pain.” “I promised her I’d save her. I swore I’d find a way. I can’t live in a world without her, Maren. She’s the sun. Without her, my world goes dark.” “When I found out what you were, I had this… premonition. A feeling that you were the answer. You were the one who could change our destiny.” So that was why there was no anesthesia. That was why he had played the part of the perfect partner for three years. Every “I love you,” every shared meal, every quiet moment—it was all a long con to gain my trust so he could harvest me like a crop. How could he? I let out a raw, animalistic scream. For the first time in centuries, I lost my composure. I lashed out, cursing him with every breath I had left. I was used to death—it was the white noise of my existence—but I couldn’t swallow this. I would have preferred it if he had just been a common thief. The double weight of the betrayal and the physical agony pushed me into a state of delirium. My body began to seize, my limbs twisting in a gruesome, unnatural way, but Nathan held me down with a firm, steady grip. He kept talking, trying to soothe me with words that were nothing short of monstrous. “Just hold on, Maren. Just a little longer. I know you’ve done this a thousand times. You’ve seen every kind of pain there is. This is just one more. You can handle it.” “You’ve been looking for a way out of your immortality, right? Well, I’m helping you. You help me save Valerie, and I help you end this ridiculous cycle. It’s a win-win.” “You save her, and I’ll help you finish this. I’ll keep loving you, in a way. I’ll remember you forever. You’ll live on through Valerie. Isn’t that a beautiful way to continue?” I looked at him through a red haze. The pain was so sharp I bit through my tongue, spraying a mouthful of blood across my lips. Nathan, seemingly afraid I would kill myself before the harvest was complete, didn’t hesitate to shove his own hand into my mouth for me to bite on. “It’s okay, Maren. Shh. I’m right here. Just stay with me. The doctors said the organs take better if the donor isn’t sedated. It ensures the ‘vitality’ transfers. It’s going to be over soon.” For a split second, the way he held me—the tenderness in his voice—felt like I was on a delivery bed, and we were about to welcome a child into the world. But it was a hallucination. A sick, twisted lie. I let out a jagged, hollow laugh, the last of my faith in humanity curdling into ash. I bit down on his hand as hard as I could and spat blood into his face. “If you know what I am,” I hissed, “then you should know what happens when someone takes the flesh and blood of an eternal. I’m warning you, Nathan. Stop this now. You cannot handle the consequences.” Then, the darkness finally took me. I don’t know how long I was under. When I woke up, I was submerged. I have died and returned countless times. Usually, twenty-four hours after the lights go out, I claw my way back. I’ve woken up in morgue lockers, in shallow graves, in the damp filth of sewers. As long as the world keeps spinning, even if I were burned to a stray atom, I would reform. This time, I was in a large glass vat filled with formaldehyde. My hollowed-out body was soaking in it like a bath, my cells slowly knitting themselves back together. I couldn’t move yet, but I could hear. Nathan’s voice drifted over, cold and clinical. He was standing nearby. He leaned over the vat to look at me. In the reflection of his pupils, I saw what I had become. It was horrific. My five-foot-seven frame had shriveled, curled into a ball of raw muscle and bone. I didn’t even look human anymore. Every usable organ was gone. They all belonged to Valerie now. Nathan sounded satisfied. There was a lilt in his voice I had never heard before. “She shouldn’t be able to come back from this, right? Not in this state. There’s nothing left but a skeleton and a head. There’s no fuel for a resurrection.” The surgeon, a man who clearly lacked a soul, nodded. “I doubt it. She’s not even viable for scientific study at this point. So, the remains…” Nathan didn’t hesitate. “To be safe, cremate what’s left. Scatter the ashes to the four winds. I want to make sure she stays gone. That’s the only way Valerie can safely inherit the estate.” The doctor was apparently a jack-of-all-trades—organ harvester and body disposer. They chatted about my disposal as if they were discussing what to do with a stray dog. Once my fate was settled, they moved on to Valerie’s recovery. Nathan’s tone turned ecstatic. “The eternal’s organs are incredible,” he whispered. “I thought she’d have a long, painful rejection period. But she was sitting up the next morning.” “More than that,” the doctor added. “The integration is seamless. Her healing rate is off the charts. She’s… vibrant. It’s astounding.” “We’ve already talked,” Nathan said, his voice bright. “In three days, we move to the next step.” The next step? He hadn’t mentioned a next step. I wanted to hear more, but Nathan’s phone buzzed. It was Valerie. Her voice came through the speaker—soft, sweet, and full of life. She wanted a strawberry cake. She was hungry, her appetite was back, and she sounded perfectly healthy. Nathan sounded like a man possessed by joy. “You little glutton,” he teased. “You just get your life back and all you want is cake?” Valerie giggled. “There are other things I want, but since you aren’t here, I’m trying not to think about them…” Nathan smiled, the kind of smile he used to give me. “I’m coming over now. Why don’t you start thinking about exactly what you want? Hmm?” Listening to them, my heart—or the space where my heart used to be—turned to ice. My body began to regenerate faster. Something was punching through my raw chest, cell by cell, knitting together a new heart. I felt a ghost of a smile pull at my lips. I could feel the rhythmic thrum of a pulse. The heart that had loved Nathan had been cut out and thrown into another woman. It took the love and the heartbreak with it. This new heart? It didn’t feel anything for him. No pain. No love. Only a cold, calculating desire to see the results of his “miracle.” I waited in that vat for hours, watching my body fill out. Thirty minutes before the doctor was scheduled to come and take me to the crematorium, I shattered the glass and stepped out. When the doctor found the empty vat, he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He scrambled for his phone, his voice shaking as he called Nathan.

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Three years into our long-distance relationship, I decided it was time for the “big surprise.” I’d booked a late-night Amtrak to the city, a bouquet of peonies tucked under my arm, and a heart full of plans for Miles’s twenty-fourth birthday. But when the door to his apartment swung open, the reality didn’t match the script in my head. The man who had just been cooing into the phone, telling me how much he ached for me, was currently pinned against the sofa by another girl. She was kissing him with a frantic, proprietary hunger. Even as the small crowd around them erupted into whistles and cheers, Miles didn’t pull away. His expression wasn’t one of resistance; it was a hazy, passive acceptance. From my shadow in the corner of the entryway, I watched them for a long, frozen minute. No one even noticed I was there. … When Miles called me earlier that night, I was already standing outside his door, holding a custom-ordered bourbon-vanilla cake. I’d borrowed a nondescript delivery jacket from a courier downstairs and pulled the brim of my cap low. Through the phone, his voice was crystal clear, vibrating with that familiar, boyish charm. “Babe, I got the gift you sent. I love it so much. It’s perfect.” As soon as the words left his lips, a chorus of drunken mocking rose up behind him. His friends were parroting his tone, shouting “Babe!” and “I love it!” into the cramped apartment air. For three years, Miles had made “loyalty” his entire personality. He told everyone he met that he was taken. His friends all knew my name, my face, and the fact that we’d used matching lock-screen photos since sophomore year of college. He didn’t hide me; he brandished me like a shield. Hearing that soft, needy “Babe” made my pulse skip. My ears felt hot. I gripped the cake box tighter, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Just a few days ago, I’d had this impulsive, romantic vision. I’d take the train, bring the flowers, and give him a birthday he’d never forget. The call ended. I let out a small, shaky smile, fished the spare key from my pocket, and eased it into the lock. The moment the door clicked open, my eyes went straight to the living room. A group was huddled around the sofa in the center of the room. Under the dim, amber glow of the Edison bulbs, I was invisible—just a shadow in a delivery jacket. Miles was sinking into the leather cushions. A girl—someone I didn’t recognize—had her hands planted on either side of his head, leaning down to claim his mouth. They were tangled together, their lips pressed tight in a way that looked practiced. The room erupted again, the cheers turning into a dull roar in my ears. I felt the blood drain from my face, a cold, heavy stone settling in my gut. My hands went numb. Miles seemed lost in it. And when the girl finally pulled back for air, I didn’t see him push her away. I saw him lean up, following the gravity of the moment, and kiss her back. The cake box hit the floor with a wet thud. The romantic atmosphere shattered instantly. A dozen heads turned toward the door. In my panic, my first instinct wasn’t to scream or demand an explanation. It was to drop to my knees and try to save the ruined cake. The white frosting was smeared across the hardwood—a soft, pathetic mess. To my touch, it felt like jagged shards of glass, slicing into my dignity until I felt like I was bleeding out right there on the floor. “How’d the door get open? Who forgot to—” Someone started to curse, and then the room descended into a chaotic scramble of voices. But as I finally looked up, the noise died. Silence fell over the apartment like a shroud. For three years, I had been the wallpaper of Miles’s life. My face was his screensaver; our framed photos lined his hallway. He’d hung them up the day I moved back for my master’s program, telling me over FaceTime that he needed the “shrine” to survive the distance. Now, Miles just stared at me, paralyzed. His phone sat on the coffee table, the screen still glowing with a candid photo he’d taken of me while I was sleeping. That image of pure, unsuspecting peace felt like a slap in the face. “Hey, Nora… what are you doing here? You should’ve called, we would’ve picked you up from the station!” “Miles is wasted, seriously. He was just saying your name like five minutes ago. You guys are literally goals, haha.” “Look, it was just Truth or Dare. We pushed it too far, totally our fault. Don’t be mad, Nora.” The “bros” were already closing ranks, spinning the narrative before Miles could even find his tongue. I saw the girl—the one who’d been on top of him—clutching Miles’s sleeve. His friends tried to usher her behind them, and I caught a glimpse of tears welling in her eyes. There were only a few feet of floorboards between us, but it felt like a canyon had opened up. Miles was suddenly a stranger on the far side of a cliff. He finally shoved through the crowd, stumbling toward me, frantically wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nora, baby—I don’t even like her. It was a mistake. I didn’t—I swear I didn’t mean to—” He was rambling, his voice breaking in that specific way he knew always melted my heart. He started to cry, big, fat tears tracking through his stubble. I looked away from the pile of ruined cream on the floor and focused on his lips. Miles used to tell me those lips belonged to me and me alone. Now, they were stained with a shade of red that wasn’t mine—a bold, mocking crimson. It was a territorial marking, a flag planted on soil I thought I owned. The last thread of my composure snapped. My throat ached, and without a word, I turned and bolted. “Nora! Wait!” I heard him pounding after me, but I slammed the door with every ounce of strength I had left. The courier was still by his bike downstairs, looking confused. I ripped off the oversized jacket and handed it back to him. “Thanks,” I whispered, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. “I’ll leave you a five-star review.” He saw my blotchy, red eyes and opened his mouth to ask if I was okay, but the sound of heavy footsteps hitting the stairs cut him off. Miles caught my arm, his grip trembling. He looked pathetic, undone. “Nora, please. It was nothing. I was drunk, she jumped me. Please don’t leave. You can’t leave me.” I stayed silent. Behind him, his friends had spilled out onto the sidewalk, a chorus of excuses following in their wake. The girl was there, too, rubbing her face. She looked like she’d been crying, her voice hitching in her throat. “Nora, I’m so sorry. I just… I lost my head. Miles rejected me, I swear, I just forced it…” The second she said “Miles,” he snapped. He whirled around and screamed at her, “Don’t call me that! I don’t even know you! You’re making me sick, just get out of here!” The girl flinched as if he’d hit her. She stood there, stunned, before turning away and letting out a jagged, muffled cough. As she turned, I felt Miles’s grip on my arm tighten. He was rigid with tension. The pressure hurt. I winced and tried to pull away, which seemed to snap him out of his trance. He looked at me, his eyes flitting from anger to desperate concern. “Babe, are you okay? Did I hurt you? It’s freezing out here, your hands are like ice.” He took my hands in his, blowing warm air onto my fingers, completely ignoring the girl he’d just humiliated. The crowd went quiet. The courier, sensing a scene he didn’t want to be part of, quietly pedaled away. I looked at the top of Miles’s head as he bent over my hands. I felt like a dull knife was being dragged across my chest—a slow, rhythmic sawing. He took my lack of resistance as a sign of forgiveness. He leaned in, trying to kiss my cheek, but I jerked my head away. I kept my eyes on the pavement, pulling my hands back and smoothing my hair. My voice was eerily flat, like I was commenting on a forecast. “My train back is in an hour. Take me to the station.” A flash of pure, pathetic relief crossed his face. “Of course. Anything. Let’s go.” He fumbled for his keys, led me to his car, and held the door open like he was the perfect gentleman. When I climbed into the passenger seat, he tried to lean over to buckle my seatbelt—the way he’d done a thousand times before. I was faster. I yanked the strap across my chest and clicked it into place, a physical barrier against the world. I didn’t say another word. Miles hesitated, then shut my door gently. He walked back toward the group. I couldn’t see his face, but I watched him in the side mirror. He took off his jacket—the expensive wool one I’d bought him for Christmas—and handed it to the girl. Then he ran back to the car. The heater kicked in, filling the cabin with artificial warmth. As the engine hummed, I stared down at my feet. I was wearing the sneakers Miles had bought me. I hated heels, so he’d filled my closet with every color of flat-soled shoes imaginable. Miles hadn’t finished college. His parents passed away during his sophomore year, and he’d had to drop out to work. He’d lived on nothing so I could have everything. I remembered the leanest month, when he only had twelve dollars to his name. He spent six on a bowl of wonton soup for me and the other six on a single, long-stemmed rose. Back then, I thought his face was more beautiful than any flower. He’d looked at me with such fierce, terrifying certainty and promised he’d get rich just to take care of me. When his first startup took off, he didn’t spend a dime on himself. He transferred the entire first check to my savings account. People teased him, calling him “whipped,” but he’d just laugh and say he was happy to be my servant for life. For three years, he wasn’t physically there, but he saturated my life. Everything I touched, wore, or used was a gift from him. Even when I told him it was too much, he insisted. “Where’s your jacket?” I asked as he pulled out into traffic. “You were wearing it a second ago.” A chill seemed to cling to him. I wanted an answer—I needed to hear the lie or the truth, I didn’t care which. He kept his eyes on the road. His voice was a whisper. “It got… dirty. I took it off. I know you can’t stand stains, Nora. I didn’t want to bring the mess into the car with you.” The car came to a halt at a red light. He reached over and gripped my hand so hard it felt like he was trying to fuse our bones together. Like he was afraid if he let go, I’d evaporate. I didn’t look at him. I looked at the window. In the black reflection of the glass, I saw a girl crying, and I barely recognized her. The station was a ghost town. Miles had rushed out in just a thin t-shirt. I took a deep breath, stepped out of the car, and kept my tone light, professional. “You should get back. I can handle it from here.” He frowned, his mouth opening to protest, but his phone cut him off. It was one of his friends. Miles tried to ignore it, but it rang again instantly. He went to hit decline, then changed his mind. Maybe he thought showing me he had nothing to hide would help. He hit ‘speaker.’ “Miles, where are you? Daisy is—” The name Daisy hit the air like a gunshot. I saw Miles’s entire demeanor shift. He cut the speaker, pressed the phone to his ear, and looked at me with the eyes of a trapped animal. Seeing that I remained expressionless, he stepped several yards away to take the call in private. I didn’t try to stop him. I just sat on a cold metal bench in the terminal, watching the departure board. When he came back, he looked torn, his face a map of guilt. He reached out and hooked his pinky around mine—our secret signal for “I’m sorry, let’s make up.” I didn’t look at him. “Babe… the door locked behind us and they’re all stuck outside. They can’t get back in. I have to go back for a second, okay?” I didn’t answer. “Just… take a breath. Calm down. You can do whatever you want to me later, just please, don’t talk about breaking up. You know you’re all I have.” Before he turned to leave, he tapped his phone. A notification chimed on mine—a massive Venmo transfer. As his tail-lights faded into the night, I finally blinked. My throat felt like it was full of dry sand. The old Miles would have printed my ticket for me. He would have checked my bag, made sure I had snacks, and stood on the platform until the train was out of sight. This time, he didn’t even notice that I hadn’t gone to the kiosk to get a ticket. On the big screen, the departures kept flickering. There wasn’t even a train back to my campus tonight. Miles hadn’t asked why I’d come. He hadn’t wondered how I could possibly be leaving so soon. He was too busy covering his tracks, frantically trying to pull himself out of the mud he’d jumped into. The sky was bruising into a dark, rainy gray. I rubbed my temples, pulled up an app, and booked a slow, grueling Greyhound bus. The city was hours away from my university. The bus was cramped, sweltering, and smelled of old coffee and desperation. As soon as I took my seat, Miles’s texts started flooding in. Nora, today was on me. I screwed up. Please don’t give me the death penalty yet. Let’s talk. We were only hanging out for work stuff. I already talked to the partners—when you start your internship this summer, you’re going to be right next to me in my office. I need you. I can’t breathe without you. Don’t throw us away. I scrolled past the words and tapped on a photo he’d sent a week ago. It was a group shot from a company retreat. Miles was in the center, and right next to him, leaning in so close their shoulders overlapped, was Daisy. She was smiling with a soft, gentle warmth. When Miles first started the company, he’d kissed me and made a promise. “Behind every great man is a greater woman,” he’d said. “There will only ever be one female employee in this company, Nora. And that’s you. You’re the only queen this castle needs.” It was a cheesy, romantic joke, but I’d tucked it away like a treasure. Now, the “employee” slot was filled. And I realized I didn’t want to be the queen of his castle anymore. The bus was noisy—a baby crying in the back, a man snoring beside me. But inside my head, it was silent. I opened the chat, my thumbs shaking as I typed the words, letter by letter. Miles, we’re done. Don’t come looking for me. I hit send. I didn’t wait to see the “typing…” bubble. I blocked him. I thought that was the end of it. But a second later, my phone rang. An unknown number. I picked up. Miles’s voice was hysterical, a jagged edge of madness bleeding through the line. “Nora, if you want to break up with me, you’ll have to kill me first. You hear me? Unless I’m dead, this is never happening.” The hair on my neck stood up. I heard the screech of tires on the other end—a violent, metallic scream that made my heart jump into my throat. Then, I heard Miles laugh. It was a cold, hollow sound. “Phone calls are cheap,” he whispered. “I’m coming to you. You can say it to my face.”

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It started with an electric bill. That was how I found out my father had a second family. Mom had asked me to log into Dad’s utility account because the notification said the bill was overdue. I punched in the password, expecting the usual boring interface. I froze. There were two account numbers linked to the profile. The first was ours: Unit 2, Building 7, Oakwood Gardens. The second address was one I’d never seen before: Unit 1801, Tower 3, The Vancroft. The account nickname consisted of just one word: Home. I stared at the screen for ten seconds, the blue light burning into my retinas. My house was Oakwood Gardens. So, if this other place was Home—which family lived there? I didn’t tell Mom. Not yet. I took a screenshot, logged out, and opened Google Maps. The Vancroft. Located in the Riverside District. Average listing price: $1.2 million. 1. I didn’t go home after work that day. I called an Uber and headed straight for Riverside. The Vancroft was “new money” written in glass and steel. There was a fountain out front and a crystal chandelier in the lobby that looked like it cost more than my car. It was a universe away from the walk-up condo built in 2003 where I grew up. I stood outside the entrance for ten minutes, watching the revolving doors spin. When a delivery driver buzzed in, I slipped through the gate behind him. Elevator to the 18th floor. Unit 1801. There were two pairs of slippers on the welcome mat outside the door. One pair of men’s leather loafers, size 11. My dad’s size. One pair of women’s slides. Pink, with a little satin bow on top. My mother wouldn’t be caught dead in pink. I stood there, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I didn’t knock. I crouched down and looked at the gap beneath the door. The doormat was brand new. It read: HOME SWEET HOME. My mother didn’t speak a word of English beyond “Hello” and “Thank you.” I pulled out my phone, snapped a picture, and went back downstairs. I found a bench in the complex’s landscaped garden and sat. 6:30 PM. If people lived here, they’d be coming home soon. I waited forty minutes. At 7:10 PM, a woman walked in with a boy. She looked to be in her late forties, hair done in perfect, expensive beach waves, wearing a beige trench coat and carrying shopping bags from Nordstrom. The boy looked about eighteen or nineteen, backpack slung over one shoulder. They fobbed into the building. I watched the elevator indicator lights. It stopped on the 18th floor. Three minutes later, the windows of Unit 1801 glowed to life. Warm, yellow light. It looked cozy. It looked like a family. I sat in the cold, staring at that window. My phone buzzed. It was Dad. “Harper, honey, I’ve got a client dinner tonight. Won’t be home for supper.” I looked up at the light on the 18th floor. “Okay.” I hung up. Twenty minutes later, a black Audi A6 pulled into the driveway. License plate 7792. My dad’s car. He got out, carrying a white cake box. Magnolia Bakery. He walked into the building. The elevator rose. Another light flicked on in Unit 1801. I sat on the bench. The wind was biting, cutting through my jacket. My dad’s “client dinner” was on the 18th floor. I suddenly remembered last month, on Mom’s birthday. Dad said he had a board meeting and didn’t get home until 10:00 PM. There was no cake. He had said, “You’re fifty years old, Susan. Why do you need a birthday party? You’re not a child.” I pulled out my phone and opened the banking app. I had access to Dad’s personal account; I handled his taxes sometimes. I scrolled down. Every month on the 15th, there was a fixed transfer. $3,000. Recipient: Vanessa. Memo: Household. I scrolled back. January. $3,000. December. $3,000. November. $3,000. I kept scrolling. And scrolling. My fingers started to go numb. The transfers went back to 2005. Every single month. Not one missed payment. 2005. I was six years old. I did the math in my head. 20 years. $3,000 times 12, times 20. $720,000. And that was just the monthly allowance. My hand was shaking. Not from the cold. I closed the app. I stood up and took one last look at the window on the 18th floor. The warm, yellow light. A family of three. I turned around and walked away. On the ride home, Mom texted me. “Harper, I saved some dinner for you. Corn chowder and ribs. Come home soon, it’s getting cold.” I stared at the message. For a long time. Then I typed: “Okay. Almost there.” 2. When I got home, Mom was at the sink, washing dishes. Her apron was old, the fabric worn thin near the waist where she had patched a hole with mismatched thread. The stew was on the table, covered with a plate to keep the heat in. “Late night?” Mom wiped her hands on a towel as she turned around. “Overtime,” I lied. I sat down to eat. The meat was falling off the bone, the corn sweet and soft—just the way she knew I liked it. As I ate, a hot pressure built up behind my eyes. “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, pausing. “Nothing. The ribs are good.” Mom smiled. The skin around her eyes crinkled. “Eat up, then. There’s more in the pot.” She turned back to the sink. I heard the rush of the faucet. My mother’s hands were perpetually red and chapped from water and soap. In the winter, her knuckles cracked and bled, covered in Band-Aids. She wasn’t always like this. I’d seen the old photos. Twenty-five years old, working at the bank, crisp white blouse, a bob cut that framed her face perfectly, a smile that lit up the room. She was a head teller back then. Top performance in her branch. Then she got pregnant with me. Dad had said, “Stay home and take care of the baby. I’ll take care of you.” So Mom quit. She was twenty-eight. When she resigned, her branch manager had said, “Susan, are you sure? You have a real future here. It’s a waste to leave.” Mom had said, “The baby is more important.” What she didn’t know—what I had only recently pieced together—was that after she quit, her position was filled by a woman named Vanessa. Mom resigned the same year Dad’s construction supply business was just getting off the ground. Where did the capital come from? Mom’s inheritance. $50,000. Back in 2004, that was everything my grandparents had saved. Mom said, “Robert, take it. When the company gets big, just pay me back.” Dad said, “Don’t worry. I’ll never let you down.” The company did get big. It went from a $50,000 startup to a multi-million dollar operation. And Mom? Mom stayed home. She raised the kid, cooked the meals. Washed the clothes, mopped the floors. Twenty years. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year. No weekends, no holidays, no year-end bonuses. After I went to college, Mom had a little more time. She told Dad she wanted to buy a new winter coat. Her old one was eight years old, the cuffs frayed. Dad said, “Money’s tight right now. We need to be frugal.” Mom said, “Oh. Okay then.” She wore that coat for another year. My first year working, I used my Christmas bonus to buy her a high-end down parka. Mom was happy for a week. She tried it on five times. Every time, she’d fold it carefully and put it back in the box, saying, “It’s too nice. I don’t want to ruin it.” Sitting at the kitchen table now, I thought about that coat. I thought about the woman at The Vancroft. The beige trench coat. The Nordstrom bags. The beach waves. My dad bought those for her. My mom wore an eight-year-old coat. My dad gave Vanessa a $3,000 monthly “allowance.” I squeezed my eyes shut. After dinner, I went to my room. Locked the door. Opened my laptop. I’m a CPA. Auditing is what I do. It’s who I am. I logged into Dad’s business accounts. He hadn’t changed the password since the dawn of time. I started digging. And God, did I find things. Beyond the monthly $3,000 transfers, there was so much more. 2008. Transfer: $100,000. Memo: Property Purchase. 2012. Transfer: $60,000. Memo: Renovation. 2015. Transfer: $45,000. Memo: Vehicle. 2018. Transfer: $30,000. Memo: Tuition. 2019. $30,000. Tuition. 2020. $30,000. 2021. $30,000. 2022. $30,000. 2023. $30,000. Six years of tuition. What kind of school costs $30k a year? Private prep school. I looked up the rates for Riverside Academy. $28,500 plus fees. I remembered something else. My senior year of high school, I wanted to take an SAT prep course. It was $500. Mom asked Dad. Dad said, “She’s already a senior. Why bother now? It’s a waste of money.” I didn’t take the course. I got into a state school. My $500 class was a waste. But another kid’s $30,000 tuition was paid without blinking an eye. I took a deep breath. I kept digging. That night, I exported ten years of transaction history. I flagged every suspicious line item until 3:00 AM. I calculated the total. 20 years. Transfers to Vanessa, plus the condo down payment, the renovation, the car, the tuition. Total: $2.4 million. And that was just the paper trail I could find. Conservatively? $2.5 million. I stared at the number on the screen. $2.5 million. Mom’s inheritance was $50,000. Dad built his life on that $50,000. And then he took $2.5 million to support another woman. Another home. I closed the laptop. I lay on my bed. There was a water stain on the ceiling. The roof leaked last year. Dad said, “Contractors are rip-offs. Let’s wait on it.” We waited a year. I bet the ceiling at The Vancroft didn’t have any stains. 3. The next day was Saturday. I didn’t go into the office. I investigated Vanessa. Her social security number was on the bank transfer logs. I asked a college friend to run a background check. He worked in data security. Vanessa. 48 years old. Local. Former employee of First City Bank. Hired: 2004. 2004. The same year. The year Mom quit. I grabbed my phone and dug out digital scans of Mom’s old photo albums. I found a group shot. Mom standing behind a bank counter with her team. On the far right, a tall woman with long hair, smiling broadly. On the back of the physical photo, Mom had written: 1999. Me, Vanessa, and Joan. The Dream Team. Vanessa. Vanessa. My mother’s colleague. But she was more than that. I went through Mom’s WeChat contacts (she used it to talk to relatives). No Vanessa. But I found a contact named “Big Sis V.” The last message was from 2004. Mom: “V, I’ve put in my notice. Take care of yourself.” Vanessa: “Don’t worry. You just focus on the baby. I’ve got things covered here at the bank.” She had things covered. She covered the bank. She covered my dad, too. I stared at that message for a long time. In 2004, Mom resigned. In 2004, Vanessa took Mom’s job. In 2005, Dad started sending Vanessa money. Mom gave up her seat at the table, and she gave it to her. Vanessa didn’t just take the job. She took my mother’s husband. I kept looking. I pulled the property deeds. The Vancroft, Tower 3, Unit 1801. Owner: Vanessa. Purchased: 2008. Down payment: $100,000. The mortgage payments? My dad paid them for ten years. Paid off in full in 2019. Current value: approx $1.2 million. There was also a car. 2015 Cadillac XT5. Bought for $45,000. Registered to Vanessa. I thought about Mom taking the bus to the grocery store. Dad said, “You don’t work, Susan. Why do you need a car? Gas is expensive.” Mom said, “You’re right.” I looked up Vanessa’s son. Tyler Su. 19 years old. Born: 2006. I was born in 1999. He was seven years younger than me. Which meant— When I was six, Vanessa was pregnant. When I was seven, she gave birth. The boy had my dad’s last name. Su. A fire started burning in my chest. What was I doing when I was six? I was sitting at the table, waiting for Daddy to come home for dinner. Mom would say, “Daddy’s busy at work, sweetie. You eat first.” What was Daddy busy with? He was busy having a baby with Vanessa. In that moment, everything clicked. When I was little, Dad was never home. I thought it was “client meetings.” In high school, he was gone even more. I thought it was “business trips.” Since college, I rarely came home, but when I did, he was gone. Mom said, “Your father works so hard.” He worked hard for twenty years. Hard at managing a second life. I put down the phone. Through it all, Mom knew nothing. She thought her husband was building an empire for us. She thought her sacrifice had meaning. She thought her $50,000 inheritance had bought a future for her family. She didn’t know it had turned into $2.5 million for another woman. She didn’t know the woman who took her job took her life. I picked up my phone. I wanted to call Mom. My finger hovered over her name. I put it down. Now wasn’t the time to show my cards. I had to do something first. 4. For the next three days, I kept digging. I knew there had to be more. I logged into Dad’s email. Password: his birthday + last four digits of his cell. He really thought we were too stupid to look. There was a folder named “ADMIN.” Mostly boring invoices. But at the bottom, three emails caught my eye. Sender: Baker & McKenzie Law Group. “Mr. Su, per your request, the draft of the divorce agreement is attached. Please review.” Date: Two months ago. I opened the attachment. Divorce Settlement Agreement. Plaintiff: Robert Su. Defendant: Susan Lin. Asset Distribution: a. Oakwood Gardens property transfers to Defendant. b. 100% of Company Equity remains with Plaintiff. C. Savings in respective personal accounts remain separate. d. Other assets to be negotiated. Oakwood Gardens. Bought in 2003. Worth maybe $400,000 now on a good day. It was an old building. And the company? I checked the financials for Su Construction Supplies, LLC. Annual revenue $3 million. Net profit roughly $500,000. Conservative valuation? At least $2 million. So, Dad wanted to give Mom the decaying $400k apartment. And keep the multi-million dollar business for himself. Plus his savings, his investments. Mom would get less than 15% of the total assets. This was his definition of “I’ll never let you down.” I opened the second email. “Mr. Su, regarding the equity transfer. To transfer 30% of shares to Tyler Su, we need the following documents…” He was giving the company to Vanessa’s son. Tyler. The 19-year-old. I was his biological daughter. In twenty-six years, he hadn’t given me a single share. But he was handing the legacy to the boy born on the side. I scrolled down. Third email. It was from Vanessa to my dad. Informal. “Robert, you need to speed up the divorce. Tyler is applying for schools abroad next year, we need the tuition liquid. If you can’t handle Susan, I’ll find someone to talk to her.” My dad replied: “Don’t worry. Done by year-end. She’s easy to deal with.” She’s easy to deal with. Yeah. Mom was easy. For twenty years, her answer to everything was “Okay,” “Sure,” “Whatever you think is best.” Vanessa said, “I’ll find someone to talk to her.” Who? Who the hell was she going to send to intimidate my mother? The audacity. I took screenshots. Every email. Every attachment. Then I checked one last thing. Tyler Su’s transcript. Riverside Academy.

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