The air in the principal’s office was thick with the scent of expensive cologne and the sour tang of Principal Henderson’s panic. On the mahogany desk lay a sheet of construction paper—a fifth-grader’s drawing of a geometric shape that defied the laws of physics. Henderson was sweating, his finger tracing the collar of his shirt as if it were a noose. When I stepped inside, he turned toward me with the desperation of a drowning man. “Mr. Miller,” the man sitting opposite him barked. This was Charles Whitmore. He didn’t just own half the real estate in this city; he owned the air we breathed. He held up his son’s drawing like it was a holy relic. “Did you tell my son that the sum of the angles in a triangle must be 180 degrees?” I leaned against the doorframe, my voice steady. “I did. It’s a fundamental axiom of Euclidean geometry, Mr. Whitmore.” “An axiom?” He let out a sharp, mocking bark of a laugh. He pointed a manicured finger at the jagged shape on the paper. “My son drew a triangle with 270 degrees. It’s bold. It’s postmodern. It’s an exercise in deconstructive creativity, and you’re trying to smother his imagination with your rigid, dead-end answers!” I stared at him, waiting for the punchline. It didn’t come. “This has caused him significant emotional distress,” Whitmore continued, his voice dropping into a dangerous, low vibrato. “I expect a formal apology. To my son. In front of his entire class. Immediately.” Beside him, Henderson was practically vibrating, his eyes screaming at me to just say the words. Just nod, Miles. Just swallow your pride. I looked at Whitmore’s arrogant, untouchable face, and a laugh bubbled up in my throat—sharp and involuntary. I turned to the principal. “Sir, if I admit a triangle can have 270 degrees just to keep my paycheck,” I said, my voice eerily calm, “what’s next? Do I tell the kids that bleach is a health tonic if a donor asks me to?” … The silence that followed was absolute. The smirk on Charles Whitmore’s face didn’t just fade; it curdled. Henderson looked like he was about to have a stroke. “Fine,” Whitmore said. The word was a scalpel. He stood up, adjusted his charcoal suit jacket, and walked to the door. He paused, looking back at me with a gaze that promised nothing but ruins. “Mr. Miller, you’re going to learn exactly what it costs to be right.” “Charles—Mr. Whitmore! Please, wait!” Henderson practically lunged across the room, his face the color of parchment. Sweat soaked his sideburns as he trailed after the billionaire like a beaten dog. “Don’t worry, sir. The school will handle this. We’ll make it right, I promise!” The heavy oak door slammed shut, cutting off Henderson’s groveling. A second later, he whirled around, storming toward me until we were inches apart. “Miles! Have you lost your goddamn mind?!” He was shaking so hard his glasses were sliding down his nose. His spit hit my cheek. “Do you have any idea who that is? That’s Charles Whitmore! You don’t talk to him about ‘facts.’ You just humiliated me, and you’ve probably tanked our endowment for the next decade. Get out. Pack your things. You’re suspended, effective immediately.” I gripped the edge of a bookshelf, my knuckles white, my chin tilted up. I felt a strange, cold clarity. “I. Was. Right.” “GET OUT!” He pointed a trembling finger toward the exit. I grabbed my lesson plans from the desk and slammed them onto the floor. Paper exploded upward like white birds caught in a windstorm. I turned and walked out without looking back. By the time I reached my apartment, my hands were shaking so violently I couldn’t fit the key into the lock. When the door finally swung open, the world tilted. I collapsed in the entryway, my back against the door, sliding down until I was curled on the cold hardwood. The silence of the apartment felt deafening, a physical weight on my chest. I don’t know how long I sat there in the dark. The frantic buzzing of the doorbell finally jerked me back to reality. I crawled to my feet and pulled it open. The hallway light framed Tess. Seeing her face—the one person I thought was my anchor—sent a sob tearing through my throat. “Tess…” She stepped inside, her hands catching my face, her thumbs brushing away the tears. “Miles, I heard. Are you okay? What happened?” I clung to her, burying my face in her shoulder, my voice breaking. “Whitmore… he told me I’d pay for this. And the principal, he suspended me… he treated me like a criminal for telling the truth…” Her body stiffened. The warmth in her hands seemed to evaporate. “Miles,” she said, her voice dropping an octave. She gently but firmly pushed me back so she could look me in the eye. “I have to ask… did you really make a scene? Did you humiliate him in front of the principal?” My sobbing hitched. I looked at her, confused. “I was stating a fact, Tess. A triangle is 180 degrees. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true.” “The truth?” Tess’s voice rose, sharp and jagged. “Miles, when are you going to grow up? Nobody in the real world cares about your ‘facts’! Relationships, connections, politics—those are a thousand times more important than a math problem! You threw away your career over a fucking triangle. Was it worth it?” The air left my lungs. I felt like I was looking at a stranger. “It’s not about the triangle,” I argued, my voice trembling. “It’s about being a teacher. It’s about the line between right and wrong. If I compromise on the most basic reality just to please a bully, how can I ever stand in front of my students again? How can I tell them to be people of integrity?” “Stop being so naive, Miles!” Tess took a step back, out into the hallway. “Go back there. Apologize. It’s the only way you’re keeping your life.” The door clicked shut. I stood in the foyer, frozen in the exact position where she had pushed me away. I don’t know how many hours I spent on that floor. I was woken by a courier knocking. He handed me an envelope embossed with the school district’s seal. He wouldn’t meet my eyes; he looked at me with a mixture of pity and disgust. I tore it open. The words “Termination of Employment” screamed at me. Under the reason for dismissal: Professional misconduct, aggressive instructional methods, and causing severe psychological harm to a minor. “Professional misconduct.” The phrase felt like a ghost’s laugh. I gripped the paper until it wrinkled, my nails digging into the heavy stock. I knew they’d fire me, but the speed of it—the sheer efficiency of Whitmore’s malice—was breathtaking. “I’m a senior educator,” I whispered to the empty room. “If they don’t want me, it’s their loss. I’m right. I’ll just find another school.” I threw the letter on the table and opened my laptop. I typed “Teaching Positions” into the search bar, my heart hammering. I took a deep breath and started making calls. “Hello, Mr. Miller. Your resume is incredibly impressive. When can you come in for an interview?” “Anytime. Tomorrow?” I put on my best suit, polished my shoes, and spent the next three days pounding the pavement. At the first school, the recruiter was all smiles—until he typed my social security number into the system. His face went flat. “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller. We’ve decided to move in a different direction.” The second school. The third. The tenth. My heels were blistered, my spirit fraying. After the twelfth rejection, I collapsed on the concrete steps of a charter school downtown, burying my face in my knees. An HR director slipped out the side door. She hesitated, then set a bottle of water down beside me. “Mr. Miller,” she whispered, her voice low and hurried. “Don’t waste your breath. Your name is on a blacklist that goes all the way to the state board. Nobody is going to touch you.” I looked up, the water bottle clattering to the pavement. A wave of pure, unadulterated injustice washed over me. I had held the line for the truth. Why was the world burning me for it? I dragged myself home and scrolled through my contacts. My thumb hovered over Tess’s name. I needed her. I needed her to tell me she was wrong, that she was on my side. I clicked on her social media first. A new post popped up. A moody selfie, her eyes looking wistfully into the distance. The caption made my heart stop. You only realize you’ve reached a crossroads when it’s time to choose between holding on and letting go. Passion is noble, but when it starts collateralizing the lives of those around you, it loses its meaning. Wish you well. This is where we end. The words looped in my head like a death knell. Was I wrong? Was I really the villain here? My phone rang—a blocked number. I answered, expecting a recruiter. Instead, a woman’s scream erupted from the receiver. I flinched, pulling the phone away from my ear. It was Tess’s mother. “Miles Miller! You selfish, pathetic curse of a man! How dare you still show your face? I hope you’re happy! Because of your little stunt, our family’s contract with Whitmore Group is being ‘re-evaluated.’ Tess and her father have been groveling for three days just to keep our house from going under! My daughter wasted years on a loser who can’t even play the game. Stay away from her. If I see you near my house, I’ll make sure the police finish what the school board started. And don’t even think about that engagement ring deposit—consider it a down payment on the damages you’ve caused us!” She was still screaming when I pressed ‘end.’ I curled into a ball on the sofa, clutching my knees, motionless. Eventually, the screen lit up again. A friend had sent me a screenshot. It was a photo of Tess standing next to a young man at a high-end gala. He was handsome, polished, and had his arm draped possessively over her waist. The man in the center of the photo, beaming like a proud patriarch, was Charles Whitmore. The caption read: Celebrating new beginnings for my nephew and the lovely Tess. Onward and upward. “Oh,” I whispered to the shadows. “So that’s how it is.” The rats leave the sinking ship, but in my case, they’d been invited onto a yacht. I pressed my palm to my chest. It felt hollow, like a cavity where my life used to be. I wanted to cry, but I was too dry, too tired. In the dark, I whispered a mantra to myself, over and over: “I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t wrong.” Hours later, the landline rang. It rang ten, fifteen times before I finally forced my stiff neck to turn. I stumbled to the wall and picked up the receiver. “Hello?” My voice sounded like crushed glass. “Miles? Miles, is that you?” It was my father. He sounded terrified. “Why is your cell off? I saw the news. Are you okay? Don’t move, son. I’m coming over. I’m driving down now.” “News?” I hung up and fumbled for the remote. I flicked on the local station. My face was plastered across the screen. Beneath it, a red ticker scrolled: Local teacher fired for ‘mental instability’ after abusing students. Education board issues permanent ban. The remote slipped from my fingers. I sank to the floor, a broken sound escaping my throat. I spiraled into a fever that night. I don’t remember my father let himself in with the spare key. When I finally opened my eyes, I was in my own bed, a cold compress on my forehead. My father sat in the chair beside me, his eyes bloodshot, his face aged a decade in a day. When he saw me awake, he forced a smile that looked like a scar. “Hey. You’re back with me. Hungry? I made some soup.” He held a spoonful to my lips. I looked at his white hair, his shaking hands, and the sheer effort he was making not to fall apart. My lip trembled. “Dad…” The word broke the dam. Tears flooded my eyes. “Cry,” he whispered, setting the bowl down and rubbing my back with his calloused hand. “Let it out. I know who you are, Miles. I raised you. If the whole world says the sun is black, I’ll still believe you when you say it’s gold. I’m right here.” I sobbed until I was empty, then drifted back into a heavy, drug-induced sleep. A sharp cramp in my stomach woke me hours later. My throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper. “Dad?” I croaked. No answer. The soup on the nightstand was cold. A note sat next to it: Miles, ran out of Tylenol. Going to the pharmacy at the corner. Back in ten. Drink some water. I checked my phone. He’d been gone for two hours. I called him, but it went straight to voicemail. A cold spike of dread shot through my chest. I threw on a jacket and ran out the door in my slippers. I didn’t have to go far. At the edge of our complex, a crowd had gathered, a circle of people whispering and pointing. My heart stopped. I shoved through them with a strength I didn’t know I had. I hit the pavement hard, my knees buckling. My father was lying on the cold concrete, eyes closed, his face a terrifying shade of blue-gray. There was a gash on his temple. Scattered around him were the broken medicine boxes and a dozen shattered eggs. The yellow slime was matted into his white hair. “Dad!” I screamed, reaching for him, my hands hovering, terrified to touch him. “Call an ambulance! Someone call 911! Please!” I fumbled for my pockets, but I had left my phone upstairs. I looked up at the circle of faces, pleading. They were cold. They were filming. “It’s him,” a woman holding a toddler said, pointing at me. “That’s the teacher from the news. The one who hurts kids. His dad was in the pharmacy acting like a lunatic, screaming that his son was a saint. This is karma.” The crowd stirred, a low growl of agreement. “Like father, like son,” someone spat. “You ruin children’s lives, and God takes your father. Sounds fair to me.” “Why should we help people like you? You’re poison.” The insults pelted me like stones. I stayed on the ground, shielding my father’s body with my own. “No… please… I didn’t hurt anyone…” Suddenly, an egg exploded against my temple. Thick yolk ran into my eye, stinging. Then came a rain of trash—half-eaten fruit, crumpled cups, spit. I stopped trying to fight. I just curled around my father, burying my face in his chest, letting out a low, keening wail. The world had gone mad, and it was going to bury us both in the dirt. A heavy black trash bag flew toward my face. I closed my eyes, bracing for the impact. It never came. I opened my eyes to see a pair of expensive leather boots. A tall, elegant silhouette stood between me and the mob. I wiped the filth from my eyes and looked up. My heart skipped a beat. “Jordan…” It was her. Jordan Vance. The girl who had left five years ago because I chose a quiet life as a teacher while she chased a career in international law. The girl I thought I’d never see again. “Enough,” she said. Her voice wasn’t loud, but it had the ring of cold steel. The crowd went silent. Jordan looked at the woman who had started the “karma” chant. “Did you throw that?” The woman flinched but squared her shoulders. “What if I did? He’s a monster. His father got what he deserved.” “Karma?” Jordan stepped toward her, and the woman recoiled as if Jordan were a physical flame. “You’re a legal illiterate if you think ‘justice’ involves assault. I’ve recorded everything. Public harassment, aggravated battery, and failure to render aid. I promise you, you’ll have a lot of time to reflect on your ‘morals’ in a holding cell.” Jordan pulled out her phone and made a single call. “Send the team to 4th and Main. I want every face in this crowd identified. File for a multi-party civil suit and criminal injunctions. Now.” The “righteous” crowd evaporated. People turned their heads, scurrying away like roaches when the light hits. The sirens of an ambulance wailed in the distance. Jordan turned to me. She shed her designer trench coat and wrapped it around my shivering shoulders. She knelt down and pressed two fingers to my father’s neck. “He has a pulse,” she whispered, her eyes meeting mine. They were fierce, blazing with a protective fire I hadn’t seen in years. “Miles, look at me. I’m here. You’re not alone.” I let her lead me into the ambulance. I gripped the railing of the gurney, watching the paramedics work on my father. “Dad… I did this to you… I’m so sorry…” Jordan didn’t offer empty platitudes. She just sat beside me, her hand gripping mine so hard it bruised. At the hospital, I sat in a plastic chair, covered in filth and Jordan’s coat, staring at the red “Surgery in Progress” sign. The surgeon eventually stepped out, pulling off his mask. He looked exhausted. “His heart is stable, but he has a massive subcortical hemorrhage.” My stomach dropped. “The impact on his head, combined with extreme acute stress… the bleed is significant,” the doctor said. “Even if he survives the night, the best-case scenario is a persistent vegetative state. He’s in a deep coma, Miles.” A vegetative state. The floor seemed to vanish. I felt Jordan catch me as the world went black.

🌟 Continue the story here 👉🏻 📲 Download the “MotoNovel” app 🔍 search for “391530”, and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel

I had been trapped in this twisted nightmare of a novel for three years. I’d been broken, humiliated, and tormented by Damian Cross exactly ninety-nine times, yet the progress bar for my mission was stuck at 99.999%. So, I decided to stop trying. I checked out. I went completely, blissfully rogue. At the charity gala, Lydia—Damian’s “Untouchable Muse,” the woman he’d spent years mourning before she suddenly reappeared—accused me of stealing her heirloom diamond necklace. Again. It was a tired script. Instead of crying or pleading my innocence like I usually did, I simply unzipped my designer gown and let it pool at my feet right there in the middle of the ballroom. “Go ahead,” I said, standing there in nothing but my skin and defiance. “Search me. Check every inch.” Damian looked like he’d been struck by lightning. His composure shattered, he lunged forward, frantically wrapping his tuxedo jacket around me, his hands shaking. Lydia stood trembling, her eyes brimming with calculated tears. Damian turned on me, his face a mask of cold fury. “Stop these pathetic theatrics, Sophie. If you pull a stunt like this again, I’ll throw you off the balcony myself.” I didn’t hesitate. I turned and sprinted toward the terrace. “Great idea! Let’s save you the trouble,” I shouted over my shoulder. I swung a leg over the marble railing. Damian’s face went white. He tackled me back onto the stone floor, pinning me there as if I were a wild animal he couldn’t comprehend. That night, Lydia came down with a minor fever. I didn’t wait for his orders. I stayed up all night, calling every top-tier surgeon in the tri-state area. “Doctor,” I said, my voice eerily calm as I stood in the hospital hallway the next morning. “I’m here to donate my kidney. When can we start the surgery?” 1 The specialist pushed up his glasses, looking at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Ma’am, the patient has a common cold. A mild viral infection. She doesn’t need a transplant.” I stood there, feeling a genuine, crushing wave of disappointment. “Oh. Just a cold? Are you sure? What about a liver lobe? Or my corneas? Surely she needs something.” Behind me, Damian’s shadow loomed. He grabbed my wrist, his grip like a vice. “Sophie Knight! Have you finally lost it?” I turned to him, my eyes wide and sincere. “I’m serious, Damian. I want to give her whatever she needs. If not today, then eventually, right? Isn’t that what you’ve been planning for three years? To harvest me piece by piece for her?” Damian’s chest heaved. He looked like he was about to have a stroke. Lydia leaned against the pillows, looking like a tragic Victorian waif. “Damian, it’s my fault. If I weren’t so fragile, Sophie wouldn’t be acting like this…” “It’s not your fault,” Damian murmured, his voice softening instantly for her. Then, he whipped his head back to me, his eyes spitting ice. “What kind of game is this? You think by playing the martyr, I’ll suddenly feel sorry for you? Let me be clear: I will never love you.” I stared at him, but my mind was miles away, flickering through the fragments of my real life. I was an interloper here. A system had plucked me out of my world and dropped me into this “Angst-Fest” novel. The deal was simple: reach 100% “Cruelty Value,” and I’d receive two billion dollars and—more importantly—my mother’s terminal lung cancer would be cured back in reality. So, I had played the part of the tragic wife. When I accidentally spilled wine on Lydia’s dress, Damian locked me in the wine cellar for three days without light. When Lydia claimed she felt “anemic,” he forced me to donate blood while I was delirious with a 103-degree fever. When she whispered that my architectural designs looked “familiar,” he personally shredded six months of my hard work. But after three years of hell, the meter was stuck at 99.999%. That last 0.001% was more elusive than a winning Powerball ticket. I was exhausted. My soul was frayed at the edges. Damian glared at me, giving his final warning. “Sophie, if you don’t start behaving, I will make you regret the day you met me.” I felt a surge of pure, unadulterated joy. Yes. Here comes the angst. I grabbed his hand, tears spilling over on cue. “Damian, please! I’m not playing. Tell me what I did wrong. I’ve given you three years. I’ve given you everything! Why can’t you just love me?” He sneered, ripping his hand away as if my touch burned him. “You think you can even be mentioned in the same breath as Lydia? She is the sun, Sophie. You’re just the dirt we walk on. Know your place.” I wiped my face, nodding slowly. “I see. I’m just the placeholder. The joke in your epic love story. Fine. I’ll go out to the gravel driveway and kneel until you’re satisfied with my penance.” Damian frowned, a flicker of confusion crossing his face, but he didn’t stop me. The driveway was sharp, jagged crushed stone. I knelt there for three hours. The rocks sliced through my leggings and into my skin. Blood mixed with the grit. Then, the sky broke. A typical East Coast torrential downpour. I was soaked to the bone within seconds, my body shaking with a deep, bone-deep chill. Finally, my strength gave out. As I collapsed onto the wet stones, I whispered into my mind, System… please. I’m literally bleeding in a storm. Give me that 0.001%. The System was silent for a long time. Then, a cold, mechanical voice echoed: “Mission progress: 99.9999%.” My brain felt like mush. How many zeros is that now? “Four zeros after the decimal.” The world went black. I’d seen fewer zeros on a billionaire’s bank statement. 2 Word reached me that Lydia fainted when she saw me passed out in a pool of blood and rainwater. Apparently, she “accidentally” hit her head on a marble vanity, aggravating an old injury. Now, she supposedly needed a corneal transplant. “Sophie,” she whimpered from her bed when I was brought into her room, “I know you didn’t mean for this to happen… but my eyes hurt so much. The doctors say if they don’t find a donor soon, I’ll be blind forever.” Damian loomed over my bed. I was still shaking from the fever, but his voice was like a whip. “This is on you, Sophie! If you hadn’t been throwing a tantrum in the driveway, she wouldn’t have been distressed enough to fall. The tests say you’re a perfect match. You’re giving her your corneas. Now.” I sat up so fast I nearly got vertigo. “Really? A perfect match? Right now?” Damian’s brow furrowed. He expected a fight, a scream, a plea for mercy. “Don’t play dumb. This is the debt you owe her. There is no negotiation.” Lydia grabbed his sleeve, her voice trembling. “Damian, don’t force her. If Sophie doesn’t want to… I’ll just live in the dark. It’s okay.” “No,” Damian barked. “Your sight is everything. She will do it.” I swung my legs out of bed. “Where’s the surgeon? Do we do this now? Do I need to sign a waiver? Give me the pen!” Damian grabbed my shoulders, staring into my eyes as if trying to find the hidden trap. “What are you planning, Sophie? Is this some new way to get my attention? You think if you go blind for me, I’ll finally care? I won’t.” I shook him off. “I’m not planning anything. I genuinely want to do it. It’s a mitzvah, Damian. Bringing light to Lydia’s world? It’s the most meaningful thing I’ve done in three years.” I actually ran toward the door, shouting for a nurse. Damian caught me by the waist and threw me back onto the mattress. “Sophie! Be goddamn normal for once!” I rubbed my bruised arm. “You want my eyes, I’m giving you my eyes! Why are you stopping me?” Lydia’s sobbing intensified. “Sophie, do you hate me that much? Are you doing this just to make Damian feel guilty? To make it look like I’m a monster?” “I am not!” I yelled. “I am being incredibly sincere! Let’s go! Cut them out!” I tried to get up again, but Damian pinned me down, his face inches from mine. “You pathetic woman. You think I don’t see through you? You want me to feel a shred of remorse, to pity you. Well, it’s not happening. Even if you’re blind, I will still despise you!” He had said these words a thousand times. He had broken my heart a thousand ways. But this time, I felt a surge of adrenaline. This was it. This was the peak angst I needed. I let my eyes well up with tears. “Damian… is that all I am to you? A monster? I just want to make things right. I just want her to be okay. Why won’t you believe me?” Damian let out a harsh, mocking laugh. “Believe you? You’re a manipulator, Sophie. It’s all you know how to do.” I screamed in frustration, grabbed a paring knife from the fruit basket on the nightstand, and pressed the blade against my cheek, just below my eye. “I am not lying! If my eyes are what it takes to save her, I’ll do it myself!” Damian and Lydia froze. They hadn’t expected me to actually draw blood. Damian lunged for the knife, his face filled with a sudden, jarring terror. “Sophie, stop! Are you insane?” The blade sliced a jagged red line from my cheekbone to my temple. Blood erupted, warm and thick, blurring my vision as it poured down my face. 3 The blood was iron and salt in my mouth. Security guards pinned me to the bed while a doctor rushed in. System, I screamed internally. Look at this! I’m literally disfigured! What’s the count? There was a pause. “+0.00005. Current progress: 99.99996%.” I started laughing—a jagged, hysterical sound that echoed through the sterile room. Ninety-nine-six. The universe was a cruel accountant. Images of the last three years flashed before my eyes like a mocking highlight reel. When I first arrived, Damian hadn’t been a monster. Not yet. He used to pick me up from my studio at midnight with a container of my favorite takeout. When my seasonal allergies flared up, he’d cancel his board meetings just to sit by my bed and apply cool compresses to my forehead. He once bought a small, hidden cottage in the countryside because I’d mentioned I loved the smell of wild jasmine. He took me there on my birthday and promised he’d watch the flowers bloom with me every year. Back then, I was a fool. I almost forgot I was in a tragedy. I almost forgot my role. Then Lydia came back, and the “plot” took over. If Lydia didn’t like the soup I made, he’d throw the boiling pot at me, scalding my arms. If she lost a bracelet, he’d lock me in the crawlspace for forty-eight hours. If she felt faint, he’d drag me to the clinic to pump a pint of my blood into her veins. I knew this was the script. I knew I had to endure it. But the fact that it was stalling at the very end was driving me to the brink. I forced myself out of bed, needing to wash the blood from my face, when I heard voices from the private lounge attached to my suite. It was Damian and Lydia. “Damian,” Lydia whispered, her voice devoid of its usual tremor. “Aren’t we taking this a bit far? Sophie clearly loves you. She knelt in the rain, she let herself get burned, she’s even willing to give up her sight. We don’t need to keep testing her.” Damian’s voice was casual, almost bored. “She loves me. That’s obvious. But there’s one last threshold. If she’s willing to actually give her life for me, then I’ll know her devotion is absolute. Once she proves that, I’ll stop. I’ll settle down and be a real husband to her.” My heart stopped. Then it shattered. It was all a test. He wasn’t some tortured hero driven by a tragic past. He was a sociopath using my heart as a lab rat. Every scar, every tear, every ounce of blood I’d shed—it wasn’t because he hated me. It was because he wanted to see how much I’d take before I broke. He wanted to be a god in my eyes. The progress bar was stuck because his “cruelty” wasn’t fueled by malice, but by a sick, twisted vanity. The System hissed in my ear. “That disgusting piece of work. I thought there was a glitch in my sensors. He’s been treating your soul like a stress test. I’m actually nauseous.” My fingers curled around the fruit knife again. “Host! Don’t!” the System screamed. “The sunk-cost is too high! If you kill yourself now, we lose everything! Your mother dies!” I stared at the door, my eyes cold. “I’m not going to kill myself. I’m going to kill him.” 4 But they were gone by the time I reached the lounge. I crawled back into bed, my body aching, my mind on fire. “Host, listen to me,” the System pleaded. “He wants a life-and-death proof of love? Fine. Give it to him. Lean into the drama. Let him think he’s won, get the points, and then we get the hell out of here. Don’t let him actually win.” I took a deep breath, forcing my heart rate to slow. Fine. If he wanted a grand finale, I’d give him an Oscar-winning performance. A week later, I was “discharged.” As I pulled up to the Cross estate, I saw orange light flickering against the night sky. The mansion was on fire. Lydia ran to me, grabbing my arms, her face smeared with soot. “Sophie! Damian… he went back in! He went back for your wedding rings! The fire is too fast, he hasn’t come out! What do we do?” I looked past her. There were three professional-grade fire engines parked in the back of the property, hidden by the hedges. The “fire” was a controlled burn on the east wing. He was so predictable. But I played my part. I let my face go pale, my breath hitching in a sob. “What? Damian! No! He… he really does love me.” I sprinted into the house. The foyer was empty, filled with thick, theatrical smoke. I ignored the ground floor and ran to the second story, where the fire was actually starting to catch for real. I burst into the master bedroom and found the rings in the nightstand. Three years of marriage, and we’d barely worn them. Damian was really committed to this production. I grabbed the rings, but instead of leaving, I slammed the bedroom door and locked it from the inside. Then, I threw open the heavy French windows. The sudden influx of oxygen turned the controlled fire into a literal inferno. The curtains ignited instantly. Thick, black smoke began to fill the room, searing my lungs. I leaned out the window and saw Damian standing on the lawn, looking up. I dialed up the desperation. My eyes were red from the smoke, my voice a ragged scream. “Damian! I have them! I have the rings! As long as you’re safe, nothing else matters!” I sounded like a woman staring into the abyss of her own death. Lydia was down there, jumping up and down. “Damian! Send someone in! She’s not going to make it!” Damian glanced at the growing flames, his expression terrifyingly calm. “Relax. The walls are lined with fire-retardant foam. It won’t actually spread. The trucks are right there. Let’s give her one more minute. I want to see if she tries to save herself first or if she stays for the rings.” Inside, the heat was becoming unbearable. The “retardant” foam was melting, releasing toxic fumes. My vision began to swim. I collapsed by the window, clutching the rings to my chest, my lungs screaming for air. A minute passed. Then two. Suddenly, I heard heavy boots thundering down the hall. Damian’s voice, now genuinely panicked, echoed through the door. “Sophie! Open the door! Sophie, I’m coming in!” He kicked the door, but I’d jammed the antique lock. The world began to fade into a dull gray. My heart slowed. And then, a chime rang in my head—the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. “Detection: Male Lead experiencing maximum levels of regret and existential terror. Mission Progress: 100%! Initiating immediate extraction from the World of Suffering. Returning to Reality.” I let out a soft, wheezing laugh. My grip on the rings loosened as the light finally took me.

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In my parents’ eyes, I was a depreciating asset—a bad investment they were waiting to dump. When I was seven, I came home with a silver medal from the math decathlon. My mother didn’t look at the trophy. She looked at me and said, “Remember, Tess, second place is just the first of the losers.” Years later, when I confessed how soul-crushing my job had become, my father simply pointed at the window. “Go down to the docks at 4:00 AM. Look at the men hauling crates in the freezing rain. They have real problems. You? You’re just self-indulgent.” On New Year’s Eve, I dragged my exhausted body through the front door after pulling eighty-hour weeks for fourteen days straight. I just wanted a bed. Instead, I got a performance review. At dinner, my mother expertly carved the roast chicken. She handed a prime breast to my cousin, Bradley: “Tenured at the state department. A man with a real career. The pride of the family.” She handed a succulent leg to my cousin, Nora: “Married into the Sterling’s. A girl who knows her value. She brings us grace.” Then it was my turn. She tossed the skinny, gristly neck—the parson’s nose—onto my plate. “You eat this. You’re just a corporate drone. You have nothing to show for yourself compared to them.” If I was a failed investment, a stock destined to crash, then it was time to delist. Permanently. … 1 “Why aren’t you eating? Is the food not good enough for you?” My mother’s fork tapped sharply against the rim of my plate. She narrowed her eyes at me. “Look at Bradley. Look how much he’s enjoying it. You can’t beat him in the office, you can’t beat him in the bank—can you at least try not to be a failure at the dinner table?” My hand tightened around my silverware. Two weeks of overtime. Four hours of sleep a night. My nervous system was a frayed wire. Before I’d opened the door, I’d told myself that if I could just get one sip of hot soup, I could swallow a whole year’s worth of bitterness. “I don’t like the neck,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “You don’t like it?” My father slammed his scotch glass onto the table. “Who are you to have preferences? Bradley just pulled a sixty-thousand-dollar bonus. And you? You come home empty-handed and have the audacity to be picky?” My mother chimed in, her voice dripping with practiced condescension. “Eat it. You have to eat it. In the old country, they say the neck is the ‘Phoenix’s End.’ It’s supposed to ward off bad luck. It’s the only way you’re ever going to turn your pathetic life around.” She leaned in, her eyes scanning my tired face. “I’m doing this for your own good. I saved this piece specifically for you. I wouldn’t give it to anyone else.” Under the table, she kicked my shin hard. “Everyone is looking at you,” she hissed. “Smile. Stop looking so miserable, like we’re abusing you.” I forced my lips into a grotesque imitation of a smile. My Aunt Sarah sat across from us, cracking sunflower seeds and watching me like a hawk. “So, Tess, working at a tech giant like that… you must have a massive 401k, right? Any boyfriends? The girl down the street just got engaged. The ring alone cost eighty thousand.” My father cut in before I could breathe, his voice booming with a strange, post-drink bravado. “Ha! Her? Save money? She spends it as fast as she makes it. As for marriage…” He pointed a finger at me, a distorted sense of pride flickering on his face. “I tell Tess all the time: material things are fleeting. People who obsess over dowries and rings are just selling their souls. When she asked for help with her mortgage last month, I gave her four words: Self-reliance is virtue.” He thumped his chest. “She might not be a millionaire, but she’s obedient. She knows the family’s struggles. Those words are the true spiritual wealth I’ve given her.” The relatives offered a chorus of half-hearted praise. “So deep, Richard.” “A father with real vision.” The praise buzzed in my ears like a swarm of wasps. I had used my scholarships, my bonuses, and my sanity to pay off their mortgage, dollar by dollar. I bought their “vision” so they could look dignified in front of the neighbors. And in return, they’d dismissed my plea for help with a lecture on virtue. “Eat!” my mother prompted again. “You’re not leaving this table until it’s gone.” Bradley leaned back in his chair, a smug smirk playing on his lips as he sipped his wine. “Go on, Tess. Auntie is favoring you. It’s all fat. Good for the brain.” Nora laughed, her eyes bright with malice. She pulled out her phone and aimed the camera at me. “Come on, Tess. Do it for the ‘Gram. Show everyone how much you love it.” My chest heaved. Shaking, I picked up that greasy, hairy piece of meat. I shoved it into my mouth. The rancid fat exploded against my tongue, the smell of it hitting the back of my throat like a physical blow. I wanted to retch. But my mother’s foot nudged me again under the table. I grit my teeth and swallowed the nausea along with my tears. “Look at her!” Nora shrieked with laughter. “She looks like a stray dog begging for scraps!” My mother hummed in satisfaction. A second later, her face transformed into a mask of fawning adoration as she placed a prime rib on Bradley’s plate. “Here, Bradley, have more. You’re the future of this family, after all.” I lowered my head, pushing cold rice around my bowl. The sickness in my stomach eventually subsided. But somewhere deep inside me, something had finally, quietly, died. 2 New Year’s Day. I hadn’t slept. My eyes were bruised with exhaustion. I sat on the sofa, clutching a mug of hot water. My mother tossed an old, scratchy blanket over my legs, grumbling under her breath. “Don’t get sick. Nobody has time to nurse you.” My father walked past, nudging the mug toward my face. “Drink up. Stop acting like a martyr. It’s the first day of the year; don’t bring that dark energy into my house.” “I’ve been having insomnia,” I said, my voice raspy. “The overtime at the office…” “Overtime?” he scoffed. “Sitting in a climate-controlled office is ‘hard work’ now? Try hauling drywall for twelve hours and then talk to me.” My mother emerged from the kitchen with a plate of breakfast, adding the finishing blow. “We spent a fortune on your education just to raise a fragile, entitled girl. Bradley was out drinking until 3:00 AM and he was up at dawn to visit the elders. That’s what we call grit.” I looked up at them, my vision blurring. “Is that all you have for me? A list of people I’m worse than?” My mother slammed the plate onto the coffee table. “You are worse than most people. If you don’t compare yourself, you’ll never realize how much of a failure you are.” She pointed at the bags of gifts I’d brought home. “Look at this trash. That’s all you brought? Nora bought her parents a 75-inch OLED TV. What have you done to bring this family honor?” “Fine,” I said, standing up. “What about you? Most of the girls I work with had their parents buy them their first condos. Their parents paved the way for them. Why don’t I compare you to those parents?” My father’s face turned the color of raw liver. He lunged forward and backhanded me so hard the buttons on his dress shirt strained. “You ungrateful bitch! You think we’re poor? You’re a goddamn leech!” “Why don’t you compare us to the addicts on 5th Street? Or the kids in foster care? We fed you! We raised you!” I looked at him, and for a moment, I wanted to laugh. “Right,” I whispered, clutching my throbbing cheek. “You’re always ‘just enough.’ And I’m always ‘never enough.’” “Don’t you talk back!” My mother lunged, shoving me backward. I stumbled, my hip slamming into the wooden arm of the sofa. A dull, sickening ache radiated through my bone. She held out her hand, palm up. “Give me your savings from this year.” “What?” “You’re too stupid to manage it. You’ll just get scammed,” she said with terrifying entitlement. “Your Aunt Sarah needs a new car, and you’re going to ‘lend’ her the money. It’s called building social capital. Do you understand?” “You’re a nobody right now, Tess. You need to suck up to Nora and her husband. If you give Sarah a hundred thousand now, when you inevitably lose that little job of yours, they might drop a few crumbs to keep you fed. I’m paving your way!” I opened my mouth, but my throat felt like it was packed with cotton. “That was my down payment. For my own place.” My father roared, “Stop being so selfish! Use your head for once!” He pointed to the door. “Give us the money, or get the hell out. And don’t bother coming back!” My mother stared at me, her eyes predatory. “You were always the ‘good’ child. Be good now. Don’t make us look bad in front of the family.” Her phone buzzed. She put it on speaker. Aunt Sarah’s voice filled the room. “I found the Lexus! I’m just a hundred thousand short. Tess is at that big tech firm, surely she’s got it? Transfer it over!” My mother shoved the phone in my face. “You heard her. She’s already counting on it.” “Transfer it,” my father commanded. “Now. Don’t waste our time.” I looked at them. Really looked at them. I slowly pulled the card from my pocket. “Here.” I stared into their eyes, my voice flat. “A hundred thousand. We’re even now, right?” My mother snatched the card so fast I thought she’d break my fingers. “Even?” she snorted. “Dream on. As long as you’re breathing, you owe us.” My father grinned. “That’s right. That’s just your lot in life.” I sat back down on the sofa, feeling completely hollow. The relationship with my parents was like a heavy, sopping wet wool coat. I had worn it for twenty-three years, and it had finally frozen solid. It didn’t just weigh me down anymore. It was entombed me in ice. Every breath I took hurt. 3 By noon, my face was still swollen, but the doorbell rang anyway. My mother practically sprinted to open it. “Mr. Henderson! Please, come in!” A man walked in, his eyes raking over me from head to toe. He smiled, revealing teeth stained yellow by coffee and tobacco. “So, this is Tess?” he said. “A bit thin, but… the frame is good.” I instinctively backed away. “Mom, who is this?” My mother grabbed my arm, her fingers digging in like talons, and dragged me toward him. “This is Miller Henderson! He owns three properties in the valley. Recently divorced, no kids. You marry him, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.” My brain felt like it was short-circuiting. “I’m twenty-three!” “So what?” my father barked, already offering Henderson a cigar. “You’re practically twenty-five. Miller might be older, but older men know how to provide!” He turned to Henderson with a groveling smile. “Miller, the girl down the street—the one who married the developer—her family got a massive payout. Our Tess is a top-tier university grad. She brings prestige. Theoretically, her ‘value’ is higher.” He paused, playing the part of the reasonable patriarch. “But we’re fair people. Since you’ve been married before, we won’t ask for the world. Seven hundred thousand. A nice, lucky number.” A cold sweat broke out over my skin. I wasn’t their daughter. I was a KPI. I was a performance metric they were trying to hit to win a game against the neighbors. Henderson toyed with a heavy ring on his finger, his eyes narrowing. “Seven hundred? She’s educated, sure… but I heard she works at one of those internet companies. Isn’t that just a glorified call center? I hear those places are cesspools. No one gets home before midnight. How is she supposed to take care of a house?” “And besides,” he added, “she’ll be aged out and fired by thirty-five. That’s not a real career.” My mother nodded vigorously, her smile sickeningly sweet. “You are so right, Miller! I’ve always said her job isn’t respectable. Tapping away at a computer all day? It adds no value to society. Not like your construction firm.” She turned to me, her voice dropping to a hiss. “You’ll quit the moment you’re married. You aren’t making real money anyway. A woman’s place is supporting her husband.” My fists clenched until my nails drew blood from my palms. “I have a career. I make two hundred thousand a year. I can take care of myself!” My father glared at me. “That’s not a career! That’s being a servant to a corporation! Miller pulls in millions on a single contract. Your yearly salary wouldn’t cover one of his dinners!” He turned back to Henderson, laughing off my “outburst.” “She’s just young and foolish. Don’t mind her.” My mother reached out to straighten my collar, her voice low and coercive. “Once you’re married and have someone to lean on, your father and I can finally stop worrying about you.” She gave me a hard shove toward him. “Go! Pour him a drink!” I stumbled, nearly falling into the man’s lap. Henderson reached out. His hand—thick, damp, and hot—clamped around my wrist. “Fragile little thing,” he chuckled, his thumb rubbing over my skin in a way that made my stomach turn. “Don’t be shy, Tess. Stay with me, and you’ll be living the high life. Isn’t that better than killing yourself at a desk?” I tried to pull away. He held tighter. I looked at my parents. I was begging for help with my eyes. They stood there, wearing identical expressions of smug satisfaction. “Let go!” I screamed. I threw my weight backward with everything I had. CRASH! I knocked over the glass pitcher on the coffee table. It shattered into a thousand jagged pieces. Henderson’s face darkened. SLAP! My father’s hand hit my face before I could even register the movement. The second one today. My ears rang. My face burned like it had been branded. “You ungrateful brat!” my father screamed, his eyes bloodshot. “Miller Henderson is interested in you, and you act like a common tramp? You’re going to embarrass us?” My mother jumped in, pinning my shoulders down. “Don’t you dare ruin this for us!” My father stepped closer, his voice a low, terrifying growl. “I’m telling you now. You are marrying this man. Whether you like it or not.” I looked down at the shattered glass on the floor, my hand over my face. Suddenly, the fight just… left me. “Fine,” I whispered. “I’ll marry him.” 4 After Henderson left, the house felt like it was celebrating a victory. My mother was beaming. “Think of how jealous the neighbors will be! No one will ever laugh at us again for not having a ‘successful’ child.” I sat on a small stool in the corner, my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was the work Slack. The servers were down. A critical system failure. We needed an emergency patch immediately. By instinct, I stood up and ran to my room to grab my laptop. The moment my fingers touched the keys, my father’s shadow fell over the doorway. “What do you think you’re doing?” “The company has a crisis,” I said, not looking up. “I have to fix this. It’ll take ten minutes.” “Ten minutes?” he sneered. “It’s New Year’s Day and you’re still acting like a slave for that company? Look at Nora. She’s married to a winner; she’s going to the Maldives next week.” He walked into the room, his voice rising. “And you? You’re like a guard dog, barked at and jumping whenever they whistle.” “Dad, if I don’t fix this, I’ll be the scapegoat. I could lose my job—” “Then lose it!” My mother appeared, slamming my laptop screen shut. “Did you not hear us? You’re marrying Miller. You’re quitting this pathetic job!” I tried to open the laptop again, but she held it down with all her strength. “You spend every waking hour on this machine—does it give you a Porsche? Does it give you status? All it gives you is the stench of the working class!” “Shut it down!” my father commanded. I let out a raw, jagged scream, shielding the computer with my body. “I won’t! This is my life! This is how I eat!” My father’s face twisted into a mask of pure rage. “You dare defy me?” He lunged forward and snatched my phone from my hand. “The work group, right? Let me tell them exactly what I think of them.” I scrambled to get it back, but my mother tackled me from behind, pinning my arms. “Stop it! Let your father handle it!” I watched, frozen in horror, as my father typed into the Slack channel using my account. “To all the managers and colleagues: Happy New Year. I quit. This system is trash because you’re all incompetent leaders. You pay me peanuts and treat me like livestock. Never contact me again.” He wasn’t done. He held down the voice memo button and roared into the phone: “Your shitty company is going to go bankrupt anyway! Stop wasting my daughter’s time! She’s marrying a real man!” A white light exploded in my brain. I fought like a wild animal, my voice breaking. “Delete it! Give it back and let me delete it!” My father shoved the phone into his pocket. “It’s done. I’m helping you cut ties with this nonsense.” The Slack channel began to explode with notifications. Tess? Are you drunk? What is happening? Is this a joke? My blood turned to ice. My mother whispered in my ear, “See? You’re so pathetic, crying over a job. Soon you’ll be a woman of leisure. Why do you need this shameful paycheck anyway?” My father turned his attention to the laptop. I dove to block him. He shoved me aside with a violent heave. CRACK. The laptop, covered in stickers from years of hard work, hit the tile floor. The screen shattered into a spiderweb of dead pixels. The chassis bent. Internal components scattered across the floor like teeth. I stood there, feeling like my skeleton had been removed. My father breathed heavily, pointing at the wreckage with a sickening sense of righteousness. “I did this for you! Look at what this machine was doing to you! You’re going to be a wife with a seven-hundred-thousand-dollar bride price. Stop doing this servant work. You’re embarrassing the family name!” My mother kicked a piece of the broken screen aside. “Stop crying. Out with the old, in with the new. One day, you’ll thank us for this.” I slowly knelt down. I picked up the pieces, one by one. “Dad. Mom.” I stood up and walked toward the balcony. “This ‘investment’ called Tess? It’s being delisted today.” I looked back at them, a calm I had never known settling over me. “Thank you to all the shareholders for twenty-three years of short-selling and suppression. This exit is final. No refunds.” Without a moment’s hesitation, I gripped the railing and vaulted over. The New Year’s wind was so incredibly cold. As I fell, I thought I heard my mother scream. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t have to care.

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Our new finance manager, Kylie, claimed she was biologically incapable of feeling cold. She said she “ran hot”—a metabolic furnace that necessitated a sub-zero environment. Meanwhile, a polar vortex had descended upon the city, dropping temperatures into the single digits. While the rest of us sat at our desks, teeth chattering and wrapped in blankets, Kylie militantly forbade anyone from touching the thermostat. “It’s not cold,” she’d scoff, rolling her eyes. “You office types just have poor circulation because you never exercise. That’s why you’re weak.” She even convinced our boss, Mr. Davis, to cancel the company shuttle service that picked us up from the train station. She pitched it as a “wellness initiative”—forcing us to walk the two miles would improve our health, she argued, while conveniently slashing “unnecessary overhead.” Davis loved the idea. He cancelled the shuttle immediately. Of course, he continued to drive his heated Range Rover to the door every morning. Because our office was in a remote business park with zero public transit access, my colleagues and I had to wake up two hours earlier just to trudge through the freezing wind. After a month of this, we were all sleep-deprived zombies. Performance dropped, bonuses were slashed, and morale was in the gutter. Just as I was wondering how long I could survive this frozen hellscape, an email pinged in my inbox. It was a resume. The cover letter read: “I suffer from severe chronic cold sensitivity. My ideal work environment is a sauna. I am looking for a company that keeps the heat on 365 days a year.” I slapped my thigh, grinning for the first time in weeks. I grabbed the phone and dialed HR. “I don’t care about her qualifications,” I said. “I want this woman as my assistant. Get her in here yesterday.” 1 “Who turned the heat on? Kill it. Now!” A shrill shriek cut through the office air. But this time, the entire team maintained a collective, practiced deafness. We didn’t look up. We didn’t flinch. Last month, the company had hired Kylie. It was late autumn then, and most of us were already layering up, some even resorting to thermal leggings under our slacks. Kylie, however, had breezed in on her first day wearing a sleeveless summer dress, bare legs on full display. When a colleague politely asked if she wasn’t freezing, she’d slapped her chest proudly. “High metabolism,” she bragged. “I radiate heat. I don’t even own a winter coat.” At first, we thought, fine, her funeral. But then the problems started. A cold front hit hard after a week of rain, dropping the temperature by twenty degrees overnight. The building’s central heating kicked in automatically. But the moment the vents started blowing warm air, Kylie marched over to the control panel and shut it down. “You people are so dramatic,” she lectured, blocking the thermostat with her body. “It’s not even freezing outside yet. I’m actually sweating. If you moved around a bit instead of rotting in your chairs, you wouldn’t have such pathetic constitutions.” The office heating was a central system, but I had a separate zone in my managerial office. Or I did, until she killed the main breaker. My room turned into an icebox instantly. I turned it back on and sent out a memo explicitly forbidding unauthorized tampering with the HVAC. She ignored it. I’d turn it on; she’d turn it off. It was a war of attrition, and we were losing. I was plotting a way to escalate this to HR when, a few days later, the system let out a dying beep and shut down completely. I stormed out, assuming Kylie was at it again. Instead, I found her leaning against the wall, a smug little smirk playing on her lips. “Manager,” she said, feigning innocence. “Don’t look at me. The wiring shorted out. The system couldn’t handle the load. Guess we’re out of luck.” Wiring could be fixed. I called maintenance immediately. The response was grim. “Sorry, the control board is fried. We have to order parts from the manufacturer overseas. With supply chain issues, you’re looking at two months, minimum.” Two months. The heart of winter. We were going to freeze to death. Looking at the triumphant glint in Kylie’s eyes, I knew this wasn’t just bad luck. This was sabotage. 2 I took the issue straight to Mr. Davis. His office was equipped with a sleek, standalone industrial heater. Even with the central air dead, he was toasty warm. The rest of the staff weren’t so lucky. “Alright, Harper, I hear you,” Davis said, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll handle it. Give me a week. I won’t let the team freeze.” I breathed a sigh of relief. I assumed he’d authorize portable units or an emergency HVAC replacement. I went back out and rallied the troops, promising them that by Monday, the heat would be back. They grumbled but agreed to tough it out for the weekend. Monday morning arrived. It was somehow colder inside than out. And instead of a repair crew, we got a town hall meeting. Davis stood before us, wrapped in a cashmere scarf. “Moving forward,” he announced, “heating is prohibited unless the indoor temperature drops below freezing.” Before anyone could protest, he continued with that condescending, corporate-dad tone. “I know it’s brisk. But artificial heating is just a band-aid. That’s why, effective immediately, the shuttle service is permanently cancelled. I want you all jogging or power-walking from the train station. By the time you get here, your blood will be pumping so hard you won’t even need a heater.” The silence in the room was absolute. It was the silence of people realizing their boss had lost his mind. “You can thank Kylie for the suggestion,” Davis added, beaming at her. “It cuts costs and promotes cardio. Win-win.” “Right, back to work,” he said, and disappeared into his heated office, leaving us to the tundra. The cheapskate. No heat, and now a forced march to work. Most of the staff couldn’t afford cars. I usually took the train and then a rideshare bike. Riding a bike in this wind was agonizing. Several colleagues quit on the spot. The rest of us—trapped by mortgages and a tough job market—swallowed our rage and put on another sweater. “Harper, you’re late. That’s a fifty-dollar fine. Scan this.” I had just sprinted into the lobby, lungs burning, only to be blocked by Kylie. She was holding up a QR code for the company account, looking entirely too pleased with herself. I looked at the wall clock. 10:01 AM. “I’m not late,” I wheezed, trying to bypass her. “Are you blind?” She grabbed my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “10:01. One minute late is still late. Pay up.” I shook her off and pulled out my phone. “Open your eyes and look at the atomic clock, Kylie. It’s 9:56. The wall clock is fast.” I had asked the janitor to set the lobby clock five minutes fast yesterday, specifically to catch people trying to leave early. Seeing the undeniable time on my phone, Kylie’s eyes widened. A few colleagues walked in behind me, checking their own watches. “Weird,” one said loudly. “I’ve got four minutes to spare.” Kylie flushed a blotchy red. “You got lucky this time,” she spat. “You’re all so selfish. If you cared about this company, you’d be here early creating value, not sliding in at the deadline.” Mr. Davis walked in right at that moment. I turned to him. “Mr. Davis, Kylie just called you selfish for not coming in early to create value.” My colleagues nodded vigorously. “She definitely said that, boss. We all heard it.” Davis’s face darkened. Kylie opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off. “Stop playing hall monitor and get to work.” As she slunk away, I exchanged a look with my team. For the first time in weeks, we smiled. “It’s colder than a morgue in here,” one colleague whispered. “My electric scooter has a better windshield than this building.” Watching Kylie eat crow warmed me up more than a heater ever could. But it wasn’t enough. 3 A few days later, I was in a meeting with a client who manufactured outdoor gear. They were beta-testing a new line of portable, high-efficiency space heaters. When I mentioned our HVAC situation, the client insisted on sending over a dozen units for “field testing.” They arrived the next day. I distributed them immediately. The hum of the heaters was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard. For the first time, I could type without my fingers stiffening. “What do you think you’re doing?! Where did these come from? Turn them off!” Kylie stormed into the bullpen, screeching like a banshee the moment she felt the warmth. I stood up, my expression icy. “These are client prototypes. We are required to use them and provide feedback reports. Unless you want to explain to the client why we breached our contract?” “Mr. Davis is in Europe for two weeks,” I added, stepping closer to her. “So save the drama.” “I don’t care!” Kylie yelled. “Look at the electricity usage! Turn them off, or go run laps outside if you’re cold!” She lunged for the nearest desk and yanked the plug out of the wall. That was the last straw. The team had reached their breaking point. “Don’t you dare,” a quiet analyst named Sarah said, standing up. “Touch my heater again, and I swear…” “You class traitor,” another colleague shouted. “Go find a streetlamp to hang from!” The entire team formed a protective wall around the heaters. Kylie, realizing she was outnumbered, backed off, muttering threats. We worked in blissful warmth for the rest of the day. Near closing time, I was shutting down my computer when a deafening crash echoed from the lobby. The glass doors were kicked open. A man—built like a linebacker and looking twice as angry—stormed in. “Who turned on the heat?! You trying to give my baby heatstroke? Where’s the manager? Get out here!” My staff froze. I looked through my blinds and saw Kylie sprinting toward him. “Brock! It’s them! They forced the heaters on! It’s like an oven in here, I’m dying!” I recognized the type immediately. I dialed 911 from my desk, whispering for them to hurry, before stepping out. “Brock, honey, that’s her! She brought the heaters!” Kylie pointed a manicured finger at me. Brock marched up to me, nostrils flaring. “You the manager? I hear you’ve been bullying my girl.” I held my ground. “It is forty-six degrees in this office. If your ‘baby’ is overheating, I suggest a thyroid check at the nearest ER.” Emboldened by her human shield, Kylie smirked. “I told you, I have high yang energy. I run hot. But a bitter, single old woman like you wouldn’t understand. Having a warm man beside you is better than any heater.” I stared at her, unimpressed. “Then why are you here? Go stay home and hug your husband. The police are on their way. I suggest you leave.” 4 “You called the cops?” Brock roared. “You got some nerve.” “She almost killed me with this heat!” Kylie shrieked. “She should be arrested!” Brock grabbed me by the collar, raising a fist the size of a ham. “Touch me and you’ll lose everything,” I shouted, staring him in the eye. “We have cameras. Do you have enough equity in your house to cover the lawsuit? This isn’t a bar fight.” He hesitated. He wanted me to cower. My refusal to flinch confused him. “I’ll show you heaters!” He shoved me backward, turned, and kicked the nearest space heater across the room. Then he stomped on another one, shattering the casing. Sirens wailed outside. When the officers entered, I pointed to the broken electronics and the security camera. “Assault, destruction of property, making threats. It’s all on tape.” “Pfft,” Brock scoffed. “I know she got those free from a client. They didn’t cost you a dime. You can’t sue for damages on free junk.” Kylie suddenly clutched her forehead, swaying theatrically. “Oh god, I’m dizzy… I think… I think the heat gave me heatstroke…” It was a masterclass in gaslighting. They refused to pay for the heaters and demanded we pay Kylie’s medical bills for her “heat-induced trauma.” The police, useless as ever in civil disputes, gave them a stern talking-to and told us to “work it out amongst ourselves.” That night, two more colleagues resigned. “Harper, I can’t do it,” one texted me. “I’m losing money working here just paying for flu meds.” I didn’t blame them. I went home, exhausted. I opened my laptop to check the HR portal, and that’s when I saw the resume again. “Severe cold sensitivity… left previous job due to lack of heating… strictly require a hot environment.” Nova. I sat up straight. This wasn’t just a candidate. This was a biological weapon. I emailed HR immediately. “Hire Nova as my personal assistant. Start date: Monday.” Kylie was Fire. Nova was Ice. It was time for a thermodynamic showdown. Over the weekend, while the office was empty, I hired a private contractor to look at the AC. “Nothing major,” the guy said, tinkering with the panel. “Just a crossed wire. Fixed it in two minutes. That’ll be twenty-five bucks for the call-out.” I realized then that the building’s maintenance guy—Mr. Davis’s nephew—had lied. He and Davis had probably cooked up the “broken part” story to save on the electric bill. Monday morning, I arrived at 7:00 AM. I cranked the thermostat to eighty degrees. When the staff arrived, they practically cried with relief. Then Kylie walked in. Her face turned purple. “Who turned it on?! Are you insane? You trying to kill me?” “I’m calling Brock! If I faint, you’re all paying for it!” As she screamed, the door to my office opened. Nova stepped out. She was wearing a thick wool cardigan even in the eighty-degree heat. “Who keeps trying to turn off my heat?” Nova asked, her voice calm but sharp. “I have a medical condition. If I get hypothermia, which one of you is writing the check?” Kylie stared at her. “Showtime,” I whispered to myself.

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The night before our wedding, I found Margot Prescott in bed with a total stranger. For a woman as poised and untouchable as she was, it was the first time I’d ever seen her completely come apart. She sat there, tangled in the high-thread-count sheets of the bridal suite, her face slick with tears. She whispered that she’d had too much to drink, that she’d mistaken him for me, that it would never, ever happen again. The boy—and he was just a boy back then—sobbed along with her. He claimed he’d been obsessed with Margot for years, that he’d bribed a porter to get the key card. He knelt on the floor and bowed his head, swearing he’d disappear from our lives forever. For the next eight years, we were the gold standard. The couple everyone envied. We lived in a beautiful brownstone in Chicago, our lives a seamless blend of shared history and professional success. We were “The Prescotts,” even though I’d kept my own name, Grant. Then came Margot’s thirtieth birthday. I took a week off work and endured an eleven-hour flight to London to surprise her at her overseas post. I stopped at a small corner shop near her flat to grab a bottle of water. A man stood at the counter next to me, his phone pressed to his ear. “You’re so needy tonight,” he chuckled. “It’s only been an hour, and you’ve already blown up my phone.” He paused, a predatory grin spreading across his face. “Just wait. Tonight, I’m going to make sure you can’t even walk tomorrow morning.” … Being a fellow American in a foreign city, I glanced at him out of habit. My heart didn’t just skip a beat; it stopped. The man was him. The boy from the hotel room. Years had sharpened his jawline and filled out his frame, but I knew that smirk. He didn’t recognize me. He turned to the cashier, still talking. “I’m not cold. I’m wearing plenty of layers, baby. You can check for yourself in a bit.” His voice dropped to a suggestive silkiness. “You can slide your hand right under my waistband, follow the curve of my back until you hit…” Driven by a sickening impulse, I pulled out my phone and texted Margot. [Margot, are you off work yet?] No reply. The man reached for the shelf behind the counter and grabbed two boxes of condoms. The same brand, the same scent—the one Margot always insisted I use. “It’s your birthday,” the man said into the phone, his voice bright and triumphant. “You get to decide how many rounds we go.” I looked down at my phone again. Still nothing. I followed him out of the shop, staying back in the shadows of the London drizzle. He laughed into the receiver. “Stop rushing me. I see your car. God, you really can’t wait, can you?” The rain hit my face, cold as needles. With trembling fingers, I pressed the call button for Margot. A mechanical female voice informed me that the person I was calling had “Do Not Disturb” turned on. I felt a hollow ache in my chest. She’d told me the London branch was grueling. She said once she stepped into that office, she was off the grid. It wasn’t the first time I couldn’t reach her. A sleek black Bentley pulled up at the corner. “Margot!” the man called out, stepping toward the passenger side. I turned my head just enough to see. And in that moment, I was pinned to the pavement. The window was halfway down. The woman in the driver’s seat was striking, her profile etched with a cold, aristocratic beauty. She looked like a swan. The man leaned in, pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of her mouth. She smiled, a soft, indulgent expression I knew better than my own reflection. “Always with the theatrics,” she murmured. The streetlights were dim, but I saw her with terrifying clarity. This was the woman who had been the architecture of my entire life. Age three: We held hands on the first day of preschool. She’d pressed a piece of butterscotch into my palm and whispered, “I’ll protect you, Oliver. Don’t cry.” Age sixteen: She’d sketched my portrait and hidden it in her sketchbook, movie-style. When I found it, her ears turned bright red. “I like you, okay? So what?” Age nineteen: Our first real date. When we finally kissed, she was so giddy she paid for every person’s meal in the bistro. “I want the whole world to know I’m the luckiest woman alive.” Age twenty-two: I proposed, and in front of both our families, she swore I was the only man she would ever love. It all froze on that night before the wedding. The hotel door opening. The sight of her and a stranger, limbs entwined, raw and exposed. Everyone told me it was a fluke. A drunken mistake. They said a lifetime of shared memories shouldn’t be discarded over one night of poor judgment. Even the boy had knelt at my feet, weeping, claiming he’d manipulated her. Margot, usually so proud, had broken. When I stayed silent, she picked up a paring knife from the fruit basket and pointed it at her own heart. “Oliver, I’ve failed you,” she’d sobbed, her voice vibrating with terror. “If you don’t believe me, I’ll show you. My heart belongs to you and only you.” Her face had been a blur of tears. “Don’t leave me. Please, baby. You know how long I’ve loved you. If you leave, I’ll die. I swear I will.” I had buried that memory. I had convinced myself we were a single organism, two halves of a whole, destined to grow old together. But in this second, on a rainy street in London… Thirty years of history collapsed into dust. I walked back to the apartment I’d rented, my mind a white noise of shock. My mother texted me: [How is it? Margot must be thrilled you’re there!] I took a shaky breath, swallowing the bile in my throat, and typed back: [Not yet. Just got to her place. Keeping it a surprise.] The door to the flat clicked open. Margot walked in, looking flushed. When our eyes met, her expression flickered with a micro-second of guilt before smoothing into a mask of perfect composure. “Oliver? Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? I would have picked you up from Heathrow.” “I wanted to surprise you,” I said, my voice sounding like it belonged to someone else. She smiled and crossed the room, throwing her arms around me. “I hate that you went through all that trouble. The jet lag must be killer, and just for my birthday?” Her phone buzzed in her pocket. As she checked it, her face softened into that familiar look of patience and tenderness. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said, looking up with an apologetic pout. “I actually have a late meeting with a client. I have to head back out. You must be exhausted.” Without waiting for me to respond, she went to the closet and grabbed a small bag. I knew. She wasn’t here for me. She was here for whatever the man had forgotten. I had spent weeks decorating this temporary flat for her. I’d taken time off, lost a major account, and spent half a day sourcing a specific vintage vase she’d mentioned once in passing. The vase was gone. Even the framed photo of us on the fridge had vanished. A sharp, damp cold seeped through my rain-slicked coat and into my marrow. I stood up abruptly and grabbed my suitcase. “Are you angry?” Margot asked, catching my arm. “The place is a mess, let me book you a room at the Savoy nearby. I promise, I’ll spend all of tomorrow with you. Okay?” She leaned in to kiss me, just as she always did. A scent hit me. A strange, sharp citrus cologne. His scent. I pulled away. Margot didn’t seem to care; she was already checking her watch, eager to be gone. At the elevator, a woman from the neighboring flat watched me leave. She let out a low whistle, her eyes trailing over me. “How much?” she asked with a cynical smirk. “If she doesn’t want you tonight, I’ll take you.” “She has a boyfriend,” I said coldly. “Oh, I’ve seen him,” the neighbor laughed. “He’s handsome, sure, but why do you look like your world just ended? Everyone in the building knows them. They’re the ‘happy couple’ of the fourth floor.” She moved to touch me, and I recoiled, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn’t wait for the elevator. I hit the stairs and ran. I didn’t stop until I reached the airport. I sat in the terminal, staring at nothing, wondering how we got back here. In the first two years of our marriage, I had nightmares. I’d see her in that hotel room, naked in the arms of that stranger. I’d wake up gasping. She would hold me. She would whisper, “It’s my fault. I broke my husband’s heart, and I’ll spend forever fixing it.” She changed all her passwords to my birthday. She introduced me as her soulmate at every gala. She gave me a play-by-play of her entire day. When she traveled, she kept FaceTime on all night so I could hear her breathing while I slept. We were both so careful. So fragile. When did the rot start? I remembered the man’s name from eight years ago. Dominic West. I opened social media. It took one minute to find him. His profile picture was taken inside Margot’s office back in the States. In the background hung a painting I’d commissioned for her—a piece I’d waited outside a gallery for six hours to secure because she said she liked the artist’s “soul.” Dominic was a travel blogger now. A minor influencer. I scrolled. The first hint of her appeared three years ago. A photo of Dominic holding a woman’s hand. The background was our high school football field. [Found my way back to my Golden Girl.] That was where we’d first held hands at eighteen. Margot’s palms had been sweaty. She’d told me, “When we’re old and grey, we’re coming back here.” Two years ago, our anniversary. Margot said she was stuck at a corporate retreat. Dominic’s feed showed them eating street food at a night market. Last New Year’s, I was hospitalized with a brutal case of the flu. Margot appeared in the corner of Dominic’s video, carefully bandaging a scratch on his finger. My hands were shaking so hard I almost dropped the phone. She was never centered in the photos. But that jawline, the mole on her wrist… I couldn’t lie to myself anymore. A new post popped up. A photo of a lace maid’s outfit, so skimpy it made my stomach turn. [My reward tonight.] That’s what she’d come back to the apartment to get. The comments were full of fans joking. [Lucky guy! Your girl clearly adores you.] Dominic replied: [I asked her when she first fell for me. She said it was eight years ago. The day I finally told her I loved her. She said my eyes were so bright it scared her. She never forgot it.] Eight years ago. The night I caught them. I felt like I was suffocating. Dominic posted a video next. The camera panned over a bed covered in rose petals. “My followers want to know,” Dominic’s voice said off-camera. “Now that you’re thirty, what’s the plan for us?” Margot’s voice, silk and honey, drifted through the speakers. “The plan?” “I think I’m ready to have your baby.” The camera blurred as the phone was tossed aside, the sound of rustling fabric filling the silence. My fingers were numb. I had to dial her three times before I hit the right buttons. She picked up on the third ring. “Margot,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Am I in your plans for the future?” There was a pause. “Of course you are, Oliver. Why are you asking this now?” In the background, I heard Dominic’s low murmur. “Focus, baby. Or I’m going to have to punish you.” If I hadn’t seen him, I would have thought it was a colleague. A TV in the background. Anything else. The love I’d carried for thirty years evaporated. It didn’t burn; it just went cold. “Are you doing this again?” Margot’s voice sharpened into irritation. “The paranoia? Oliver, I turned down a dozen international postings because of your insecurity. I’m here working for our future. Can you just give me a minute to breathe?” I let out a soft, broken laugh. “You’re right, Margot. I’m insecure.” “When you get back to Chicago, we’re getting a divorce.” She hung up first. “Fine,” she snapped. “Whatever you want.” The dial tone was a rhythmic thud against my skull. I didn’t sleep for a single second of the flight home. I’d thought happiness was something we’d built together, brick by brick. I didn’t realize the foundation was made of sand. After a day of staring at the walls of our empty house, I got a text. [I’m back. We have dinner at my parents’ tonight. Don’t cause a scene in front of them.] [Oliver, you’re an adult. Stop throwing a tantrum and show up.] I replied with a single word: [Okay.] When I arrived at the Prescott estate, both families were already seated. Margot sat next to me, her face a mask of cool elegance. She leaned in, her voice a hushed whisper. “Are you still sulking?” She slid a box across the table into my lap. Inside was a watch. “It was my fault. There. I said it. This is an olive branch. Smile for the cameras, okay?” My skin crawled. Just before I’d left for the airport in London, Dominic had posted again. A bed littered with gifts. He’d unboxed them one by one: a limited edition watch, custom designer suits, the keys to a new car. He’d held up this specific, basic-model watch with a sneer. “This one’s boring. I don’t want it.” Margot’s voice had laughed lovingly in the video. “I buy you gifts on my birthday and you still complain? Fine, I’ll just throw it away.” I let the watch slide off my lap and hit the floor with a dull thud. Margot’s brow furrowed. “What more do you want from me? Take it or leave it.” Margot’s mother smiled warmly from the head of the table. “I heard Oliver flew all the way to London and you were too busy with work to see him. That was naughty of you, Margot.” My mother chimed in, trying to keep the peace. “Oh, he’s just sensitive. Oliver, did you give her the gift? You know, your grandmother’s ring you spent months tracking down?” “Grandmother’s ring?” Margot froze. She turned to me, her eyes wide. “Oliver… you found it? You actually found it?” Her cool exterior melted. For a moment, she looked like the girl who’d given me butterscotch in preschool. Her eyes shimmered with genuine emotion. The parents all laughed. “Look at her. She’s smitten.” “No,” I said quietly. “Someone else made a better offer. I sold it.” The room went silent. Margot’s smile died. She forced a laugh. “Oliver, that’s not funny.” I didn’t blink. I reached into my coat and pulled out the divorce papers. “I met Dominic West, Margot.” “I figured if I didn’t divorce you, he’d have to spend the rest of his life as a mistress. And that just seems cruel, doesn’t it?”

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I was in the middle of a shower when I saw it—a face, blurred and distorted, pressed against the bathroom window. That was the third time. When I told my mother, she didn’t even look up from her phone. She told me I was being dramatic, that my imagination was getting the best of me. “For heaven’s sake, Jade,” she’d said, her voice sharp with annoyance. “We’re on the eighth floor. Unless Spider-Man is stalking you, there is nobody out there.” The next night, I was back in the shower. The steam was thick, the air heavy with the scent of my eucalyptus body wash. I saw it again. I didn’t wait. I didn’t scream. I just lunged for my towel, threw on my robe, and bolted for my bedroom, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. Then, my phone buzzed on the nightstand. A message from the neighbor. “Hey Jade, why’d you stop your shower so early?” 1 Every hair on my arms stood on end. I let out a strangled cry and threw the phone across the room as if it had burned me. How did he know? How could he possibly know I’d stopped? Unless that face against the glass… was his. But it didn’t make sense. We lived on the eighth floor of a sleek, modern high-rise. Outside my bathroom window was nothing but a sheer drop and a concrete ledge no wider than a credit card. Our apartments shared a wall, sure. But what kind of lunatic would risk a ten-story fall just to catch a glimpse of a girl in the shower? It was suicide. Then, a memory flickered in the back of my mind. A few weeks ago, that neighbor—Gary—had knocked on our door. He’d asked to borrow a bottle of body wash. There’s a 24-hour CVS right downstairs. You can get anything delivered via DoorDash in twenty minutes. Why knock on a stranger’s door for soap? The logic didn’t track. And then there was the way he’d looked at me—his eyes lingering just a second too long on my collarbone. I couldn’t breathe. My hands were shaking so hard I could barely pick up the phone, but I forced myself to dial 911. Ten minutes later, the muffled wail of sirens cut through the night. I ran to the door and threw it open. A team of officers spilled out of the elevator, but they didn’t stop at my unit. They surged past me, their boots thundering on the carpet as they kicked in Gary’s door. A man and a woman in uniform stopped in front of me. The woman flashed her badge. “Are you the one who called?” I nodded, my voice stuck in my throat. “Gary Henderson is dead,” she said, her eyes searching mine. “We’re going to need you to come with us for questioning.” My world tilted. Gary—the man who had just texted me—was dead? 2 “You mentioned a text message in your 911 call. When exactly did you receive it?” I tried to pull myself together, though the adrenaline was leaving me cold and hollow. I handed my phone to the female officer—Detective Miller. “10:39 PM,” she noted, her expression unreadable. “And what were you doing then?” I squeezed my hands together. My palms were slick with sweat. “I… I was going to shower. Then I saw the face. It was blurry, just a shape against the frosted glass.” I was rambling, the words tumbling out of me in a frantic rush. “I got scared. I decided to wait for my parents to get home. I went back to my room, and that’s when the text came. I knew something was wrong, so I called you guys. You have the record of the call, right?” Miller didn’t answer. She just kept writing in her notebook, occasionally glancing at me with a look that felt like a surgical probe. “Can you show us where you saw the face?” “Yeah. Yes.” I led them inside. I had turned on every single light in the apartment; the place was glowing like a sterile operating room. I stopped at the threshold of the bathroom. I couldn’t bring myself to step inside. I was terrified that if I looked at the window, that blurred, featureless face would be there again, watching. Miller and her partner stepped in, sliding the glass shower door back. “This window?” I nodded. She took a few photos of the glass. “Did you open the window to look out when you saw it?” “I… I didn’t dare.” “Did the face stay there, or did it vanish immediately?” “I don’t know.” The male officer, a younger guy with a buzz cut, let out a short, dismissive huff. “The steam gets thick in these small bathrooms,” he said, not even trying to hide his skepticism. “The glass is frosted. It was probably just a shadow, kid. Girls your age… you watch too many true crime docs.” “It wasn’t a shadow,” I whispered. My voice felt small, insignificant. Was I crazy? No. I knew what I saw. The third time—tonight—I could have sworn I saw the corner of a mouth twitch. Miller shot her partner a look. “Knock it off, Ward.” “I’m just saying,” Ward muttered. “Remember that call last week? The girl who thought she was being followed, and it turned out they were just going to the same Starbucks?” “Shut up,” Miller snapped. She reached out and unlatched the window. A draft of cold, night air rushed in. Outside, the world was a black abyss. Empty. She leaned out, looking down at the sheer drop. Then she shook her head. “Right here,” she muttered. 3 “Right here.” What did that mean? She walked back toward me and placed a hand on my shoulder. It wasn’t exactly comforting. “I need to see some ID.” Her voice snapped me back to reality. “Right. Okay.” I went to my room and pulled my driver’s license from my purse. She looked it over. “Born in 2008. You just turned eighteen?” I nodded. “Yesterday. It was my birthday.” Miller’s gaze flickered to the small, half-eaten chocolate cake sitting on my desk. I swallowed hard, trying to find my courage. “How… how did he die?” She looked at me again, her eyes sharper now, like she was trying to see through my skin. “He fell. We haven’t ruled out foul play.” I nodded slowly, the room feeling like it was shrinking. “Where are your parents?” “They went out after dinner. My dad was meeting some friends for drinks, and my mom went to her weekly poker night.” “How did you have Gary’s number? Were you two close?” I shook my head vigorously. “No. He told me his niece was starting high school soon and asked if he could have my old SAT prep books when I graduated. He gave me his number for that. That’s it.” “Had he texted you before tonight?” I shook my head again, my fingers twisting the hem of my robe. Suddenly, the sharp click-clack of heels echoed from the hallway. The sound grew louder, more frantic. “You!” A woman lunged into the room, her hand raised to strike. I flinched, pulling away, but Miller was faster. She caught the woman’s wrist in a grip of iron. The woman hissed in pain. “Let go of me! That little brat! That little slut killed my husband! I want her head on a plate!” 4 I froze. Killed? Me? My legs turned to jelly. I stumbled back, and Miller caught me before I could hit the floor. Officer Ward stepped between me and the woman. “Ma’am, you need to calm down. We are still investigating.” The woman collapsed onto the floor, wailing. It was Linda, Gary’s wife. Why would she think I did it? I watched her, paralyzed by her raw, hysterical grief. The commotion had drawn the rest of the neighbors. People were hovering in the hallway—faces I recognized from the elevator, people who usually just gave me a polite nod. “Gary was such a good guy,” someone whispered. “He helped me fix my laptop last month. Didn’t even charge me.” “So tragic,” another added. “Poor Linda, left all alone with a kid.” Linda looked up, her eyes bloodshot and filled with venom. “It was her! She did it! I know she did!” The eyes of the neighbors shifted. They began to look at me differently. Not as the quiet girl from 8B, but as something else. “That’s the Miller girl’s daughter, right? Jade?” a woman whispered. “She’s only eighteen.” “Like mother, like daughter,” Linda shrieked, her voice cracking. “Her mother is a tramp, and she’s no better! They did something to him!” Miller’s voice cut through the noise like a blade. “Ma’am, watch your mouth. Unless you have evidence, you are bordering on defamation.” Linda went quiet, but the damage was done. The neighbors’ whispers grew into a dull roar. “Actually, I remember seeing them by the mailboxes,” a man said, leaning in. “She was wearing these tiny denim shorts, and Gary was right behind her, looking… well, you know. Maybe they had a thing?” “But she’s so young…” “Eighteen isn’t that young. Girls these days know exactly what they’re doing.” 5 The weight of their words felt like stones being piled on my chest. I hadn’t done anything, but I was being buried alive under their assumptions. Miller stepped forward, her presence commanding the room. “Until we find a suspect, everyone in this building is a person of interest. Do you all want to come down to the station for a statement?” The hallway cleared out in seconds. The elevator doors opened again, and my parents finally appeared. I broke down, sobbing as I threw myself into my mother’s arms. I tried to tell her everything—the face, the text, the police. But my mother just hissed at me under her breath. “I told you to stop with this nonsense, Jade! I told you there was no face! If you hadn’t called the police, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” “But Mom, the text message—” She slapped me. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet room. My head snapped to the side, my lip stinging. “Don’t you dare speak of it,” she whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of rage and fear. “You want the whole world thinking you’re that kind of girl? You’ll never be able to show your face in this town again.” My eyes burned with unshed tears. “Are you Jade’s mother?” Miller asked, her voice cold. My mother straightened up, her face instantly morphing into a mask of polite concern. “Yes, I am. I’m so sorry, she’s just… she’s been under a lot of stress with finals.” “She was exercising her rights,” Miller said. “She did nothing wrong. And you shouldn’t have hit her.” My mother, usually the fiercest woman in any room, suddenly looked small. Cowed. My father stood behind her, his face flushed red from the whiskey. He hadn’t said a single word. The police took their initial notes and left. But three days later, they were back. They didn’t come to check on me. They came with a warrant. “Jade Miller, we’re taking you in for questioning regarding the death of Gary Henderson.” I felt the blood drain from my face. My parents stared, their mouths agape. “Let’s go.” 6 The interrogation room was cold. It smelled of stale coffee and industrial cleaner. I sat there, picking at the skin around my cuticles, unable to stop my legs from shaking. Two detectives walked in. One was Miller. For a second, I felt a spark of hope. She’d been kind to me before. But her face was a mask of stone. She sat down, looked me in the eye, and said the words that ruined my life. “Why did you kill him, Jade?” My heart stopped. Literally stopped for a beat. “You’re eighteen. You have your whole life ahead of you. Whatever happened, whatever he did to you—if you’d just gone to college, you could have left this all behind. Why did you throw it away?” She didn’t sound angry. She sounded disappointed. As if I were a child who had broken a vase, rather than a woman accused of murder. “I didn’t…” I shook my head, my voice trembling. “We found hair at the scene. Inside Gary’s apartment,” Miller said, leaning forward. “DNA doesn’t lie, Jade. It’s a match.” The room started to spin. I had never stepped foot inside Gary’s apartment. Never. “And,” she continued, “we found something else on his phone. Multiple photos of you.” She paused, as if the next word was too heavy to say. “Nude photos.” A wave of nausea hit me so hard I thought I might throw up. I felt exposed. Naked. Like I was standing in the middle of a crowded street with no skin to protect me. “What?” I choked out. “And why,” Miller added, her voice dropping to a whisper, “did you lie to us about the messages?”

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At the end of the year, my wife dragged me to her high school reunion. While she was busy playing the part of the successful CEO, I found myself scrolling through a viral thread on a popular forum. [My first love’s husband is terminally ill. What should I do?] The top comment read: [What does her husband being sick have to do with you?] The original poster (OP) replied: [Because I’m planning on taking his place.] The comments section exploded. [What kind of homewrecker logic is this?] [Wait, I just checked OP’s profile… are you the designer behind ‘The Dying Star’?!] My fingers trembled against the screen. The Dying Star. It was a piece I had sculpted when I was eighteen. The OP replied below: [Oops, caught me. I designed it for my first love, but she got married while I was studying abroad.] The tone of the thread shifted instantly to one of tragic romance. [I’m at her reunion today. Her husband is here, but I managed to text her and get her alone. She’s had a little to drink and she’s crying in my arms right now.] Attached was a photo. A woman was clinging to a man’s waist, her face buried in his chest. She was wearing a custom-tailored suit—the exact one my wife, Victoria, had put on this morning. … I reached for a glass of red wine on the table and drained it in one gulp. A former classmate sitting next to me noticed my sudden pallor and waved a hand in front of my face. “You okay, Miles? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” I exhaled slowly, forcing my heart to stop its frantic hammering. “I’m fine. Just need some air.” Once I stepped out into the hallway, I opened the app again. The sentiment had done a total 180. [Such a tragedy. OP and his first love were clearly meant to be.] [I’ve seen ‘The Dying Star’ in person. I never knew jewelry could hold that much pain.] [I heard that design won a dozen international awards. OP is a literal genius.] When I was in school, I had designed The Dying Star for my secret crush, Victoria Beaumont. Now my wife. She told me she had locked it away in a private vault, too precious to wear. Aside from her, no one knew it was my work. Who was this “genius designer” claiming my life? I walked toward the stairwell, and as I rounded the corner, I heard voices coming from behind the heavy fire door. I hesitated, then pushed it open just a crack. “Her husband is dying,” a man’s voice whispered, thick with a smug sort of pity. “What are you going to do about him, Victoria?” “Why? Are you looking for a promotion to ‘husband’ already?” Victoria’s voice followed, light and teasing. “Don’t be mean. You were literally crying two minutes ago because you missed me so much. Now you’re picking on me?” “I’m picking on you? Fine. I’ll show you what picking on you really looks like.” The man let out a small, playful gasp. Then came Victoria’s low, melodic laugh. The sound made the blood in my veins turn to ice. After ten years of marriage, I knew that laugh better than my own name. I pulled my hand back and walked blindly down the hall. I clicked on the OP’s profile. Most of his posts were from international IP addresses, and every single one was about his “first love.” [Year one apart: She told me she’d never love anyone else.] [My Victoria got married today. But she came to see me on her wedding night. She flew ten thousand miles just to spend it in my arms. She brought me a five-carat ring. How is this not our wedding night?] So that was it. That night ten years ago, Victoria had claimed there was a “corporate emergency” right after the reception. She had left in such a hurry she hadn’t even taken off her veil. My vision blurred. [She came to see me again. She brought lilies her husband grew in his garden and put them on our nightstand. Victoria, is this our version of ‘happily ever after’?] The comments were a sea of heart-eye emojis. [The way he writes about her… you can feel the soul in every word.] [First loves always win.] She told me she loved lilies. I had spent months tending to our greenhouse, hand-picking the best blooms for her to take to her office. I never imagined they were being used as decor for her trysts. I scrolled through years of his updates. Inside the ballroom, the old class was laughing and drinking. I stepped into a quiet corner and FaceTimed my best friend, Jordan. “I thought you were at the reunion with the Ice Queen?” Jordan said, his brow furrowing at my expression. “Miles, what happened?” I let out a ragged laugh. “Jordan, I’m done. I want a divorce.” Jordan slammed his fist onto a table. “Finally! Thank God. I’ll have the papers ready by morning. You’re finally coming to your senses.” “And… I’m going back,” I whispered. “I’m going back to the St. James estate.” The door to the lounge swung open. Victoria and a man named Sebastian Cole walked in, one after the other. I hung up the phone. The room went quiet for a second before a few women started giggling. “Look at that. Sebastian still has a thing for the Queen Bee.” “Can you blame him? They were the ‘it’ couple back then. No one expected Victoria to end up with someone as… unremarkable as Miles.” Victoria walked over and sat beside me. Noticing my red eyes, she reached out and cupped my face with practiced concern. “What’s wrong, honey? Did someone say something to you?” I thought of the “picking on” I had just heard in the stairwell. My heart felt like it was being shredded. “Victoria,” I said quietly. “Do you remember The Dying Star?” She stiffened. Her eyes instinctively darted toward Sebastian. “It’s in the family vault, Miles. It’s too special to wear out. Why are you bringing that up now?” “I designed it specifically for you,” I said. “It’s a brooch. I’ve never once seen you wear it.” Her smile faltered. She looked away, smoothing her skirt. “You know I don’t like flashy things. It’s too loud for my style.” “Besides,” she added, “it’s your masterpiece. It belongs in a safe where it can be preserved forever.” Not your style? Then why was it pinned to her lapel in the photos Sebastian posted on his profile? In our home, Victoria’s wardrobe was a desert of black, white, and grey. But on Sebastian’s feed, she wore vibrant colors. She went deep-sea fishing with him, caught crabs, and stayed out until dawn laughing under the sun. Victoria and I had traveled together exactly once. Our honeymoon. It had been a miserable, lonely month. “Do you remember,” I asked softly, “when I asked to go see the Northern Lights for our honeymoon?” Sebastian, who was clinking glasses with a guy next to me, suddenly slid into the seat across from us. “Did you guys go to see the Aurora? What a coincidence! I went with my girlfriend too!” “She chartered a private yacht. We huddled together on the deck under the lights. It was the most romantic thing I’ve ever experienced.” I forced a smile. “What a shame. We never went.” “My wife said she hates the cold. Said high latitudes were depressing.” Sebastian’s eyes locked onto Victoria, his grin widening. “That’s too bad. You really should go. Legend says couples who see the lights together stay together forever.” “My girl is terrified of the cold too, but the second I told her about the legend, she was the one who planned the whole itinerary.” “She took care of everything—the food, the drinks, the gear. Me? I’m lazy. I like the fun, but I hate the logistics.” The men around us cheered. “Man, your girl sounds like a saint.” “How do you get this lucky, Sebastian? When is it my turn?” Sebastian’s cheeks were flushed with wine and triumph. “I’ve got a weak constitution,” he bragged. “I get sick easily, so she had every possible medication ready for me. If I even leaned too close to the railing, she’d grab me, terrified I’d fall in.” The table erupted in laughter. “But I’m stubborn,” he continued, glancing at Victoria. “I wanted to see the ocean. So she just kept one arm around me the whole time while she took photos with the other. She’s clingy like that.” Beside me, Victoria looked down and chuckled softly. I remembered our honeymoon. She spent every day on “conference calls.” We barely spent two hours together. When I wanted to take a photo, she said she wasn’t good with cameras. When I wanted to walk on the beach, she said the tide was dangerous. Our one-month honeymoon ended ten days early. I ended up in a hospital with acute gastritis from a bad meal, lying in a sterile bed for a week. She told me she had an “emergency board meeting” and flew home two days before I was even discharged. A few classmates noticed the tension and shouted, “Sebastian, you were the star of the school. How did we not know you were seeing someone?” “Come on, spill. How did you two meet?” Victoria leaned back against the leather booth, casually draping an arm over my shoulder, watching Sebastian with an indulgent smile. Sebastian twirled a strand of his hair. “We’ve known each other forever. Longer than I’ve known any of you.” “She was my first love. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we always find our way back.” Ooh— The crowd started whistling and catcalling. Several meaningful glances were thrown Victoria’s way. People started sizing me up, whispering. “His first love? That’s definitely Victoria.” “Miles wasn’t even in our social circle back then. Marrying her was the ultimate social climb.” “He’s nothing compared to Sebastian. Sebastian has the pedigree. He actually fits her world.” I thought about the year I spent carving The Dying Star. My mother had given me a raw blue diamond. I spent months in the studio, my hands covered in nicks and cuts. That brooch was literally stained with my blood. And she had handed it to a charlatan so he could play the part of a tortured artist. I shrugged Victoria’s arm off my shoulder and stood up. “I don’t feel well. I’m going home.” Victoria reached for my hand. “Honey, I’ll drive you.” Sebastian pulled her back by the arm. “Don’t go yet, Victoria. Let Miles take an Uber. He’s a big boy; he won’t get lost.” Someone else chimed in, “Yeah, we missed you, Vic! Sit down, let’s catch up properly.” Victoria looked at me with a performative sigh of helplessness. “Fine. Be careful on the way home, Miles.” The second I got into the car, I sent her a text: Victoria, I want a divorce.

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The girls in my senior class started a “Most Unattractive” poll. I won by a landslide. When the list circulated, my heart stopped at one name in particular: Madeline Sinclair. For six years, she had been my North Star, the girl I’d quietly adored from the shadows of the back row. Her handwriting was elegant, every loop and curve a deliberate slap in the face to the boy who had been stupid enough to confess his feelings to her just the day before. Years later, a financial news anchor interviewed Madeline, now a rising star in private equity. They asked if she had any regrets. Madeline looked directly into the camera, her expression poised but her eyes haunting. “In high school, I mistook a diamond for a piece of glass. I let someone else take him, and I’ve spent every night for seven years regretting it. Luckily, he’s single now. I’m hoping for a second chance.” The “someone else” she was referring to was currently sitting across from me at dinner. She elegantly set down her fork, pushed a perfectly sliced piece of Wagyu beef toward me, and murmured that she had to make a quick call. Out on the balcony overlooking the Seattle skyline, her voice turned to ice as she spoke into her phone. “Universal Holdings is in their Series C round, right? Call NorthStar, Solstice, and Vanguard. Tell them to pull every cent of their investment. Now.” 1 The poll was a cruel, low-tech game played in the back of a spiral notebook. When it reached my desk, the classroom went deafeningly silent. The first page was “Most Likely to Succeed/Hottest.” The second page was the “Wall of Shame.” The first category was a heated debate. The second was a consensus. My name, Jude Miller, was written over and over again. Out of twenty-one girls, seventeen had voted for me. I wasn’t delusional. I knew I wasn’t the guy people did double-takes for. I had a heavy brow, lips that were a bit too full for my face, a permanent tan from working outside, and skin that was currently losing a battle with teenage hormones. I dressed in thrift-store flannels and wore my hair in a utilitarian buzz cut. I had self-awareness. I never expected a movie-style romance, and I certainly didn’t expect Madeline Sinclair to love me back. But seeing her handwriting on that page felt like a physical blow to the stomach. We had known each other since middle school. I had loved her for every second of those six years. I just hadn’t expected her to humiliate me so publicly the day after I’d bared my soul. The confession had been an accident. I was helping my parents at our family’s small neighborhood grocery store in a rougher part of town. Madeline walked by, and I called out to her, handing her a bag of fruit. I told her her mother had already paid for it—a lie to help them out, since I knew her family was struggling after her father’s business empire collapsed. Under the dim streetlamp, her long lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. “Jude, I don’t need your charity.” She let go of the bag. I wasn’t quick enough to catch it. Apples and pears scattered across the cracked sidewalk, bruising in the dirt. Her pride was just like that fruit—fragile, easily damaged, and spread out for everyone to see. “I’m not pitying you, Maddie,” I blurted out, the words tumbling over each other. “I like you. I’ve always liked you. I just want to help.” I tried to force a casual shrug. “Every guy in school is stuffing your locker with Godiva and flowers. Is one bag of fruit really that much worse?” Three seconds passed. Maybe thirty. Time stretched until it snapped. “I’m sorry, Jude,” she said, her voice flat. “But I don’t feel that way about you.” She walked away without looking back. It was the answer I expected. I told myself it didn’t hurt. I knelt, picked up the bruised apples, wiped off the grit, and went back to work. My family lived in the part of the city where the buildings were grey and the people looked tired. Everyone here was sprinting just to stay in place. Madeline was different. She was a fallen princess, temporarily exiled to our neighborhood after her family’s mansion was foreclosed on. Before the move, no one at school knew my mother worked as a housekeeper for her family. Madeline had kept my secret, protecting my dignity. I thought my confession was a way of protecting hers—showing her that even at her lowest, she was still someone’s dream. But after that night, she didn’t just ignore me. She despised me. 2 The notebook sat on my desk, her sharp, aggressive script mocking me. I looked back at Madeline. She met my gaze with a chilling indifference. The girl who had been my sun was now a block of ice. The rest of the girls held their breath, waiting for the “ugly kid” to have a meltdown. If I showed them I was hurt, they’d won. I twirled my pen, my heart hammering against my ribs. Then, with a flourish, I wrote my own name at the bottom of the list. I turned around and flashed a grin at the room. “Hey, I’m voting for myself too. Make it eighteen.” If you want to stop a bully, you have to be the first one to laugh at the joke. That night, the girls couldn’t look me in the eye. A few of them even came up to me after class to apologize, claiming it was just a “stupid prank” and that “if your skin cleared up, you’d actually be kind of hot.” I laughed it off. Their opinions didn’t matter. Madeline’s, however, was a different story. I caught her in the alleyway behind the shops on the way home. “Maddie, wait.” She stopped but didn’t turn around. “I borrowed a copy of Jane Eyre from your library once,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. “There’s a line in there I want to give back to you: ‘Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless?’” I stepped closer. “Clearly, in your world, being unattractive means I don’t have the right to feel things. The funny thing is, none of you think you’re bad people. You cry at sad movies and tweet about social justice, but you’ll tear down a classmate for a lunch-break thrill. You never once wondered if it would hurt. You didn’t care.” I took a breath, feeling a weight lift. “I used to think you were different. I was wrong. You’re exactly like them.” I paused. “So, Madeline. I’m taking it back. My confession. My feelings. All of it.” She used to be the moon in my sky. Now, she was just another girl in a crowded room. Whether I was “ugly” or not, she wasn’t worth the devotion I’d given her. For the first time, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes—regret? Surprise?—but I was already walking away. A week later, I moved my seat to the back of the room, right next to the school’s most notorious outlier: Cassidy Vance. She was the only girl who hadn’t voted. And she was the only person Madeline Sinclair was afraid of. 3 (Madeline’s Perspective) When Madeline wrote Jude’s name in that cruel notebook, she was picturing the way he had smiled at Cassidy in the hallway. She didn’t actually think Jude was ugly. She had seen him on the rare days his skin was clear and his hair was styled. He wasn’t a classic prom king, but he had a presence. Her mother, a woman with an eye for high-end aesthetics, had once remarked that Jude had “challenging, high-fashion bones”—the kind of face that would become striking once he grew into it. But at seventeen, most girls didn’t have that kind of vision. Jude was smart, resilient, and had a dry wit that could disarm anyone. Once, when a girl teased him about his acne while he was drinking a milkshake, he’d just grinned and said, “If you want a sip, just ask. You do my chores, and I’ll buy you your own.” Madeline admired him. But she didn’t love him—or so she told herself. When he confessed to her, she panicked. Her world was ending; her father was in legal trouble, and they were broke. She couldn’t handle the weight of his “goodness.” So she pushed him away. But when she got home to the small apartment her mother was trying to make feel like a home, and saw the groceries Jude’s family had quietly left for them, guilt ate her alive. She went out to find him, to apologize, to tell him she’d been harsh. Instead, she saw him at the grocery store with Cassidy. Everyone knew Cassidy was the daughter of a billionaire, a girl who played by her own rules and made teachers tremble. Only Madeline knew the full extent of the “Vance” name. Her father had spent years trying to get an audience with Cassidy’s father, and the Vances had been the ones to let his company sink without a second thought. Cassidy’s custom Ducati was idling at the curb. She tossed a book at Jude. He caught it like it was a holy relic, his face lighting up with a genuine, brilliant smile. Cassidy—the girl who wore five-thousand-dollar boots—took an apple from his stand, wiped it on her jacket, and took a huge bite. It was the same fruit Madeline had rejected. That night, lying in a bed that felt too small in a room that smelled like old dust, Madeline stared at the window across the alley. Was Jude ugly? She decided that when he smiled at Cassidy, he was. He used to only smile like that for her. And now, the moment her family lost everything, he had found someone else to look at. 4 Two days after moving next to Cassidy, I was already regretting it. She was… difficult. When I first sat down, she was face-down on her desk, sleeping. When she finally looked up, she gave me a lazy, feline stare. “Done chasing the ice queen?” “I wasn’t chasing her,” I mumbled. Cassidy snorted. She was the only one who knew about my sketchbook—the one she’d found in the library, filled with drawings of Madeline. She had tossed it back to me with a single comment: “Zero taste.” Valentine’s Day came a few days later. The popular kids had lockers overflowing with chocolates. Madeline’s desk was a mountain of Lindt and Godiva. Cassidy walked into class, dropped a box of insanely expensive imported dark chocolate on my desk, and said, “No one at my house wants these. Don’t let them go to waste.” I pushed them back. “I’m… I’m cutting back on sugar.” Her eyes flashed. She kicked her chair back, grabbed the box, threw it into the trash can, and walked out of the room before the bell even rang. A minute later, Madeline walked over. She placed a small, plain box on my desk. “These are sugar-free,” she said softly. The class erupted in whispers. My friend Ben slid a note onto my desk: Holy shit, Jude. The Prom Queen and the Rebel Leader in one day? How? I wasn’t delusional. I knew Cassidy and Madeline didn’t “like” me. They lived in a different universe. Plus, I was the “Most Unattractive” guy in school. Madeline was only doing this because her mother had noticed the tension between us. I’d overheard her mom telling her, “Jude is a good boy. Even if you don’t love him, don’t be cruel.” As for Cassidy? I had no idea. She was a chaos agent. Her behavior started getting weirder. She’d poke my arm during lectures. She’d doodle my name in the margins of her notebooks. After school, she’d race her motorcycle alongside my bus, waving like a lunatic. She was moody. One day she’d give me rare first-edition books and share her earbuds to listen to indie tracks I’d never heard of. The next, she’d block the hallway so I couldn’t leave or lock me in the equipment room during gym class just to “talk.” Finally, I snapped. “Cassidy, what is this? These head games… do you actually like me or something?” She laughed so hard her face turned red. “Like you? God, you’re such a kid. It’s pathetic. I’m just bored, Jude. You’re like a stray dog I’m trying to train. It’s funny.” But even though she messed with me, I couldn’t hate her. Because the night of the “Ugly Poll,” when that notebook was being passed around, Cassidy had been the one to snatch it. She didn’t just read it; she ripped it into confetti and stood up in front of the whole class. “You guys have the aesthetic taste of a dumpster fire,” she’d snarled at the girls. “Is this really how you spend your time? It’s embarrassing to breathe the same air as you.” Then she’d looked at me, her eyes fierce. “And for the record, he’s not ugly. You guys are just basic.” That night, she was my hero. A hero I never thought I’d have. 5 Cassidy was an enigma. She skipped class whenever she wanted, yet she somehow stayed at the top of the rankings. My first impression of her was that she was just a rich girl looking for a thrill. I’d seen her at a music festival over the summer, drenching people with a water gun and laughing like a maniac. She’d accidentally soaked me, then insisted I hop on her Ducati so the wind would dry my clothes. But then, I saw her on the sports channel. I was eating dinner when a broadcast of the National Shooting Championships came on. There she was. Cassidy Vance. Her arms were rock-steady as she lifted a competition air rifle. Her expression was focused, cold, and utterly professional. She was a different person. I held my breath as she squeezed the trigger, hitting the bullseye with terrifying precision. “Mrs. Miller?” Madeline was at our house for dinner again. She stood up abruptly. “My dad is coming home from the hospital tonight. We need help moving some furniture. Could Jude come over for a minute?” It was a lie. There was no furniture to move. As soon as I stepped into her apartment, she locked the door and backed me against the wall. “Jude, is this what it takes? She gets on TV and suddenly you’re obsessed?” her voice was trembling. “Do you know what people are saying? That you and Cassidy were ‘locked’ in the equipment room for an hour? Do you really think you belong in her world?” She stepped closer, her perfume—something expensive and floral—filling my lungs. “She doesn’t even have to take the SATs. She’s going to an Ivy League school on a legacy ticket or moving to Europe. You’re just a distraction to her. When she’s bored, she’ll leave. What happens to your reputation then?” My phone buzzed. A voice note from Cassidy. [Hey, Neighbor. Did you see me on TV? Was I a total badass or what? I’m outside your place. Come out. Let’s get tacos.] The walls in these old apartments were thin. We both heard it. My mom’s voice drifted from the hallway: “Oh, hi! Jude is just across the hall helping Madeline.” Silence followed. Then, the low rumble of a motorcycle engine. A text popped up: [Get out here. Now. Alleyway.] Madeline moved even closer, her face inches from mine. She looked desperate. “Jude,” she whispered, “don’t go. Please.” 6 When I reached the alley, Cassidy was leaning against her bike, her helmet tucked under her arm. Her eyes were like flint. “Get on.” She drove like a woman possessed. We hit eighty on the Pacific Coast Highway, the salt air stinging my eyes. She didn’t stop until we reached a secluded stretch of beach. She dragged me toward the water, her grip like iron. “Cassidy, what the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted, finally wrenching my arm away. She spun around, towering over me in her boots. “She kissed you, didn’t she?”

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Seven months pregnant, stuck at home on bed rest, and drowning in anxiety, I did what anyone in my spiral would do: I doom-scrolled. A thread on a forum caught my eye. “Should I take my husband to a labor pain simulation experience?” One reply, accompanied by a photo, stopped my thumb in its tracks. “Absolutely. My boyfriend did the simulation and swore he’d never let me go through that pain. But, joke’s on him—I’m about to become a mom anyway.” The comments were confused. “Wait, if he won’t let you go through labor, where is the baby coming from?” The original poster replied, the smugness practically radiating off the screen: “His wife has been trying to conceive for five years. She finally got lucky. But once that baby is born, it’s coming home to me.” She added, “She’s seven months along, sitting at home like a nesting hen, completely clueless that the baby she’s carrying isn’t hers.” Five years of infertility. Seven months pregnant. I knew the weight of that journey—the bruises from injections, the crushing hope. My blood boiled. I wanted to reach through the screen and strangle this woman for her cruelty. I kept scrolling. Then, I froze. She had posted a 4D ultrasound photo. My breath hitched in my throat. The air left the room. That was my baby. 1. I wasn’t crazy. I pulled the printout from my last appointment out of the drawer, my hands trembling. I placed it next to the screen. Every shadow, every contour. It was identical. No wonder. I had spent hours staring at that grainy face, searching for a trace of my nose, my eyes, and finding nothing. I clicked on her profile, desperate and terrified. I opened her most popular post. “Photo dump: Taking the boyfriend to the labor pain sim.” The boyfriend’s face wasn’t visible, but I didn’t need a face. I needed only a detail. And there it was. The man’s left hand, clenched in pain, bore a ring-finger tattoo. It was a small, stylized script. It was identical to Grant’s. My heart didn’t just break; it stopped. I clutched my heavy, swollen belly, gasping for air like a fish thrown onto the dock. It all made sense. Whenever I mentioned childbirth classes or labor simulations, Grant would shut down, acting strangely resistant. Because he had already done it. With her. He knew the bone-splitting pain of a level-ten contraction. And he had decided to let me be the vessel so his mistress wouldn’t have to suffer. The comments section was in an uproar. “Someone find the wife! You can’t let her hand that baby over to a homewrecker.” “Even if she gives birth, she won’t give up the kid. Once a side-piece, always a side-piece.” “God, I feel for that poor wife. Seven months… she can’t exactly walk away now.” The poster—this Ivy—was replying to them, unbothered. “Let her see it. Who cares? She’s older. It’s a high-risk geriatric pregnancy. If she terminates now, she’ll never have another kid.” “Don’t worry about us. My boyfriend says she’s unemployed and useless. Once the baby is weaned, he’s serving her papers.” “She has this thing about emotional purity—she’s fragile. She’ll probably get postpartum depression and leave on her own.” The arrogance was suffocating. But she was right. I did have a thing about emotional purity. I couldn’t stand lies. And because my third trimester had been a nightmare of nausea and fatigue, I had quit my job as a marketing director. The loss of identity had already frayed my nerves. Postpartum depression wasn’t just a possibility; it was a roadmap they had drawn for me. “Don’t be jealous, ladies,” she wrote. “The only reason it took five years is because I wasn’t ready to settle down yet.” “The fertility meds she thought she was taking? My boyfriend swapped them for birth control years ago.” I ripped open the nightstand drawer. The leftover bottles from our “trying” phase rattled as I grabbed them. Could it be true? Had I been poisoning my own dreams at his command? I called a courier service, my voice shaking as I gave instructions to run the pills to a private lab across town. I stared at the screen, waiting for her to post again. The thread went silent. Dinner time. I rubbed my belly, the skin tight and itchy. I had endured hundreds of needles for this life. My feet were so swollen they looked like rising dough. Could I destroy this life based on an anonymous internet post? My head buzzed with static. If I confronted Grant now, without hard proof, he’d gaslight me. He’d say it was the hormones. He’d call me hysterical. Then, a notification. A new reply. “Quit the hate, guys. My boyfriend just made a five-course meal. He stole away from work to feed me. He doesn’t have time for you trolls.” She posted a picture. The dishes—braised short ribs, garlic kale—looked exactly like Grant’s cooking. I called him. Straight to voicemail. Then, a text. “Norah, babe. Just finished overtime. I picked up your favorites. Home in 30.” I watched the clock on the wall, counting the seconds. Thirty minutes later, the digital lock beeped. “Norah? Come eat. I got the good stuff.” I walked into the kitchen. There, on the counter, were takeout containers. Inside was cold, leftover food. It wasn’t fresh takeout. It was the leftovers from the meal he’d cooked her. The tears came then, silent and hot. 2. “Norah? Is the baby kicking? Just hang in there a little longer.” Grant knelt before me, his hands warm as he massaged my edema-swollen ankles. He looked so concerned. So loving. “It’s all your favorites,” he crooned. “Sorry it’s late. Got stuck on a call on the drive home.” “Sit tight. I’ll heat it up.” He took the containers toward the microwave. My phone pinged. A new comment on the thread. “He made way too much, so he packed the rest for later. I picked out these cute Hello Kitty boxes myself. Can’t let my son go hungry.” I looked at the counter. The pink, childish Hello Kitty container sat there like a neon sign. It pierced me. The woman in the thread—the foolish, high-risk, unemployed incubator—was me. “All hot,” Grant said, returning with a spoon. “Open wide.” I looked at his gentle face. The handsome jawline I loved. I still didn’t want to believe it. How could the man who held my hair back when I vomited, who worked double shifts for our future, be this monster? We met through a matchmaker. He was steady, earnest. It wasn’t fireworks at first, but a slow burn. When the IVF finally showed two pink lines, he had cried harder than I did. I thought our love had moved the universe. I was wrong. I had just walked into a trap. I pushed the spoon away. “Grant,” I said, my voice trembling. “Do you think the clinic made a mistake? With the embryo transfer? I want to get checked.” The spoon froze in mid-air. A flicker of panic crossed his eyes before he masked it with a smile. “Norah, honey, have you been reading those trashy novels again? It’s a top-tier hospital. They don’t make mistakes.” “But I’m scared. I read that an amniocentesis can prove paternity. Grant, please. Let’s just check.” He set the bowl down, the concern in his eyes hardening slightly. “Norah. It’s invasive. It’s risky for the baby. Trust me. There is no mistake.” He tried to talk me down, but I was immovable. His phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “Work crisis. I have to take this.” He went into the bathroom and turned the faucet on full blast. Five minutes later, he emerged, looking relieved. “Okay, Norah. If it will give you peace of mind, we’ll do it. Let’s book the appointment.” “Really? But you just said—” “I love the baby,” he interrupted, gripping my shoulders. “But I love you more. If this anxiety is hurting you, we fix it.” I wondered what had changed his mind so quickly. On the way to the hospital, I refreshed the thread and found the answer. 3. “The old hag suddenly wants a DNA test. Maybe she saw the post.” “But I’m not scared. Let her check. A little piece of paper won’t stop me.” I gripped my phone until my knuckles turned white. “Norah? You okay? You look pale.” As the car pulled up to the hospital entrance, I grabbed Grant’s sleeve. “Let’s go to a different hospital. I don’t want to do it here.” Grant looked at me with genuine confusion. “Why? Dr. Keller has been with us since day one. It’s too late to switch now.” “You picked Dr. Keller,” I said. He squeezed my hand. “You’re just anxious. It’s the hormones. I’m just trying to secure a big year-end bonus for you and the kid. Look at me. I’m doing this for us.” In the past, I would have melted. Now, every word was a dagger. “Everywhere else is booked, Norah. Let’s just get this over with.” The needle pierced my abdomen. I was shaking so hard the nurse had to hold me down. Grant held my hand, smoothing the hair back from my forehead. “Patient needs to lie flat for observation. Results in 48 hours,” the doctor said. The stress must have knocked me out because I drifted into a black, dreamless sleep. When I woke up, Grant was gone. The elevators were packed, so I waddled to the stairwell to walk down a flight. At the landing, I saw him. He was standing with a girl—younger, petite, glowing. “Why are you here? It’s flu season,” Grant scolded, but his voice was tender as he pulled a mask from his pocket and placed it over her face. “I was worried about the baby. When are the results coming?” The girl pressed herself against his chest. “Don’t worry. It’s handled. The results will say what we need them to say. You’re going to be a mom.” “You need to go home,” he added. “No,” she stomped her foot playfully. “I want to be with you. The old lady is asleep anyway. I’m hungry. Take me to dinner?” Grant laughed, a sound I hadn’t heard in years, and brushed a stray hair from her forehead. “Fine. Whatever you want.” The look in his eyes—it was adoration. Pure, unfiltered love. Something he had never given me in five years of marriage. She whispered something in his ear, and he scooped her up in his arms, carrying her down the stairs. A sharp cramp seized my belly. I slid down the wall, sitting on the cold concrete floor. I called Grant. He answered, breathless. “Norah? You up? Big issue with the project—I had to rush to the office. Stay at the hospital, I’ll pick you up when I’m done.” “Grant, my stomach hurts. Can you come back? Please?” “Don’t be difficult, Norah. It’s almost year-end. If I lose this bonus, it impacts the family. Be a good girl.” I heard the girl’s voice in the background, a low whisper: “Hurry up, my hands are cold.” The line went dead. I stood up. I walked to the nurse’s station. I asked for Dr. Keller. “Norah? You want to induce labor? Now?” Dr. Keller looked horrified. “Do you understand what you’re asking? You’re seven months along. Your uterus is fragile. If we terminate this pregnancy, you might never conceive again.” I looked into her worried eyes and nodded. “I understand. I want it out. Schedule the surgery for tomorrow morning.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I pulled up the forum post on my phone and shoved it in her face. Her jaw dropped. 4. “This… this can’t be real. People make things up online, Norah. That is a human life.” Dr. Keller was my best friend’s neighbor. I trusted her. Before I saw Grant in the stairwell, I would have trusted the hospital with my life. But watching him nuzzle that girl destroyed my capacity for faith. “Wait for the DNA results,” she pleaded. “Just wait.” She started listing everyone who handled the samples during our IVF cycle. “If this is our mistake, the hospital will take full responsibility. I put a rush on the DNA test. We’ll know tonight.” Grant, meanwhile, was still playing the role of the devoted husband via text. He sent a car to pick me up. “Pulling an all-nighter, babe. Ordered you delivery. Eat well.” He hung up before I could speak. “Grant, I really need you,” I whispered into the dead line. “I don’t care about the money.” He texted back: “Stop being childish. The bonus buys the best formula for our son.” I took a deep breath. “Grant, have you ever done a labor simulation?” A pause. “Norah, I know you’re mad I’m not there, but why waste time on useless things when I could be earning for our future?” I heard the girl giggling in the background before he hung up. I sat on the sofa in the dark. My private investigator sent the file. Her name was Ivy. Grant’s high school sweetheart. The one who got away. She was from a broken home, “not good enough” for Grant’s parents. They forced him to break up with her after graduation. But they never stopped seeing each other. Ivy was a “lifestyle influencer” on Instagram. Scrolling through her feed, I saw a stranger wearing my husband’s face. A man who laughed, who cooked, who hiked. A man I didn’t know. While we were on our honeymoon, she was there. Ten days in the Maldives. She was in the room next door. It was her first post. A photo of Grant, wearing the wedding band I bought him, kissing her on the beach at sunset. And suddenly, the tattoo on his finger made sense. The scribble wasn’t abstract art. It was her initials. I watched all 349 of her videos. The latest one was filmed in a hotel room near the hospital. Grant’s clothes were draped over a chair. His belt—the one I gave him for our anniversary—was hanging off the back. Ivy commented: “Boyfriend’s cooking skills are elite. So full.” I typed a comment. “That belt belongs to my husband.” I attached a photo of Grant wearing it from that night. The comments section exploded. “Homewrecker!” “Wait, is this the pregnant wife?” My phone rang. Dr. Keller. Her voice was grave. “Norah. I booked the operating room. Tomorrow, 9 AM.”

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New Year’s Day dinner was always an exercise in endurance, but this year, my sister-in-law decided to skip the pleasantries and go straight for the jugular. She looked across the table, a smug, cat-like grin spreading across her face. “Oh, Morgan, I almost forgot,” Cynthia said, swirling her Pinot Noir. “About those twenty workstations your firm ordered? I’m going to have to pass. I’m not filling the order.” I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth. “Excuse me?” “I landed a contract with a massive tech corp the other day. Fifty high-end units, top-of-the-line specs. Real money,” she said, her voice dripping with artificial sweetness. “To be honest, I’ve been handling your office supplies for ten years, and I haven’t made as much from you in a decade as I’ll make from this one deal.” She leaned back, looking at her husband—my brother, Brad—who just kept chewing his steak, eyes fixed on his plate. “Especially those printers, fax machines, and shipping supplies you always need,” Cynthia continued, waving a dismissive hand. “The paperwork is a nightmare and the margins are pathetic. It’s just not worth my time anymore.” Cynthia had opened her tech boutique a decade ago and had spent years begging me for business. For ten years, my company had been her lifeline. Every laptop, every ream of paper, every toner cartridge was bought from her. My business had literally kept her shop afloat through the lean years. Now, with forty-eight hours’ notice, she was ghosting me. I spent the rest of the holiday in a blind panic, cold-calling vendors until I found a local supplier who could deliver on short notice. That was when I got the real shock: for the exact same twenty workstations, the new quote was five thousand dollars cheaper than what Cynthia had been charging me. A month later, my phone buzzed. It was Cynthia. “Morgan! Hey, honey. Do you still need those computers?” Her voice was frantic, the smugness replaced by a shaky desperation. “I can knock two hundred bucks off the total, but you have to wire me the full payment today. Right now.” “What? No, Cynthia. I already bought them. I signed a long-term contract with a new vendor.” “You can’t do that!” she shrieked. “I need the cash today. Just return the ones you bought and buy mine instead. We’re family, Morgan!” I hung up. 1 The New Year’s dinner had started like any other: with me being the invisible ghost at the feast of my own bank account. “Yes, we did quite well last year!” Cynthia’s voice boomed the moment I walked through the door. She was flaunting a diamond-encrusted bracelet. “Brad bought me this to reward me for all my hard work. And we just landed a huge new client. It’s going to be a golden year.” She caught my eye and smirked. “Once the check clears, I’m finally trading in the SUV for a Porsche.” My mother beamed, her eyes shining with pride. “You’re so talented, Cynthia. Having you in this family is such a blessing. Brad is a lucky man.” My aunt and uncle chimed in from the couch. “Cynthia really knows how to run a household. Don’t forget us when you get that Porsche, dear. I’ve never even sat in a car that expensive!” Cynthia tilted her chin up, the picture of arrogance. When she saw the bags in my hands, she stood up with a fake, theatrical warmth, immediately reaching out—not to hug me, but to rummage through the gifts I’d brought. She frowned, looking at the high-end skincare sets and the premium cashmere throw I’d picked out for my mother. “Morgan, really?” she sighed, sounding disappointed. “You only come home a few times a year. You couldn’t have put a little more effort into this? It’s a bit stingy, don’t you think?” I looked at the gifts. I’d spent nearly eight hundred dollars on things I knew my mother needed. “And what would you suggest I bring, Cynthia?” She rolled her eyes. “Do I have to teach you everything? Your mother worked hard all her life. She deserves something substantial. Jewelry. Or honestly, just a check. You’ve always been a bit socially stunted, Morgan. You should really learn a thing or two from your brother.” She adjusted her bracelet so it caught the light. I looked at my mother, hoping for a word of defense. She immediately looked away, shifting her gaze to the kitchen. “Oh, it’s not about the money,” Mom murmured. “I just want my children to be happy. That’s all your father wanted before he passed.” I felt a familiar, hollow ache in my chest. This was why I hated coming home. My mother lived by a different set of rules for her son. She didn’t exploit me—not exactly. She seemed to love me in a vague, non-committal way that kept me on a leash of “maybe.” Every time I thought about cutting them off, she’d do something small and sweet, making me feel guilty for my own resentment. She could have said, ‘Morgan sends me a check every month, she doesn’t need to bring gifts.’ But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t risk offending Cynthia. Instead, she’d wait until Cynthia was out of the room to pull me aside and say, ‘I made your favorite pot roast because I know you don’t eat well in the city,’ with those watery, pitying eyes. It was exhausting. “So, what did you bring, Cynthia?” I asked, my voice flat. “I brought eight hundred dollars’ worth of gifts. That’s eight hundred more than the nothing you’re holding.” Cynthia’s face turned a blotchy red. “How dare you? We’re here all the time! We take care of her! Even if we didn’t bring something today, our presence throughout the year is worth more than your guilt-money.” I let out a short, dry laugh. “You’re right. I should learn from you. I’ll start coming by twice a month, bring a ten-dollar bag of grapes, and then leave with three bags of groceries from Mom’s pantry. I’d save a fortune on my grocery bill.” “Morgan!” Cynthia slammed her hand on the table. “Stop acting so superior. Don’t you realize what she needs is companionship? Brad is her only son. If she wants to give us things, that’s her right as a mother!” “I hear you,” I replied calmly. “So, starting next month, I’ll stop the wire transfers. I’ll just ‘be here’ more. That’s what’s important, right?” Cynthia froze, her mouth agape. My mother finally stepped in, her voice trembling. “Stop it, both of you. You’re both good kids. I’m the lucky one. I have money, I have family… everyone envies me.” 2 The silence that followed was heavy. My heart felt like lead. Cynthia let out a sharp huff and shifted gears. “Fine. Since we’re being so ‘honest,’ Morgan, I should tell you: I’m not doing that computer order for your office. I’m too busy.” She went into her speech about the “big tech corp” and the fifty units. “I’ve been wanting to drop your account for a while. The margins are tiny. Ten years of your ‘charity’ hasn’t made me as much as this one contract will.” I frowned. “Cynthia, why are you telling me this now? The holiday ends the day after tomorrow. That’s when you were supposed to deliver. We’ve already cleared out the old hardware. How is my staff supposed to work on Monday?” She waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, please. Just find someone else. It’s not like you’re ordering custom rigs; any big-box store has that stuff in stock. Besides, how much work does your little firm actually do? A few days of downtime won’t kill you.” Looking at her, so smug and self-assured, I realized there was no point in arguing. For a decade, I had fed her business. During the 2008 crash, when everyone else was closing their doors, my steady stream of orders kept her lights on. Back then, Brad would hold my hand and tell me, “Morgan, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t be able to pay for our son’s tuition, let alone the mortgage. I owe you everything.” And now? “Does Brad know about this?” I asked. Cynthia smirked. “Of course he does. To be honest, he’s the one who’s most sick of your orders. All those tiny line items—staples, paperclips, ink. It’s a mess to track and a headache to invoice. We’re done with the ‘pity’ business.” I nodded. I didn’t say another word. In that moment, I realized I didn’t have a brother anymore. I left and spent the next six hours on the phone. By a stroke of luck, I remembered the woman who ran the shop right next to Cynthia’s in the tech district. Cynthia hated her. She used to gossip about her constantly. “She’s a predator,” Cynthia would say. “Every time Brad walks by, she’s fixing her hair. She’s a single mom looking for a handout.” I’d met the woman, Tess, once in the building’s stairwell. She’d been having a dizzy spell from low blood sugar, and I’d bought her a soda and a candy bar. Since then, she always made a point to bring me a coffee whenever she saw me in the district. I called her. “Tess, it’s Morgan. I need twenty workstations by Monday morning. Is there any way you can make that happen?” Tess didn’t ask why I wasn’t calling my sister-in-law. She was a professional. “Give me the specs. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes with a quote.” When I stepped back into the living room to grab my coat, Cynthia was watching me with a mocking grin. “Having trouble, Morgan? I told you, nobody wants those low-margin scraps. Tell you what—if you add twenty thousand to the price, I might be able to find someone to help you out.” My phone buzzed. A text from Tess: I have them. Twenty units, $12,000 total. Delivery and setup included. I looked at the number and felt a cold chill run down my spine. 3 Cynthia’s price for the exact same setup was $18,000. I knew she wasn’t giving me a “family discount,” but I’d assumed her prices were at least fair. I’d looked at it as a way to support my family. I never imagined she was overcharging me by fifty percent. She wasn’t just doing business; she was harvesting me. If she wanted to play dirty, she was about to find out how well I could play, too. Monday morning, Tess arrived at the office with a crew of three. She was a whirlwind of efficiency, helping the cleaning staff clear away the packing materials once the setup was done. My head of IT checked the specs and looked up, impressed. “Morgan, these are perfect. Actually, the monitors are a grade higher than what we asked for.” I looked at Tess. She smiled, wiping a smudge of dust from her jeans. “You were in a rush. I couldn’t source the base models in time, so I gave you the premium ones for the same price.” “I should pay you the difference,” I insisted. Tess shook her head. “No way. A contract like this is huge for a shop like mine. We don’t get twenty-unit orders every day. In my world, five computers is a ‘big’ day. I’m making a fair profit, trust me. I’m just happy for the business.” I looked at her—really looked at her—and saw the kind of partner I should have had years ago. “Tess, we go through a lot of supplies. If you’re up for it, I’d like to move all our procurement to you. I’ll have my legal team draft a long-term agreement this afternoon.” Tess’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas. Later that day, my CFO walked into my office, looking hesitant. “Morgan? You might want to see Cynthia’s latest post.” Because of our long history, Cynthia was Facebook friends with half my staff. I opened the app. Cynthia had posted a selfie, grinning ear to ear. New year, new levels! Just closed a massive contract. Say goodbye to small-time hustle and hello to the Porsche life! #Blessed #BusinessMogul Brad had commented: So proud of my wife. We finally made it, baby! Cynthia replied publicly: Yes! Finally done with those annoying little orders from tiny companies. So much work for so little money, and having to act grateful for the ‘favor’ was the worst part! It was a blatant, public slap in the face. I thought about it for a minute, then I typed out a post of my own. I wondered if Cynthia would still be smiling by tomorrow morning.

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