JULIA POV

The sharp scent of alcohol on Damon’s breath clashed with his masculine cologne, creating a combination that instantly made my stomach churn. I simply froze where I stood, pulling my cap lower over my face.

Damon did not look like the handsome hero Jilly constantly adored on television. Instead, he looked like a broken young man with a tired face and a clenched jaw—hardened by anger.

A feeling of regret crept over me.

Why had my daughter become a fan of an actor like this? The hero who was supposed to be brave and bring happiness to my daughter was actually like this?

Oh, God, how disappointed Jilly would be if she knew that Damon Watts was nothing more than a man drowning in despair. He looked miserable!

“Do you have ears?” Damon’s mocking voice was like a blade ready to cut. “Who are you? How dare you come in without my permission?”

“I’m just delivering catering,” I squeaked softly.

Damon let out a cynical snort, his eyes sweeping over my appearance.

“Are you sure? Catering staff know exactly what they are supposed to do when they come into my trailer. You do not even look professional at your job.”

I swallowed hard, my mind completely blank. Every sweet and polite sentence I had rehearsed had vanished.

“Who sent you? Paparazzi? Gossip reporters?” He leaned his face closer. “Or are you just another crazy fan who managed to sneak in again?”

I quickly shook my head.

“I’m just additional catering staff,” I insisted.

There was a moment of silence. All I could hear was Damon’s heavy breathing brushing against my face.

Then he stepped back and turned away.

“Leave. I do not want to be disturbed anymore.”

This was not how things were supposed to go. I came all the way here only to get yelled at.

And then what would I tell Jilly? That her idol was a stressed-out young man who got drunk in the middle of the day?

I took a breath and reached for the door handle, but my hand stopped. I turned toward Damon, who had walked to the table and was about to open the lunch box.

“I’m sorry, but could I have a moment of your time?” I asked, my voice trembling.

Damon neither turned around nor answered. That only made me feel even more cornered and confused.

“I only need one small thing. Could you help me? My daughter is being treated at Light Hope Hospital.” My voice sounded anxious. “Jilly really admires you. Could I please ask for a short video or an autograph for her?”

I hurriedly added, “Just ten seconds. I promise I will leave immediately afterward.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone, trembling. It was an impulsive move that I should not have made. Ashley had warned me about this, but I was desperate.

I needed Damon’s help so Jilly could have a sweet memory during days that could end at any moment.

Damon turned around, his eyes locking onto my phone. In an instant, his ragged breathing turned into furious huffs. His expression shifted from suspicion to anger.

“You!” he shouted.

Damon strode forward, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat of his alcohol-soaked body. His hand clamped tightly around my wrist.

“So it is true. You’re a stalker!” he accused sharply.

He snatched the phone from my hand and threw it onto the trailer floor.

“No, that’s not it—”

“You are all the same! No shame at all, no respect for my privacy!” he cut in.

My eyes widened as his anger exploded, all of it directed at me.

“You people think my life is some circus you can watch whenever you want under the excuse of being a ‘fan’ or having a ‘sick child’!” he ranted.

My eyes burned, and my heart felt as though it were being ripped apart by such cruel accusations.

Yet I could not defend myself. It was as if all my courage had been drained away by the mad young man standing in front of me.

“Get out of here right now before I completely lose my patience!” Damon pointed toward the door.

My hand impulsively grabbed his arm. “Please, this is not for me. It is for Jilly.”

Our eyes met, but all I saw was a gaze consumed by raging fire.

“For God’s sake, Jilly only has one wish. She wants to see her hero,” I pleaded, my voice almost breaking into sobs. “The doctors said she does not have much time left, and—”

“Enough with that drama!” Damon snapped harshly, shrugging off my grip. “I have heard thousands of garbage stories like that!”

“You are wrong!” My courage suddenly returned. “Jilly is not who you think she is! She’s brave! And she keeps fighting every single day because of you!”

“Stop! I know you people just want to get photos of me and sell them to the media!” Damon shouted even louder. “Security! Security!”

“Please, Damon. Do not do this to Jilly!”

“Security! There is an intruder in my trailer!”

The trailer door flew open with a violent bang, and I nearly fell if I had not grabbed the doorframe in time.

Two large men immediately stormed inside. They paused for a few seconds, staring at Damon, whose face was now red with fury.

Then their attention shifted to me, standing there with tears beginning to fill my eyes.

“Get this crazy woman out of here! And make sure she never sets foot on this filming location again!”

Damon gave the order in a voice so cold that it cut through me. Then he turned his back on me. As if my existence was nothing more than trash cluttering his view.

“Please, Damon! Just for a moment, listen to me!” I shouted as one of the security guards’ powerful hands seized my arm.

My body was dragged forcefully out of the cramped trailer.

“Out. Now, ma’am!” one of the guards barked.

I struggled and tried to grab my phone, which was still lying on the trailer floor. But one of the guards accidentally stepped on it.

My trembling hand reached for the phone, only to find the screen—displaying Jilly’s photo—cracked and shattered.

The trailer door slammed shut with a thunderous bang. It felt as though it had slammed shut on the last of my hope as well.

Outside, flashes of light greeted me.

I turned my head and saw background actors and crew members watching me like I was a spectacle. Some of them had their phones pointed at me already. They eagerly recorded the moment I was being dragged away from the VIP area.

“An intruder? Oh, hell!”

“Oh my God, Damon’s stalker? That is bold!”

“Impressive courage. Still stupid, though.”

The whispers, comments, and insults rang clearly in my ears. The humiliation burning my cheeks was nothing compared to the pain in my chest. I had just destroyed the only chance I had to make Jilly happy during the little time she had left.

Forgive Mom, sweetheart. I am not a good mother for you. I failed to make you smile.

No matter how hard I try for you, every opportunity always falls apart.

Forgive me, Jilly. Forgive your foolish mother. 

JULIA POV

The rough asphalt burned through the soles of my shoes as the two security guards dragged me away, giving me no chance to stand. They hauled me past cables, cameras, and crew members who stopped whatever they were doing just to watch the free show.

Sharp stares and whispers spread like wildfire. Phones were raised without hesitation, recording my face as it burned with humiliation—and now, pure rage.

“Let go! I can walk on my own!” I shouted, trying to wrench my arms free.

Their grip only tightened, locking down so hard I knew my arms would be bruised tomorrow.

“Shut up and get out!” one of them barked, shoving me through the metal barricades that separated the set from the public street.

I stumbled onto the sidewalk, my knees slamming hard against the concrete. Pedestrians turned, staring in shock.

“Cause trouble again, and we’re calling the cops, ma’am!” the guard yelled, his voice dripping with disgust. “Crazy bitch, ruining our lead actor’s peace!”

The gate slammed shut and locked with a heavy metallic clang.

I was left stranded among a crowd of strangers who immediately began whispering and pointing. In a small town like Spring Creek, even the smallest spark of drama became a wildfire of gossip.

But I did not care about them.

My mind was trapped inside that trailer, focused on the phone that had been stomped on.

With trembling hands, I opened my grip. The screen was a shattered spiderweb, flickering with erratic green lines.

“No, no...” Panic choked me.

The screen went completely black. Dead.

I pressed the power button over and over, praying for a miracle, but the display remained dark—empty, just like my hope.

“Julia! Julia!”

I looked up and saw Ashley running toward me, breathless and pale. She grabbed my arms and pulled me to my feet, her eyes wide with alarm.

“Are you okay? What happened?”

“My phone... I have to call the hospital,” I whispered, tears finally spilling over and dripping onto the cracked glass. “I ruined everything, Ash. I’m so sorry. Your job—”

“Do not worry about it,” Ashley cut in frantically, shoving her phone in front of my face. “But Julia, you need to leave. Right now. Look.”

A short video was already playing on her screen. It was a terrible, low-angle clip of me screaming and struggling while security dragged me out.

The caption made my chest tighten until I could barely breathe:

Middle-aged stalker targets young actor: Drama on the set of The Rich Boy in Disguise.

The comments were pouring in like venom, calling me an obsessed, mentally unstable criminal.

“I just wanted to make Jilly smile,” I whispered, my blood turning to ice.

“I know, but the world does not care about the truth. They only care about who has the camera and the power,” Ashley said, her voice shaking as she looked around at the gathering crowd. “People are already recognizing you, Julia. Go. Run to the hospital before reporters find you here. Take the back street. Now!”

I did not argue. I forced my legs to move. They trembled violently beneath me.

My scraped knees burned every time the fabric of my pants brushed against the raw skin, but that physical pain was nothing compared to the gaping hole in my chest.

As I fled through the alleyways, I squeezed the dead phone in my pocket.

I was no longer just Julia, the struggling single mother. In a matter of minutes, I had been rewritten into a monster who threatened their precious prince, Damon Watts.

Oh God, I thought as a fresh wave of panic hit me. Please do not let Jilly see the TV!

My feet felt like lead as I finally pushed open the glass doors of the hospital lobby. I kept my head lowered, praying the baseball cap was enough to hide my face.

But the moment I passed the reception desk, the atmosphere shifted.

The nurses looked up, their eyes widening.

Visitors in the waiting area turned to stare openly, pointing as a heavy murmur slithered through the room like a nest of rattlesnakes.

“That’s her, right? The stalker mom from the internet?” a woman whispered loudly, showing her phone to the person beside her.

I forced myself to walk faster, hurrying toward the elevator as shame burned a hot trail up my neck. My throat felt painfully dry.

When the elevator doors opened on the pediatric oncology floor, a nurse named Sarah intercepted me. She looked shocked, but there was no hatred in her expression.

“Mrs. Pierce,” she breathed, pulling me aside. “Oh my God... is the news true?”

I shook my head frantically. “It is a misunderstanding. It is not what it looks like, I swear.”

“The internet will move on, Mrs. Pierce. Just try to stay calm,” she said softly, patting my back with sympathy.

Then she glanced at the clock. “Wait, are you not supposed to be at the diner tonight?”

My breath caught. The shift!

I was supposed to be at work an hour ago, but in my panic over Jilly and the viral video, I had run straight here.

“Sarah, please, can I borrow the desk phone? I need to call my boss,” I begged.

She guided me into the nurses’ station and pointed to the landline. As I lifted the receiver, my eyes accidentally drifted to the computer screen on the desk. An entertainment article was open, featuring my face beside a polished photo of Damon Watts.

I glanced at the top comments, and it was a fatal mistake.

"Old hag chasing a younger guy? Disgusting."

"She looks unhinged. Put her in jail."

Tears blurred my vision. They did not know I had been there begging for my daughter’s life.

I forced myself to look away and dialed the diner’s number.

“Hello?”

“Alfred, it’s me. Julia,” I said, my voice cracking.

“Oh. Julia.” Alfred’s voice was stiff, stripped of its usual warmth. “I saw the news.”

“Alfred, please, it is a mistake. Let me explain—”

“You do not need to come back to the diner, Julia,” he cut me off, his tone cold and final.

I froze. The world seemed to dim, and my knees threatened to give out right there on the linoleum floor.

“What?”

“Everyone has seen it! Customers are calling the diner, asking why I employ a crazy, viral stalker!” Alfred snapped. “This is a quiet family business, Julia. Not a shelter for internet criminals!”

“Please, Alfred, listen to me,” I sobbed, humiliation swallowing my pride. “I only asked for an autograph for Jilly. I did not attack anyone! You know Jilly is fighting for her life. I need this job to pay for her treatments. Please, you know who I am!”

A heavy sigh echoed through the line. “Julia... just take some time off. Until this cools down. Okay?”

“But Alfred—”

“Do not make this harder than it already is. I will transfer the remaining pay for this week. I am not taking it away. Just... stay away.”

The line went dead.

I stood there, paralyzed, the dial tone buzzing in my ear like a mocking laugh. My world had just completely collapsed.

I hung up the receiver with trembling fingers, feeling the last shreds of my stability slip away.

With what little strength I had left, I wiped my face, forced my expression into something resembling calm, and walked toward Room 303.

Jilly’s room.

But the moment I stepped inside, my heart dropped into my stomach.

Jilly was sitting upright in her small hospital bed, her eyes glued to the TV mounted on the wall. The local news station was broadcasting a live segment.

And right there on the screen was the unedited footage of her mother being dragged away like trash from Damon Watts’ trailer.

Oh, my God!

JULIA POV

I immediately grabbed the remote with trembling hands, frantically pressing the buttons to switch the TV to another channel. My heart pounded so violently in my chest that it created an unbearable ache.

I was terrified that if I was even a second too late changing the channel, the beautiful image of a hero living inside my little girl’s head would shatter into pieces in an instant. I did not want her to see her mother being treated like garbage in front of the public.

“Sweetheart...” My voice caught in my throat, sounding hoarse and pathetic.

Jilly looked at me, tilting her head slightly, now nearly bald from the endless rounds of chemotherapy. The eyes, usually dim and exhausted, now looked deeply disturbed.

“Why did they do that to you, Mom? Why were the people on TV yelling at you?”

Damn it, too late!

I quickly shook my head, forcing a smile that felt as stiff as an iron mask on my face.

“It’s nothing, sweetheart,” I lied, and the lie tasted hollow on my tongue.

I hurried to sit on the edge of her narrow hospital bed that smelled faintly of medicine. I wrapped my arms around Jilly’s small body as carefully as possible, restraining every movement because I was afraid of hurting her thin arm, which still had an IV needle taped into it.

But lately, every time I hugged Jilly, my embrace felt emptier.

Her body felt lighter with each passing day, as if she were nothing more than a wisp of smoke that could disappear from my arms at any moment.

That reality made my chest tighten so painfully that it felt as though I had been struck by a sledgehammer.

I buried my face in her thin shoulder, breathing in her scent, now heavily mixed with the sharp smell of hospital antiseptic.

“No, sweetheart. They were not angry at me. It was all just... a misunderstanding,” I whispered softly near her ear.

I squeezed my eyes shut and bit the inside of my lip as hard as I could.

I refused to let the tears fall.

Because I did not want Jilly to see my swollen, red, broken eyes.

It would only make her sad and blame herself.

My daughter was only six years old, but months spent in this oncology ward had forced her to grow far beyond her years.

She had become incredibly sensitive to every emotional shift around her, especially mine.

“Does Damon hate you, Mom?”

Jilly’s innocent question suddenly pierced straight through my heart.

I flinched and slowly loosened my embrace so I could look directly into her clear, round eyes.

Jilly pointed toward the TV screen, even though the channel had long since changed to a noisy cartoon program.

“On TV, they said Mom hurt Damon. That cannot be true, right?” Jilly shook her head firmly, as though she was trying to convince herself while building a defense for me. “Damon is a good person. He is brave and never afraid of anything. There is no way he could hate Mom.”

Seeing the pure hope and admiration shining in her eyes, I could only nod helplessly, betraying all the anger raging inside my head.

“Yes, sweetheart. The news is completely wrong. None of what was on TV is true.”

“But... did Mom really meet him?” Jilly asked again.

Her eyes instantly lit up, radiating a spark of life that had long disappeared from her pale face.

I fell silent. My tongue suddenly felt numb and stiff.

How could I possibly tell a wonderful child like this the truth?

That the hero whose photos covered every corner of this room—the man whose face she hugged every night in the form of a pillow—was actually nothing more than a selfish and arrogant twenty-year-old?

A drunken actor who raged inside his trailer, shouting with alcohol on his breath, and dismissed a desperate mother begging for help as nothing more than cheap drama threatening his privacy?

“No, sweetheart. I didn't meet him. Security would not let me in. I’m sorry, okay?” I replied, swallowing the pain that relentlessly burned through my chest.

At this moment, I felt like the most useless and failed mother in the world.

“I really wanted to meet him, Mom. Since he is here in town, I wanted to see him in person. Especially... before I—”

Jilly paused, her gaze drifting down to her thin fingers attached to the heart monitor.

“Before, I could not see him anymore...”

“Stop, Jilly!” I cut in quickly.

My voice came out louder and sharper than I intended.

Regret hit me instantly when I saw Jilly flinch. I took a deep breath, trying to calm the violent tremor inside my chest.

I could not bear hearing her talk about death. I was not ready. And I would never be ready to let her go.

“Hey, baby... I'm sorry. I did not mean to snap at you,” I said gently, taking her fragile fingers and kissing them over and over. “I just don't like hearing you talk like that. You are not going anywhere. You have to stay here and keep fighting with me. Understand?”

Jilly looked at me for a long moment. “Okay.”

Then she nodded softly, wearing a resigned smile that was far too mature for her age.

“I knew it,” Jilly continued, trying to ease the tension that had briefly settled between us.

A small smile returned to her dry lips.

“If Mom had really met Damon and gotten his autograph, Mom would have cried happy tears the moment she walked through that door.”

My forehead creased as I fought desperately to hold back the tears already gathering in my eyes. “Why would I cry?”

“Because Mom always cries whenever she is too happy,” she answered innocently.

The moment those words left her mouth, every defense I had built since being dragged from that film set like an animal collapsed completely.

Tears burst free and streamed down my cheeks.

I quickly pulled her back into my arms, hiding my shattered face so she would not see it.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I have not been able to be a good mother for you...”

As my face rested against her increasingly thinning hair, my eyes accidentally landed on the Damon Watts pillow beside her bed.

If my daughter did not adore him so much, I swore I would grab that pillow, throw it out the window, and let it be crushed beneath car tires.

A fierce anger suddenly ignited inside my chest, multiplying my hatred toward that rich, spoiled young man who chose to escape life’s pressures through a bottle of alcohol.

Because of him, my world—which had already been cracked—had now shattered completely.

Damon Watts destroyed my phone, the only valuable thing I owned that contained every photo memory of Jilly, from infancy to the last picture before this damned cancer stole her beautiful hair.

And losing my phone was not even the worst part.

Because of the viral scandal and the disgusting narrative his agency created... Alfred had just fired me from the diner.

My thoughts spiraled wildly, haunted by overwhelming fear as I thought about the mountain of hospital bills piling higher and higher inside the drawer at home.

We had nobody left in Spring Creek.

I had been forced to bring Jilly to this small town a year ago, fleeing as far as possible after my traumatic and painful divorce from my ex-husband, Jason Lee.

Jason was a manipulative and cruel man who abandoned his responsibilities, leaving us drowning in debt and emotional scars. Moving here had been my plan for a quiet new beginning.

But Jilly’s cancer diagnosis destroyed everything.

And earlier this morning, before the disaster on the film set, Dr. Grant had already delivered a horrifying verdict, calling me into that cold hospital hallway reeking of antiseptic.

…

“Her platelet count dropped again last night, Mrs. Pierce,” Dr. Grant had said, his eyes filled with a mixture of professional sympathy and helplessness. “Her body is no longer responding to treatment as effectively as before. Our focus now is making sure Jilly remains comfortable.”

…

Comfortable.

That word kept spinning inside my head like a curse. Comfortable was the hospital’s gentle code for the fact that the medical team was beginning to give up.

Jilly had stage four leukemia. And I was watching my only daughter slowly fade away right before my eyes.

“If Damon met you, he would definitely defend you, Mom,” Jilly suddenly said, breaking me out of my terrible thoughts with her cheerful voice. “He would know that Mom is the nicest person in the world, and he would protect you from those bad people.”

“Yeah... maybe, sweetheart,” I whispered with a bitter smile that hurt to wear.

But deep inside the darkest part of my heart, my thoughts screamed in fierce rejection of her innocent words.

I did not need Damon Watts to be my hero. I did not need a spoiled actor drowning himself in alcohol to save my life.

I would be my own hero. And Jilly’s.

Even if tomorrow I had to crawl through the streets, lose every shred of dignity I had left, and face millions of hateful comments from strangers on the internet, I would never give up.

I would face the cruelty of this entire world with my head held high rather than sit quietly and watch my little girl’s imagination and final hope collapse before its time.