Three years after my ex-boyfriend—and adoptive brother—Eason Reed, had me committed, I was discharged from an exclusive psychiatric facility. Our reunion took place at the family’s Thanksgiving dinner.

He sat beside his celebrity model fiancée, Bonny Vance. And my discharge papers? The ones declaring me 'rehabilitated'? He'd signed them himself.

After a polite but distant greeting, I chose a seat as far from him as possible.

At the dinner table, he scooped a spoonful of his homemade truffle risotto onto my plate.

"I remember how much you used to love this. Eat up."

I calmly scraped the risotto into the nearby trash bin and spoke softly.

"Thank you, Eason, but I'm allergic to truffles now."

He froze, his brow furrowing.

"You never used to call me Eason. Do you still hate me for sending you to the facility?"

I lowered my eyes and shook my head.

You have to love someone to hate them.

And after three years of imprisonment, my love had long since died. How could any hate remain?

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1

"If you don't hate me, then eat the risotto."

Eason’s knuckles whitened around his fork, his voice tight with suppressed anger.

I didn't understand his anger. But my body, conditioned to obey, responded instantly. I bent down and knelt beside the kitchen cabinet.

Reaching into the trash bin, I scooped out the sticky rice and swallowed it without hesitation.

The greasy taste and the earthy smell of the mushrooms… I had been forced to eat it countless times at the facility, sometimes right next to the toilet. I'd long grown accustomed to it.

After swallowing, I returned to my seat.

I forced a smile and met his gaze.

"I've eaten it, Eason."

Shock flickered in Eason’s brown eyes.

He instinctively reached for a napkin to hand me, but I had already wiped my mouth clean with my sleeve.

"Crystal?"

"Why…"

I knew what he wanted to ask.

When had I become so careless? So unkempt?

During the five years we were secretly in love, I had been incredibly fussy.

When we cooked together, I could be exhausted to the point of collapse, yet I'd still wrap my arms around his neck, begging him coquettishly to wipe my fingertips clean.

I remembered when we first got together. He’d picked me up from campus, and we’d ended up making out in his car.

Our skin was slick with sweat, and with nowhere to wash up, I’d pestered him until he bought expensive mineral water just for me to wipe myself down.

Back then, he had laughed helplessly and tapped my head lightly.

"Crystal Davis, you're such a fussy neat-freak. I must be the only person on earth who can tolerate you."

But later, he was the one who sent me to that facility to "treat" a mental breakdown that never existed.

I was forced to eat by the toilets and soil my own bed.

How could I possibly care about being clean anymore?

My thoughts snapped back to the present. I didn't answer Eason's unspoken question.

I simply replied with the same reason he gave me when we broke up.

"People change, Eason."

Eason's brow furrowed even deeper. The tip of his tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek as he prepared to speak.

But Bonny Vance, sitting beside him, looped her arm through his flirtatiously.

"Darling, Crystal just got back. Why the long face?"

"Come on, smile. Hasn't our very own Dr. Reed already confirmed that Crystal's mental state is stable and she's fit to return to society?"

"It's a family reunion. We should all be happy."

Then, Bonny picked up my psychiatric evaluation report and read it aloud.

"As assessed by psychiatric specialist Eason Reed, Crystal Davis's mental state is stable and she is cleared for discharge."

The moment she finished, Eason's expression hardened. He stood abruptly and stalked out to the terrace to smoke.

Bonny hurried out after him. I calmly finished the food on my plate.

My memory, however, flashed back to three years ago.

A video of him passionately kissing a young model had gone viral. I'd had an emotional breakdown, crying, refusing to break up, even attempting suicide several times.

After I slit my wrists for the third time, he appeared at my door with men from the facility, his face a mask of cold impatience.

Holding my psychiatric evaluation in his hand, he ordered them to put me in a straitjacket.

He said, his voice clipped and cold.

"Crystal, you need help. You need professional treatment."

"It's impossible between us. I'll always be your brother!"

Eason and I were, indeed, brother and sister in name.

But eighteen years ago, his name was still Eason Shaw.

That year, my father’s company had driven his to bankruptcy. After the failed investment, his father took his own life.

He was left alone in the house for a month. When the police found him, he was on the verge of death.

My father took me to see him in the hospital several times.

Each time, he would just stare blankly at the ceiling.

Until, on one visit, I pressed a piece of candy from my palm into his mouth. That was the first time he reacted.

He grabbed my hand, tears streaming down his face as he whispered.

"Crystal, I don't have a home anymore. Can you give me one?"

When I got home, I cried and begged my father for an older brother.

I refused to eat or drink for three days until he finally agreed to adopt him.

The day we brought Eason home, my father spoke to him with a seriousness I had never seen before.

"From now on, you are Eason Reed. You must protect Crystal and never let her get hurt."

Eason nodded in agreement.

For the next fifteen years, he granted every single one of my wishes.

Until the day he sent me away. I knelt on the floor and begged him, again and again.

I'd bloodied my own forehead against the floorboards.

I screamed that I didn't love him anymore, pleaded with him to just tell me why.

But his expression remained cold, impassive.

During my first month in the hospital, I got my hands on a phone. I called my father, only to learn he was dead.

Eason's voice was frigid on the other end of the line.

"Crystal, your father is dead."

"He had a heart attack. The shock of finding out we'd been secretly sleeping together for years... that you'd been sent to a psychiatric facility... it killed him."

"Back then, your father used dirty tricks to crush my father's company. He destroyed my family. I was just getting my revenge."

Eason’s words were a volley of poison-tipped needles, each one piercing my heart.

For three years, the poison seeped in, causing unbearable pain.

Until, eventually, my heart went numb.

After finishing the last bite on my plate, I sat quietly on the sofa, watching the football game on TV.

Soon, raised voices erupted from the terrace.

"Eason Reed, what the hell was that?!"

"What do you mean I'm overstepping?"

"You proposed to me! What's wrong with me saying something?!"

"That Crystal Davis *is* a psycho! Am I wrong?!"

Bonny shrieked before throwing the door open and storming out.

The room fell silent. I stared blankly at the television.

Until Eason sat down beside me.

"Crystal, do you hate me?"

"These past three years… have you hated me?"

I still just shook my head.

Eason's voice suddenly rose, cracking.

He gripped my shoulders, the corners of his eyes turning red.

"Crystal, you *should* hate me!"

"What right do you have not to hate me?!"

His grip was painful. I turned my head to look at him.

"Eason, do you remember the day I called you?"

"The orderlies found out. They called for your permission to give me ECT."

"You agreed."