Pain spread through me, thick and stinging, pricking everywhere at once.

I opened my mouth to say something—anything—

and Marlin Gilbert's phone rang.

The caller ID read “my darling Christina Pruitt.”

And next to that, my name. Just my name, bare and cold.

“Diana Henson.”

The truth was, the whole time we'd been together, I'd noticed. The little moments of indifference Marlin let slip, the way he'd go through the motions without really being there.

Every time, I made excuses for him.

We'd met through a matchmaker, after all.

People who've been worn down by the world don't burn the way teenagers do.

As long as he could genuinely care for me, respect me,

I was willing to hand over everything I had.

But reality was always crueler than anything I'd imagined.

Marlin Gilbert didn't love me.

The woman he loved was the one who'd destroyed my family.

The devil who'd shoved my head into a toilet and carved into my skin with a box cutter.

His arrival in my life wasn't salvation.

It was meant to finish off whatever was left of a life already on the verge of collapse.

Something tore open inside my chest,

throbbing with each pulse.

I refused to let Marlin see me fall apart.

While he took the call, I wiped my tears dry as fast as I could.

“Marlin, I'll give you the money. Just give me my house back.”

Christina Pruitt had already stolen enough from me over the years.

Small things like dresses and toys.

Big things like my father and my family.

Every time I fought back, the whole household answered with fists and feet.

When I was sixteen, if Grandma Evelyn hadn't found me locked on the rooftop, barely breathing,

I probably would've frozen to death that winter.

That house was my shelter.

It was the only thing Grandma Evelyn ever left me.

I would never hand it over to Christina Pruitt.

Marlin didn't respond. He pulled out a bank card and tossed it in front of me.

“The PIN is Christina's birthday. Take the money and pick yourself a new place.”

“I told you I wouldn't shortchange you on the material side.”

“As for everything else……don't ever think you can compete with her.”

A VIP gold card. There weren't more than a handful of those in all of Arden City.

For Christina Pruitt, he really would spare nothing.

I didn't take it. I looked straight at Marlin.

“I don't want money.”

“I'm getting a lawyer and taking my house back.”

Marlin blinked, then grinned.

Pure contempt.

“Diana, don't be childish.”

“In Arden City, no one would dare take your case.”

Right. I'd forgotten.

Marlin Gilbert wasn't the man who'd lain in bed beside me, arguing over what to have for breakfast. He was born into more money than I could fathom—someone who'd never once had to live the way I did.

Someone like that could never understand what my suffering felt like.

The room went quiet for a moment.

I wanted to get out before the tears fell.

But Marlin grabbed my wrist.

A gust caught my sleeve, exposing the scars layered across my arm, some deep, some faded.

Something in his expression loosened for just a second.

After a brief silence, he let out a soft sigh.

“Diana, I'm not trying to make this hard for you.”

“That house doesn't do you any good just sitting there.”

“Sell it to Christina, and we go on the way we have been. What's wrong with that?”

Seven box-cutter slashes across my body. Five cigarette burns. Pinch marks and bruises beyond counting, scattered everywhere else.

Most of them were Christina Pruitt's handiwork, from when we were children.

What she loved most was rounding up a pack of kids to hold court over me.

She'd have them pin me to the ground, plant her foot on my head, and say:

“Don't think that just because your homewrecking mother is dead, you can wipe away what you owe me.”

“A bastard child like you shouldn't even exist in this world!”

I explained over and over—my mother never knew my father had another family. She was a woman so kind it made her fragile, and the weight of what she learned broke her. She chose death because she couldn't face it.

Christina wouldn't listen. Or maybe she just wanted an excuse to be cruel.

My resistance, my begging, my explanations—they only made the punishment worse.

It didn't end until Grandma Evelyn came and took me away.

It took me a long time to crawl out of that past. The things it left behind—the ugly, shameful things I could never say aloud—I told only one person. Marlin.

I still remember how long he stared the first time he saw the scars.

He ran his fingers over my skin, careful, so careful, his whole expression soft as he spoke.

“Diana, this isn't your fault.”

“I won't let you go back to that. I'll take Grandma Evelyn's place and keep you safe.”

Back then, I truly believed happiness was one step away.

But now, the man who swore he would protect me, love me for the rest of his life—he was the one who drove the deepest knife into my heart.

I lifted my head and smiled back at him.

“Marlin, you know everything I've been through.”

“I will never be someone's other woman, and I will never forgive anyone who's hurt me.”

“Not you. Not Christina.”

Grandma Evelyn didn't have much time left.

I had no energy to deal with anything else.

Once the wedding was over, everything I'd lost—I would take back every last piece.

My resolve stung him somewhere he didn't expect.

He let go of my hand.

One cold glance, and he turned and slammed the door behind him.

His WhatsApp was still logged in on my laptop.

A string of messages kept pinging, one after another.

“Marlin, why'd you come clean with Diana so fast? I wasn't done enjoying the show.”

“Why else? He obviously missed our Christina.”

“Who'd pass up a beauty like Christina to go for some broke loser like Diana?”

“Walk past that girl and the stink of poverty would make you gag.”

Christina sent a laughing emoji with her hand over her mouth.

Then posted a photo of herself in black stockings.

“Aww, my baby worked so hard. Here's your reward for tonight.”

“Once the demolition paperwork goes through, I'm tearing down Diana's house and building a resort.”

“You're all invited when it's done!”

Everyone in the chat cheered.

Then came a series of memes made from my photos.

One of them was taken the day Marlin proposed.

I was buried in his arms, laughing so hard my face was streaked with tears.

Marlin had asked someone to capture the shot, said he wanted to preserve life's happiest moment.

Then turned around and posted it in the group chat to mock how stupid and naive I was.

I scrolled further up.

There were more—candid shots taken while I was working.

The worst of the old bullies, a thug the others called Da Zhuang, had posted a photo of me falling while delivering food.

Bragging about it underneath.

“Ran into the stupid pig doing deliveries today. I tripped her on purpose and she ate pavement.”

“She was so scared of dirtying my car she practically bowed and scraped to apologize.”

Someone else replied right after.

“Thanks to Marlin for giving up Diana's stall location. Actually found her today.”

“First I sent people to start trouble, then I reported her to the city inspectors for operating without a permit.”

“She lost a shoe running away. Wonder if it hurt walking barefoot on that gravel road.”

“I saw Diana working a KTV shift last time. Made her drink a whole bottle.”

“Turns out she's allergic to alcohol. Her face swelled up like a balloon and they had to pump her stomach. Hilarious.”

Photo after photo of me at my most pathetic.

Humiliation after humiliation, exposed and recorded.

Strung together, they were my three years of exhaustion and shame.

My eyes ached from staring at the screen too long.

I turned away, trying to untangle the web of connections.

After Marlin's cancer diagnosis, he'd been depressed every day.

I hadn't wanted to add to his burden.

So I carried everything alone, in silence.

When I got off work late, or when the injuries were too bad to hide,

I'd downplay things so he wouldn't worry, giving him just enough of the truth.

Every time, he'd look at me with reddened eyes and say,

“Diana, you've worked so hard.”

I'd joke that I was just having a run of bad luck.

Work wasn't going well. Doors kept closing in my face.

He'd laugh softly and pull me into his arms.

“That's because you met me and used up all your good luck.”

“When I get better, I'll give it all back to you—double.”

When he said those things, Marlin's expression was so impossibly gentle.

Gentle enough that I couldn't help imagining our future together, over and over again.

How could I have known, back then?

The man I loved, the one who shared my bed, was the source of every misfortune.

My heart was pounding.

Old wounds, layered over years, throbbed beneath my skin.

I curled into myself the way I used to as a child, making myself as small as I could.

I held it in, and held it in again.

The tears came anyway.

I was useless.

Couldn't save Grandma Evelyn. Couldn't hold on to the man I loved.

Someone like me.

It was like I was born without the ability to have happiness.

After I cried myself out, I felt a little lighter.

I was also a little hungry.

I went to the kitchen and boiled myself a bowl of instant noodles.

When I opened the fridge, Marlin's carefully packed lunch box was still sitting inside.

The carrot diced into tiny, meticulous pieces.

Every shrimp peeled and lined up in a neat row.

Before, these small gestures had always moved me.

I'd taken them as proof that he loved me.

Now, looking back.

These habits must have come from his time with Christina.

Christina didn't like carrots. Didn't like getting her hands dirty peeling shrimp.

When she was little, her father had always done it for her.

Must be nice, being the bad guy's daughter.

Loved by someone your whole life.

I threw the lunch box in the trash.

Then, hardening my heart, I cracked two eggs into my bowl.

Before, I'd thought of Marlin as a sick man. Every good thing went to him first, to keep his strength up.

Not anymore.

A full bowl of noodles warmed me from the inside.

I was about to call the wedding company to confirm the arrangements

when the hospital called.

“Ms. Henson—your grandmother killed herself at the hospital!”

The words hit like a bolt of lightning splitting open a clear sky.

I didn't stop to think. I grabbed a cab and rushed to the hospital.

Grandma Evelyn's bed was empty.

The young nurse who'd been looking after her stood there, guilt written across her face, holding out a letter.

“I'm so sorry, Ms. Henson.”

“She found out somehow that your boyfriend has cancer.”

“She didn't want you to carry that kind of burden, so she chose to end her life……”

My hands were shaking as I opened the envelope.

Crooked, unsteady handwriting, every line telling me to live well with Marlin.