"No!"

My voice trembled with fury.

"If she's so pitiful, that's between her parents and whoever hurt her! She could have said no! She could have called the cops! Why should I be the one to sacrifice my marriage and my happiness?"

"Unless..."

A sob crept into my voice.

"Unless none of it ever happened. Unless you two were already together, and that's why—"

The slap came before I could finish.

Benjamin stood with his hand raised, face twisted in rage. "Don't you dare talk about her like that! I already told you—Elise and I are only getting married on paper! Why do you insist on twisting everything into something ugly?"

Our shouting drew a crowd. Neighbors from upstairs and downstairs poked their heads out, gathering on the landing.

Someone turned to Elise and Benjamin. "Elise, who is this? What's her relationship with your husband?"

Elise stammered, her voice small. "She's his... ex..."

The look on her face said everything she didn't—wounded, long-suffering, victimized.

Understanding dawned on the neighbors' faces. They turned to me with open disgust, and one of them actually shoved me.

"They're about to get married! You're still chasing after someone else's husband? That makes you the other woman! You look decent enough—have some shame!"

"Exactly! Someone get a photo of her! Post it online!"

I laughed—a sharp, bitter sound—and slammed my suitcase down in front of them.

"Benjamin, why don't you tell them who the real other woman is?"

The suitcase popped open on impact. But Elise let out a shriek and crouched down.

Benjamin looked at her leg—at a red, swollen mark no bigger than a fingernail.

His expression changed instantly.

"Maud! When will you stop? Elise and I already have our marriage certificate! So tell me—who's the other woman here?"

I stared at him, stunned, and let out a hollow laugh. "Benjamin. This is what you call a fake marriage? You got the certificate and it's still fake?"

He realized his slip the moment the words left his mouth. Guilt flickered across his face before he deflected.

"All this over some worthless bracelet—you come here and assault people!"

"Maud, I never knew you could be this heartless. This selfish. This cold-blooded!"

My eyes went wide as Benjamin stormed back into the apartment. When he came out, he was holding the bracelet I treasured more than anything in the world.

He hurled it at the ground.

"You want your bracelet so bad? Take your piece of junk and get out!"

"No!" I screamed and lunged for it, hands outstretched, but I wasn't fast enough.

I watched it shatter against the floor, pieces scattering like broken teeth.

My head snapped up. I fixed him with a stare full of something he had never seen from me before.

Not love. Not devotion. Not patience.

Hatred.

Even through his rage, it shook him. For one brief second, panic crossed his face.

But the next second, Elise whimpered through her tears. "Professor Delgado, my leg hurts so much. Do you think it's broken?"

Benjamin snapped back to attention. He scooped her up and strode past me toward the stairs.

"Don't be scared. I'm taking you to the hospital."

He moved fast and hard, and as he passed, he knocked straight into me where I crouched on the floor.

I tumbled down the steep staircase and hit the landing below with a sickening thud.

People gasped. I called out, my voice thin and weak.

Benjamin never looked back.

Before my eyes closed, the last thing I saw was Elise resting her head against his shoulder, looking right at me.

Smiling.

In that moment, something inside my chest cracked open—clean and sharp, like porcelain breaking.

There was a time when Benjamin had protected me the way he now protected Elise.

When those trust-fund boys followed me, catcalling and closing in, and I was shaking with fear—he had charged out and planted himself between us. He told them to back off without flinching.

Then he grabbed my wrist and pulled me through their circle, and we ran.

Later, I learned that Benjamin had been targeted and harassed by those rich kids because of what he'd done.

I found him with tears brimming in my eyes and apologized. He just smiled, patted my head, and said, "Don't worry about it. I just can't stand to see you cry."

The man who once panicked at the mere sight of tears in my eyes could now ignore my pain entirely for another girl's sake.

When exactly had Elise Simmons wedged herself between us?

Maybe it started the day she became Benjamin's graduate student. He talked about her constantly, saying she reminded him of his younger self. But the look in his eyes was nothing like nostalgia. It was pure adoration.

Or maybe it was the time she called him crying, saying a group of male students had cornered her with unwanted confessions. Benjamin, always so calm and rational, had charged in like a hotheaded teenager and thrown punches.

When I went to bail him out, I looked at his split, bruised lip and felt something bitter settle in my chest for the first time.

He explained it away: "Maud, when I heard what happened to her, it reminded me of how you used to get bullied. I just lost it."

But the thing was, when I'd been in that exact situation, all he'd done was quietly walk me away.

...

When I woke up, I was already in the hospital.

The doctor told me with a worried expression that it was a good thing I'd been brought in quickly. I'd hit the back of my head in the fall, and there was bleeding in my brain. A little longer, and I might not have woken up at all.

I thanked him softly, had my wounds treated, and left.

The moment I reached the lobby of my apartment building, a group of men followed me in. Leering. Closing in.

"You're that bitch from the internet, aren't you?"

"You look decent enough on the outside, but turns out you're rotten to the core. Hiring thugs to bully some college girl? You like men that much? Well, today we'll give you a taste of what that's like!"

They lunged at me with ugly grins, tearing at my clothes.

I screamed and stumbled backward, but they were faster. My shirt ripped. Their fingers twisted into my skin, leaving bruises wherever they grabbed.

It wasn't until the building's security guard rushed over and called the police that they finally scattered like rats.

I collapsed to my knees, shaking uncontrollably.

The security guard stood over me, looking down with undisguised contempt.

"You brought this on yourself. Who told you to be so vicious, going after an innocent girl like that?"

My head snapped up. My voice trembled. "What did you just say?"

He scoffed and walked away.

My skull felt like it split open. I fumbled for my phone and started scrolling.

There it was. A public statement Benjamin had posted.

"I'm sorry to take up everyone's time, but I need to set the record straight. The accusations about me bullying a female student were a misunderstanding. My ex-girlfriend, Maud Fox, hired thugs to harass my student out of jealousy, nearly forcing her into a marriage with that animal."

"I took the blame to protect Maud because I felt sorry for her. But she showed no remorse and only escalated her behavior, so I've decided to reveal the truth."

"I will also take responsibility for my student. I intend to marry her and take care of her for the rest of her life."

Elise had commented underneath:

"With you by my side, I'm not afraid of anything."

Blood rushed to my head. My whole body felt like it had been hit by a freight train.

Below that post, the comments were split between congratulations for the happy couple and a torrent of abuse aimed at me. My photos had been edited into obscene, degrading images. People were calling for someone to doxx me, to find my address and "teach me a lesson."

My phone was flooded with messages. Filthy, vile curses, one after another.

I kept trying to explain. I hadn't done any of it. Benjamin was lying.

But no one believed me.

"Your own boyfriend came out and exposed you! You definitely did it!"

"Do you have any proof you're innocent? Didn't think so! Die, you worthless slut!"

With trembling hands, I forwarded the post to Benjamin.

"Why are you smearing me like this?"

His reply came fast:

"Didn't I tell you yesterday to smooth things over with the university administration for me? You just walked out without a care, and now I've been called in for accountability. This was the only way I could think of to clear things up."

"Besides, everyone was dragging Elise online, calling her a homewrecking tramp. She cried so hard yesterday she nearly passed out. This protects her reputation too."

"What about ME?! I deserve to be the one getting torn apart?"

"Maud, it's just a few nasty comments from strangers. Just don't look at it. Give it some time and people will forget. It'll blow over."

"Oh, and the wedding starts in an hour. Elise's and mine. Hurry up and come be the bridesmaid. Apologize to Elise in front of everyone. If we're putting on a show, we need to commit to the whole act."

Then, in a tone that was neither gentle nor harsh, he added:

"Be a good girl. If you keep throwing tantrums, I can't guarantee I'll still marry you and file the paperwork in three years. Remember, your mother is gone. I'm the only family you have left in this world."

My entire body shook with rage.

Once, at my mother's bedside, he had held my hand and sworn he would be my last remaining family, that he would take care of me for the rest of my life.

Now, my loneliness and helplessness had become the very reason he felt free to trample all over me.

Tears were still sliding down my cheeks when my phone buzzed with a new message.

"Miss Fox, there's something I'm not sure I should tell you."

"I have the surveillance footage from the day Elise's incident happened... I think you deserve to know what really went on that day..."

I stared at the video that loaded on my screen, and my body went rigid.

One month ago. Graduation day.

Elise was supposed to be onstage for the tassel-turning ceremony, but she and Benjamin had both vanished.

As the lab's sponsor, I followed the university staff backstage to look for them.

That was when we walked right into Benjamin, rushing out with an unconscious Elise in his arms.

We followed them to the hospital, where the doctor gave us a strange look and said, "Young people chasing thrills still need to be careful."

Only then did we learn the truth: Elise and someone had been fooling around in a storage room full of high-powered stage lights. The door had locked behind them, and they'd been baking inside for a full three hours until she collapsed from dehydration.

The campus erupted. University leadership issued an immediate order to expel Elise.

When she came to, she sobbed and screamed that she'd been assaulted, that her attacker had already fled.

The university pulled the surveillance footage, but the recordings had been deleted.

When they pressed her for details, she refused to talk and threatened to throw herself off a building.

Benjamin also threatened to pull his research funding, pressuring the administration to drop the investigation and bury the whole thing.

I couldn't understand it. Again and again, I tried to get justice for Elise.

But every single time, Benjamin shut me down with that sharp, scolding tone of his.

"Stop making trouble! Digging into this isn't helping her. You're only forcing her to relive the trauma!"

Now, watching the footage on my screen, watching Benjamin tangled up with Elise, the two of them so desperate they nearly broke down the equipment room door, the pain that tore through my chest was beyond anything I could control.

So it was true. Exactly what I had suspected all along.

Elise had never been assaulted. She had been cheating with him.

I dragged the video's progress bar forward, and something unbelievable appeared on the screen.

My pupils blew wide.