Chapter 4

At that moment, I felt entirely marooned.

Cut off from the world. Cut off from the truth.

Then I started laughing.

“You’re all lying to me... every last one of you...”

I lost control. I grabbed the fruit knife off the table and charged toward the storage room.

“I’m tearing the wall open! They’re in there! They’re in there!”

“Hold her!”

At Detective Zelenski's command, two officers lunged at me.

They pinned me down.

Cold handcuffs snapped around my wrists.

Because I was deemed emotionally unstable and a danger to myself, the police contacted a psychiatric crisis team.

The whole process was painfully familiar.

The same white ambulance.

The same restraints.

I was strapped to a gurney, staring up at the ceiling lights as they flashed overhead.

A nurse approached with a syringe.

Cold liquid entered my vein.

Right before my vision blurred, I saw Detective Zelenski standing outside the ambulance, looking at me with that same unreadable expression—almost like he was sighing.

I was back at the beginning.

Had I really been given a second life just so I could die all over again?

No.

I refused to accept that.

If this was all a hallucination, then why had the pain felt so real?

And if it wasn’t...

I closed my eyes, and a tear slid down the corner of one eye.

Just wait.

As long as I’m alive, I’ll find out the truth.

...

They kept me there for three days.

During those three days, I forced myself to calm down.

No screaming. No fighting.

I told the doctors exactly what they wanted to hear—that work stress had gotten to me, that I’d had a breakdown, that I’d been hallucinating.

Finally, with Detective Zelenski vouching for me, the doctors agreed to discharge me. They recommended I recover at home and come back for regular follow-ups.

The moment I stepped back into the condo, the silence wrapped around me again.

I locked the door and started searching.

If Ethan and Sophie had really existed, then they couldn’t have vanished without leaving a trace.

The perfect crime only exists in fiction.

Human beings shed hair. Skin cells. Scent. Something always gets left behind.

I got down on my hands and knees and searched the floor inch by inch.

It was spotless—so clean it looked freshly polished.

Then I rushed into the bathroom and checked the shower drain.

Nothing.

The despair started closing in again.

Had I really imagined all of it?

I was just about ready to give up when I spotted something lodged in a narrow seam near the base of the toilet.

Using tweezers, I carefully pulled it free.

A single short, curled hair.

Yellowish.

My heart slammed against my ribs.

My hair was black. I had never dyed it.

But Ethan—

He’d dyed his hair that muted ash-green color when he was trying to be trendy, and after it faded, it turned this exact shade of dry yellow.

Proof.

There had been someone else here.

But it still wasn’t enough.

It proved another person had been in the apartment. It didn’t prove it was Ethan, and it definitely didn’t prove he’d been here last night.

I needed stronger evidence.

My gaze shifted toward the shared trash collection area downstairs.

Garbage sorting in this building was strict. Every unit had an assigned drop-off area and disposal window.

And last night...

If what happened between us had been real, then the used condom had to be in the trash.

Ignoring the stares from the building staff and passersby, I went straight into the reeking garbage room.

I remembered exactly what my trash bag looked like.

Black. Double-knotted.

I searched through the bins from the previous night’s pickup window.

Buried among rotting vegetable scraps and takeout containers, I found it.

My bag.

My hands trembled as I tore it open.

Inside were my used makeup wipes, an empty milk carton I’d left unfinished—

and then, at the very bottom, I found it.

A torn foil wrapper.

Stamped with a manufacture date: January 2026.

And the brand—

It was the same ultra-thin kind Ethan always used.

I clenched the wrapper so tightly it crinkled in my fist, and tears spilled out of my eyes.

This wasn’t a hallucination.

I wasn’t insane.

A man had really been here last night.

I wasn’t the one who was broken.

The world was.

I sealed the evidence carefully inside a specimen bag and tucked it into an inner pocket.

Then, all at once, a thought flashed through my mind.

I went still.

“No way...”

And then I understood.

I understood everything.