CHAPTER ONE

For two years, I lived with the comforting delusion that my life was stable.

Not happy, necessarily. Not the kind of life people write inspirational captions about. But stable in a way that felt safe, like a chair that hadn’t collapsed yet, so you assumed it wouldn’t. Kit and I shared an apartment, a bed, and the mutual understanding that love didn’t have to be dramatic to be real. We argued about stupid things. Whose turn it was to cook? Why he never replaced the empty milk carton? Normal relationship stuff.

I thought that meant we were solid.

Apparently, it just meant I was spectacularly naive. Three months ago, Murphy showed up at my door.

She didn’t knock like someone who belonged there. She knocked like someone asking permission to exist. The kind of knock designed to tug at your conscience before you even opened the door.

When I did, she looked exactly like Murphy always had. Beautiful in a way that made people forgive her before she spoke. Blonde hair falling just slightly out of place. Big eyes already shiny with tears.

“Elara,” she whispered.

"Murphy? What are you doing here?" I was utterly shock to see standing at my doorstep.

"I am.. I have nowhere to go because my boyfriend hit me." 

"What? Did he hurt you?" I asked but she kept saying he hit her.

She said she was terrified to go home. Said she had nowhere else to go. Said I was the only person she trusted, the only one who had ever been kind to her. Back in college, she used to say the same thing. That other girls bullied her. That I was different.

I believed her then. I believed her now.

“Just a few days,” she said, crying beautifully. “I’ll figure something out, I promise.”

I let her in. Of course I did. Because apparently my defining character trait is giving people knives and then acting shocked when they stab me.

At first, it felt like the right thing. Like I was being a good person. Murphy cried a lot about her nightmares. About how trauma made it impossible for her to function like a normal human being. She couldn’t cook or clean. Couldn’t even decide what to eat without spiraling. I felt bad at her condition so I did everything.

I cleaned the apartment after work, then I cooked dinner for everyone. I folded laundry while answering emails. I told myself that compassion was supposed to feel exhausting. I was trying to make everything work out for me, for Murphy, for my relationship with Kit.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped being a friend and became unpaid domestic staff as I noticed no one came to share the burden. However, I didn't let that excuse let me down as I started to give priority to my career and the promotion I have been working hard for. Work became my excuse to stay away. I stayed late more often, buried myself in projects, chased a promotion that would transfer me to the company’s headquarters. This was my dream... I am supposed to achieve it.

That's why I asked Kit to take care of Murphy while I was busy in building my career and take my skills to another level.

He smiled and assured me. Told me not to worry about Murphy. Said he’d handle it. That should’ve been my second warning. But I trusted him, I tristed Murphy too.

That evening, I worked late again, Burried my head in the screen while my fingers work tirelessly on the keyboard. THe presentation was complete and sent. When I finally checked my phone, my inbox greeted me with an email that made my breath catch.

Promotion approved. Transfer effective immediately. Start date: tomorrow.

I stared at it, reread it, then reread it again just to be sure it wasn’t a prank sent by the universe. I laughed, loud and ungraceful, alone in the office. 

All my hardwork finally paid off. I got my dream job in the company's headquater. It will be so great to share this wonderful news to my boyfriend.

So, I called Kit but Murphy answered his phone. It was utterly awkward but I kept that doubt aside becasue I had a good news to share.

“Hey,” she said, distracted as if she was kinda busy with something...

“Murphy? Where Kit?" I asked her.

"He is busy..." He voice was not normal.

"Okay!! Tell him to call me back becasue I have to shre this news to him. I got the promotion which I was working tirelessly,” I said. “I’m transferring to headquarters. It starts tomorrow.”

There was an awkward kind of pause. The kind that lets you know you’ve said something inconvenient in front of a wrong person.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s… nice.”

Then, without missing a beat, “Can you pick up dinner on your way home? I’m craving something sweet. And the apartment really needs cleaning. It’s a mess.”

I blinked. Did she just ignored my achievement?

“Okay,” I said slowly, because apparently that word still worked on autopilot. We hung up.

I stared at my phone, the excitement leaking out of me like air from a punctured balloon. A memory flashed in my mind. Murphy at my door. She was crying. Her telling me I was the only one she can trust.

I ignored the sinking feeling in my stomach and grabbed my bag, heading to the home.

Murphy liked expensive cakes. She said they made her feel better. So I drove to a luxury shopping mall, the kind of place where everything was shiny and overpriced and smelled faintly of money.

I’d just parked when my phone buzzed.

Emily: You need to see this. It’s explosive.

Me: If this is about celebrity drama, I swear...

Emily: No!! Trust me. A video is going viral. A woman moved into her friend’s home and had an affair with her friend’s boyfriend for months. They did it all over the apartment. The poor friend had no idea.

I snorted softly. That’s awful, I typed. Why are you sending me this?

Curiosity is a disease. I opened the link.

The video was shaky. Clearly filmed in secret. A man stood behind a blonde woman, his arms around her waist, bodies pressed together in a way that made the implication painfully obvious.

I recognized the couch first. Then the lamp. Then the stupid decorative pillow I bought on sale.

My heart stuttered. The woman shifted slightly, and I saw the familiar curl of blonde hair. The sweater I helped her pick out because it “made her look safe.”

The man’s watch caught the light.

Kit’s watch.

Oh.

Oh!

It was like my brain hit a wall and shattered on impact. Sound vanished. My hands went numb. The phone slipped in my grip as my body forgot how to function like it had done this before.

Months, Emily had said.

Months.

I thought about Murphy crying in my guest room. About Kit reassuring me not to worry. About myself scrubbing their fingerprints off surfaces like an idiot.

I laughed, not because it was funny. Because if I didn’t, I might scream.

Neither did I bought the cake nor I went home. I sat there until the sky darkened and the mall lights flickered on, my phone buzzing with messages I couldn’t bring myself to read.

The promotion email was still open on my screen.

“Well,” I muttered to myself, “if my life’s going to fall apart, at least it picked good timing.”

Tomorrow, everything would change. And this time, I wasn’t cleaning up anyone else’s mess.