LOGIN~ Ivy ~I was about to throw the envelope in the trash when Maya grabbed my wrist. "Don't you dare," she said. The envelope was thick and cream-colored, with gold letters that said ASHBOURNE PRIVATE ACADEMY - TEN YEAR REUNION. It had been sitting on my kitchen counter for three days. Every time I saw it, my stomach tightened."I don't want to go," I said. "You know what those people were like." Maya pulled the envelope out of my hand and held it up. "That's exactly why you should go." She was sitting on the stool by my kitchen island, drinking coffee from my chipped blue mug. Her laptop was open to an email from a gallery, but she wasn't looking at it anymore."Do you remember when I told you about my senior year?" I asked. "When they made pig noises every time I walked into the cafeteria?" Maya's face got tight. "I remember." "I don't need to see them again. I have a good life now. I don't need to prove anything." Maya set the mug down. "It's not about proving anything to them. It's
~ Ivy ~I stood with a paintbrush in my hand and didn't move. The canvas in front of me was still blank. I had been standing there for almost ten minutes, just looking at it, and I hadn't made a single mark.A year ago I couldn't hold a spoon without my hand shaking. Now I owned this whole room. Canvases leaned against every wall, some finished, some half done. My work. My name on the little cards next to them at the gallery downtown. I turned in a slow circle and looked at all of it, and my chest felt tight in a way that wasn't bad. It was the opposite of bad.I thought about the woman who collapsed on the side of the road, soaked and freezing, with nothing left. I thought about the hospital bed, and the cast on my leg, and the ceiling I used to stare at for hours because staring at the ceiling was easier than thinking. I thought about Ethan sitting next to that bed, night after night, not saying much, just staying.I picked up a tube of blue paint and set it back down without openin
~ Ivy ~The taxi dropped me off at the bottom of the driveway. I paid the driver with shaking hands and stood there for a long moment, watching the car disappear around the bend. The gravel crunched under my shoes as I walked up the path. My legs felt weak, like they might give out at any second. Every muscle in my body was trembling. I pressed my palm against my chest, feeling my heart pounding against my ribs. I had done it. I had walked into Julian's office, looked him in the eye, and told him exactly what I thought of him. And now I felt empty. Not sad or angry. Just empty.The guest house door swung open before I could reach for the handle. Ethan stood in the doorway, still wearing his dark blue surgical scrubs. His hair was messy, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He must have just come back from the hospital. "Ivy." His voice was low and tight. "I've been calling you for hours." I blinked. I had left my phone on the kitchen counter. "I'm sorry. I didn't—" "I was worri
~ Ivy ~I stared at Julian’s number for almost a full minute before my thumb finally pressed call.My hand felt strangely steady, a quiet calm settling over me that I hadn’t expected. The phone rang once, twice, three times, each chime stretching out into the quiet room. On the fourth ring, the line clicked open."Hello?""It's me."A beat of heavy silence hung on the line. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, the sudden shift in his demeanor across the miles."Ivy?""Yes."When he spoke again, the guarded tone was gone, replaced by a sharp edge of suspicion. "Why are you calling me?"I looked down at the cup of tea sitting beside me, watching the thin curl of steam rise and disappear into the air. "We need to talk.""About what?""I'll come to your office."Another stretch of silence followed, longer this time, thick with unspoken questions. "You want to see me?""I want to look you in the eye. Just once. Then I'm done."He let out a slow, measured breath through his te
~ Ethan ~ The paper in my hands felt warm from the printer. My eyes moved across the words once, then twice. Each line made my jaw tighten a little more. Julian Vance had filed a formal complaint with the state medical board. The document accused me of professional misconduct. It said I was using my position as a doctor to exploit a vulnerable patient. It said I had turned Knight Manor into a private residence for a woman who should have been in a proper care facility. All of it was lies. I set the paper down on my desk and leaned back in my chair. The leather creaked under my weight. Outside my office window, the sun was starting to set over the Northgate Medical Campus. The glass buildings caught the orange light and glowed like fire. My hands were steady. They had to be. I had spent years learning to keep my hands calm even when my heart was racing. But inside my chest, something hot and sharp was burning. Julian wasn't doing this because he believed the complaint was real.
~ Chloe ~"Tell me you have something I can use," I said, setting my glass down on the glass coffee table. The iced tea had gone warm, melting into a pale amber puddle at the bottom. The man sitting across from me didn't look like a private investigator. He wore a rumpled grey suit, smelled like stale tobacco, and carried a thick manila folder under his arm. He unzipped his leather bag, pulled out the document, and slid it across the table toward me. "I have everything you asked for, Ms. Bennett," Mark said, his voice flat and completely devoid of emotion. "And a few things you probably won't like." I pulled the folder closer, my manicured nails scraping against the heavy paper. My fingers were cold, despite the warm summer air blowing through the open balcony doors of my Meridian Financial District apartment. I opened the cover, expecting to see photos of a broken, miserable woman living in a cheap room on the dark edge of town. Instead, the first page was a copy of a glossy nati







