Chapter 1
Three years after I died, the one still by my husband's side was the bionic robot I'd carefully designed.
She looked just like me and had perfectly captured all my actions and habits from when I was alive.
But she never once got angry with him.
So Edward never noticed anything was wrong. Still, he brought home a different woman every night, trying to provoke me, hoping to see me lose my mind with jealousy.
Then one day, his childhood friend and the girl he always carried a torch for, Rachel, pushed me off the balcony.
Edward was horrified to find that I seemed not to bleed at all.
*****
A heavy metallic crash rang out.
I crashed onto the villa's lawn, and I could feel pieces of me breaking off and scattering across the grass.
Rachel Evans, the one who pushed me, draped herself dramatically over the railing, faking panic as she shouted, "Edward, help! Claire just jumped off the balcony!"
Edward Carter was my husband.
He strolled over, completely unfazed by the commotion, his voice dripping with contempt.
"Claire jumped off the balcony? Not surprised at all. She's always desperate for attention, pulling such a dumb stunt just to get me to look her way," he scoffed.
"Fine, I'll give her what she wants, just this one," he said.
There wasn't a trace of worry on Edward's face.
Instead, he glanced down at me like he was tossing me a bone, not even bothering to care.
He could clearly see me lying motionless on the grass.
But his expression didn't change at all.
"Alright, Claire, quit faking it. I'm here talking to you. Isn't it about time you quit the act?" he said.
He figured that after all he'd said, I'd know better and get up, like he was bestowing some great favor on me.
But after waiting a while, he still didn't get the response he was hoping for.
Edward's face fell as he warned me, "Claire, don't push your luck. My patience is wearing thin!"
Rachel, standing beside him, feigned concern. "Edward, maybe we should go down and check. What if she's actually hurt?"
Edward scoffed, "Come on, it's just the third floor, not the thirtieth. Falling from here is nothing. You really think she'd die from that?"
The villa was only three stories tall. Sure, a fall from here probably wouldn't kill me, but I'd still get pretty banged up.
And if I landed on my head, it could be deadly.
Edward didn't even seem to care. Honestly, if I really died right in front of him, he'd probably be thrilled.
The joke was on him because I already died. It was not like I could die twice.
Even after three years, Edward still hadn't noticed a thing.
The one lying there now, the one who'd stuck by his side for three years straight, wasn't the real me at all.
It was just a bionic robot I'd carefully created to keep him company.
As for me, after failing my quest, the system wiped out my physical body.
But my soul lingered in this world, and by some bizarre twist of fate, I ended up inside the robot's body.
I couldn't control her actions, not that I needed to. Her looks and programming were a perfect copy of who I used to be.
The chip in her brain stored every memory I ever had.
*****
My joints got all twisted and jammed, leaving me completely unable to move for a while.
I crashed, totally locked up in a temporary shutdown.
Edward didn't notice a thing. He just gave a mocking arch of his brow, looking totally unimpressed.
"Stop playing dead, Claire. Want me to come all the way down just to pick you up?" Edward sneered.
Finally, amid Edward's mocking taunts, I slowly pushed myself up from the ground.
Once my system finally kicked back in, I could move again.
But my posture was all kinds of awkward.
"Edward, look at Claire's leg. Doesn't it look kind of off? You think she actually broke something?" Rachel said.
"She's still young. It's not like she's made of glass."
Edward just shrugged it off.