Chapter 2

The next day, Chloe took me to the mall and pointed at a few makeup stores on the first floor.

"Renee, pick out two lipsticks you like. I'll pay for them. Think of it as me making it up to you," she said.

The lipsticks on the first floor were all under 30 bucks.

I looked at her. "Really? I can pick whatever I want?"

'Wow, how generous of you,' I thought with sarcasm.

With a dazzling smile, I took her straight to the luxury cosmetics counter on the top floor.

That was actually my family's brand.

The salesgirl recognized me and was about to greet me, but I gave her a slight shake of my head.

Then, I nonchalantly picked out two lipsticks and handed them over. "Could you wrap these up? She is paying for them."

The total for those two lipsticks cost over 1,500 dollars.

Chloe's face went gloomy.

I put on my best apologetic face. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I had no idea they were this pricey. Maybe we shouldn't get them after all?"

Chloe's eyes shifted, a cold glint flickering through them.

"No big deal. As long as you like them, it's fine, Renee," she said through gritted teeth.

Chloe paid for the lipsticks, then snapped a photo with me, saying she'd send it to Ethan.

After we parted ways, I met up with my best friend, Sophie Warren, and handed her one of the lipsticks. "Here, this is for you."

"I've been wanting this shade forever. Love you," Sophie grinned, swiped the lipstick on right then and there, and insisted on buying me lunch.

After lunch, she was scrolling through TikTok when her face suddenly changed. She handed me her phone.

"Look at this. Chloe just put you on blast. It's already got almost two hundred thousand likes, and the comments are all tearing you apart," she said.

I took the phone to see what she meant.

Two hours ago, Chloe posted a video.

The caption read: [Borrowed a pad from my friend's car during my period and forgot to give it back. Now his girlfriend is forcing me to buy her a 1,500-dollar lipstick as an apology. Tuition's due soon. Guess I'll have to sell my blood. A tough girl never surrenders to life.]

The post included her proof of financial hardship, the lipstick receipt, a photo of me holding the lipsticks, and, to top it off, a shot of her getting her blood drawn.

The comments were full of people calling me shameless, saying I was straight-up blackmailing her, and that people like me would get what they deserve. Others were feeling sorry for Chloe, telling her that selling blood was bad for her health and even offering to help pay her college tuition.

Thanks to that one video, Chloe's TikTok account gained twenty thousand followers in just a few hours, and the buzz was still growing.

I told Sophie what happened, and she totally lost it.

Just then, my phone rang.

It was Ethan calling.

Ethan was practically glowing with excitement. "Babe, my new comic just got picked up by the client. You're coming to dinner with me and them tonight, so make sure you dress up. We'll be signing the contract in a few days, and they're offering hundreds of thousands of dollars."

Sophie, who was standing right next to me, heard every word. Her anger flared up even more, and she snatched my phone out of my hand. Sophie demanded, "Ethan, did you see the video Chloe posted on TikTok?"

"Yeah, I saw it," Ethan replied, his tone casual.

"Your girlfriend's getting dragged all over TikTok, and you still want her to come to dinner with the client? Are you heartless or just plain stupid?" Sophie snapped.

"What's it to you?" Ethan snapped back, clearly annoyed.

I quickly gestured for Sophie to chill and took the phone back. "Hey?" I said.

Ethan's voice came through, totally dismissive. "People online forget things in a heartbeat. Give it a couple of days, and no one will care. I sent you the time and place for dinner. Make sure you wear that short skirt."

With that, he hung up.

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Seriously? Why are you still hanging on to this loser? Saving him for a special occasion or something?"

"Yeah, I'm dumping him," I replied, "just not right now."

Sophie kept going. "I told you from the start you two weren't a good match. You should really consider my boss instead. He's good-looking, actually a decent guy, and he even has your photo in his office."

"Yeah, right, as if I'd believe that," I shot back, cutting her off.

Sophie's boss was her mentor, Adrian Stone—a PhD advisor in his early thirties, so young that one would be hard-pressed to find another like him in the whole academic world.

That night, I went to dinner with Ethan and the client, just like I'd promised.

In my previous life, I would've drunk myself to the point of stomach bleeding just to shield Ethan from drinking. But this time, I ignored his desperate looks and even egged the client on to make him drink more.

By the end of the night, Ethan had knocked back almost a whole bottle of wine and collapsed on me, totally unconscious.

I made sure to avoid any security cameras, pulled on a pair of gloves, and dragged Ethan down a deserted alley.

Every couple of steps, I'd just drop him and let him hit the pavement.

In just a few minutes, Ethan looked like a pile of mush—his face all swollen and bruised.

I was about to leave him out there to freeze for the night, but then I spotted a box of unopened underwear someone had tossed in the alley. A much better idea hit me.

*****

One hour later, I admired the hundreds of photos of Ethan I'd snapped on my phone, feeling pretty pleased with myself.

With a satisfied grin, I fished his phone out of his pocket, unlocked it with his fingerprint, and quickly skimmed through all his socials.

His only TikTok follow was an account called Chlo-Chlo.

Then, as I scrolled through his WhatsApp chats, I discovered Chloe was in a group chat with all the guys. Whenever one of them got a girlfriend, Chloe would use the same tricks she pulled on me—sowing discord and driving the girl away. All the while, she'd play just one of the guys, floating between the boys like she belonged.

Using Ethan's phone, I sent myself the WhatsApp contacts of those girls, then wiped the chat history clean.

I took off my mask and gloves, called for a driver to take me home.

On the way, as I scrolled through the photos I'd just taken, I suddenly realized there was a problem.

I had always been pretty conservative. No way was I letting Ethan sleep with me before we got our marriage license. We'd been together for years, but even on trips, we always slept in separate rooms. Honestly, this was the first time in both my lives that I'd ever actually seen his body, and I couldn't help but feel a little weird about it.

Three years ago, Ethan took a stab wound for me. The cut was deep, and there was no way a scar like that would disappear in just five or six years.

But in these photos, all he had was a ring of belly fat; his skin was smooth, not a single scar in sight.

So it wasn't him three years ago. Ethan lied to me.