Introduction

My phone screen lit up, not with a text, but a stark, black-and-white pop-up.

"Ethan' s SAT scores: 1580. Stanford bound with Tiffany. You' re the 'just in case' girl."

Just moments earlier, my childhood crush Ethan, whose father my own dad died saving, feigned despair over "disastrous" SAT scores.

He'd gently coerced me, the valedictorian, to give up my dream school for State College, all for "us."

These mysterious pop-ups, visible only to me, had always been unsettlingly, terrifyingly right.

This one revealed his calculated deception: he'd aced his SATs and was going to Stanford with his new girlfriend, Tiffany.

My heart turned to ice. I was his backup plan, a discarded pawn.

The betrayal escalated at his lavish graduation party where he publicly humiliated me, painting my sacrifice as my idea.

Then, with Tiffany's cruel suggestion, he trapped and locked me in a dark utility closet.

The final blow: he brazenly showed my ailing mom a faked State acceptance letter, causing her to suffer a heart attack.

As I sat by her hospital bed, watching her struggle for breath, a cold rage ignited.

How could the boy whose family owed us everything be capable of such cruel manipulation?

My dad died for his. Why was I his pawn? What were these pop-ups?

But in that sterile room, watching his continued charade, something inside me snapped.

I slapped him, hard.

No longer a confused victim, I saw him for what he was: a manipulative abuser.

This wasn't the end of my story.

This was the beginning of my fight to reclaim it.