The Fallen Ugly Girl: Her Epic Comeback

Rain didn't just fall in New York City; it assaulted the pavement, turning the alley behind the gilded velvet ropes of The Sapphire Club into a river of oil and grime. Emely Cohen stood in the center of it, water soaking through the thin fabric of her coat, plastering it to the rolls of flesh she spent every waking moment trying to hide.

She clutched the resume in her hand so tight the paper had turned to pulp. It was a pathetic shield against the elements, and an even worse shield against the woman standing in the doorway.

Yvonne pushed the heavy steel door open with her hip, a cigarette dangling from her perfectly painted red lips. She didn't step out into the rain. She wouldn't dare ruin her blowout. Instead, she leaned against the frame, her eyes scanning Emely's body with a look that was physically painful to endure. It was a look of pure, unadulterated disgust.

"Jesus, Emely," Yvonne said, smoke curling from her mouth. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her clutch and pressed it to her nose, as if Emely's poverty had a scent. "You take up half the alley. You're like a walking mountain."

Emely's stomach twisted, a hard knot of shame tightening behind her ribs. She looked down at her shoes, which were sinking into a puddle of questionable substance. "You said there was a job opening, Yvonne. Assistant manager."

"For a human," Yvonne laughed, the sound sharp and brittle. "Not for a circus attraction. Do you know what the uniform size limit is? Size eight. You haven't seen a size eight since middle school."

Emely swallowed the lump in her throat. "Please. My dad... the factory lawsuits. We have nothing left."

Yvonne rolled her eyes and flicked the cigarette butt into the puddle near Emely's foot. She reached into her purse and pulled out a pale pink envelope. The paper was thick, expensive. "I don't have a job for you. But I have an errand."

Emely's head snapped up, a flicker of hope warring with suspicion. "An errand?"

"If you want me to keep these photos of your dad's factory being vandalized off Twitter, you'll do it." Yvonne's smile was a slash of red malice as she held up her phone, displaying a picture of the Cohen Pharmaceutical sign spray-painted with the word "KILLER."

Emely flinched as if struck. "You wouldn't."

"Try me." Yvonne extended her arm, holding the envelope out into the rain. "Take it. It's for Christ Collins. He's at a private party tonight. You're going to slip in the back and give it to him."

Christ Collins.

The name hit Emely like a physical blow to the chest. The air in her lungs seemed to vanish, replaced by a vacuum of memory. She reached out, her fingers trembling, and took the envelope. The gold calligraphy on the front shimmered under the security light: Collins.

"Good girl," Yvonne sneered. "Try not to eat the hors d'oeuvres on your way in."

The door slammed shut, the heavy metallic clang echoing the finality of Emely's dignity. She stood alone in the downpour, staring at the name, and suddenly the smell of rain and garbage vanished.

The sun was blinding. It was the kind of Hamptons summer day that felt like a fever dream-golden, hot, and smelling of chlorine and expensive sunscreen.

Twelve-year-old Emely lay on a lounge chair, her body lean and wiry, skin bronzed by hours of swimming. She was sipping lemonade, watching the shimmer of heat rise off the pool deck. The lifeguards were busy flirting with a group of girls in bikinis near the snack bar.

No one was watching the deep end.

Except Emely.

She saw the ripple first. Then the hand. It broke the surface, pale and desperate, clawing at the air before slipping back down. It wasn't a splash. It was a silent surrender.

Emely didn't think. Her body moved before her brain could process the danger. She sprinted to the edge and dove, the water shattering around her.

She opened her eyes underwater. The boy was sinking, his black hair floating like a halo around his head. He wasn't fighting the water; he was rigid, his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth open in a silent scream.

Emely kicked hard, her lungs burning. She grabbed his arm.

The moment her skin touched his, a shockwave tore through her. It wasn't static electricity. It was like grabbing a live wire. Heat, intense and vibrating, shot up her arm and straight into her heart.

She ignored the pain. She wrapped her arm around his chest and kicked for the surface, dragging his dead weight. They broke the surface gasping, water streaming from their faces. Emely hauled him to the edge, her muscles screaming, and shoved him onto the hot concrete.

The boy coughed, water expelling from his lungs, his chest heaving. Emely sat back on her heels, panting, wiping wet hair from her eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her voice shaking.

The boy lifted his head. Wet black hair plastered to his forehead, dripping into eyes that were an unsettling, icy blue. He didn't look grateful. He looked furious.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glared at her. "Who asked you to interfere?"

Emely blinked, stunned. "You were drowning."

"I was practicing holding my breath," he snapped, though his voice was raspy and weak. He pushed himself up, trying to regain some semblance of dignity, but his hands were shaking.

"You were sinking," Emely argued, her temper flaring. "You were convulsing."

He leaned in close. He was taller than her, even then, with a sharp jawline that promised a devastating adulthood. "Cohen, right? The little factory princess."

He reached out, his cold wet finger hooking under her chin, tilting her head up. The contact sent that same strange buzz through her skin, making the fine hairs on her arms stand up.

"Remember this," he whispered, his eyes dark. "You didn't see anything today."

Back in the sun-drenched memory, Christ hadn't pulled away immediately. He had stared at her, his thumb brushing the pulse point on her neck, his expression shifting from anger to something like curiosity.

Then, he flicked her forehead. It was a sharp, stinging sensation that broke the trance.

"Since you saved me," Christ said, a crooked, arrogant smile replacing the glare, "I suppose I owe you. Like in the fairy tales. Three wishes?"

Emely rubbed her forehead, scowling. "I don't want your wishes. I just want you to stop acting like a jerk."

Christ's smile faltered. For a second, the mask slipped, revealing a cavern of darkness behind those blue eyes. "Maybe I wanted to sink, Emely. Did you ever think of that?"

The air between them grew heavy. Emely didn't know what to say to that. The darkness in a twelve-year-old boy shouldn't run that deep.

Christ seemed to realize he'd shown too much. He reached into the pocket of his swim trunks and pulled out a ring. It was heavy, made of black obsidian, with a silver crest inlaid on the face. He tossed it into her half-empty cup of lemonade.

"A down payment," he said lightly. "If you're ever desperate. If you have nowhere else to go. Bring that to me. I'll grant your wish."

"I don't want it," Emely said, her face heating up. She felt like he was mocking her. She grabbed the cup, intending to fish the ring out and throw it back at him, but her hand slipped.

She spun around to run, eager to put distance between herself and his confusing intensity, and slammed straight into a wall.

Not a wall. A person.

The temperature in the pool area seemed to drop twenty degrees in a single second. Emely gasped, looking up.

Standing there was an older boy. Maybe sixteen. He wore a long black trench coat despite the ninety-degree heat. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and his eyes... his eyes were voids. No light reflected in them.

Brooks Collins. Christ's older brother.

He looked down at her with zero emotion. It wasn't hatred; it was the indifference of a boot regarding an ant.

Emely froze, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. The cup fell from her hand, lemonade splashing onto the concrete. The black ring clattered, spinning noisily before settling near Brooks's boot.

Brooks looked at the ring. His pupils contracted.

"Don't touch her, Brooks," Christ's voice came from behind Emely. It wasn't the voice of a child anymore. It was a command. "She's mine. She saved me."

Brooks slowly lifted his gaze from the ring to Emely's face. He didn't speak. He just inhaled deeply, as if smelling the fear radiating off her. A strange, metallic scent mixed with something like sulfur drifted from him, overpowering the chlorine.

He stepped around her, his coat brushing her arm. The fabric felt like ice.

Emely shivered violently. Christ walked past her, picked up the ring, and pressed it firmly into her palm. His fingers were warm now, a stark contrast to his brother.

"Stay away from him, little fool," Christ whispered near her ear. "He eats things like you."

The memory dissolved, leaving Emely shivering in her damp, cramped apartment. The alley, Yvonne, the impossible task-it had all been too much. After stumbling away from The Sapphire Club, the sodden envelope slipping from her numb fingers and washing away into the gutter, she had somehow made it onto the subway and back to her building, collapsing into a fitful, nightmare-plagued sleep.

She woke up with a gasp, sitting bolt upright on her lumpy mattress. Her hand was clenched so tight her knuckles were white. When she opened her fingers, the black obsidian ring sat there, dull and heavy.

She had kept it. Through the bankruptcy, through the move to this rat-infested apartment, through the weight gain that made her unrecognizable.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Cohen!" The landlord's voice boomed through the thin wood of the door. "Rent! I know you're in there! You have until tomorrow or I'm changing the locks!"

Emely curled in on herself, pulling her knees to her chest. The rolls of her stomach pressed against her thighs, a suffocating reminder of her body's betrayal. She looked at the ring. It was cold against her skin.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. She reached for it, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the name.

Kody.

Her fiancé. The only good thing left in her life.

She opened the message.

We need to talk. Come to my office. Now.

There was no heart emoji. No 'love you'. Just a command. Emely felt a prickle of unease crawl up her spine, colder than the rain, colder than Brooks Collins's shadow.

The subway ride to Wright Enterprises was a gauntlet of humiliation. Emely squeezed into a corner seat, trying to make herself small, but her hips spilled over the designated space. The woman next to her sighed loudly, shifting her body away with an exaggerated grimace, pressing a designer bag between them as a barrier.

Emely kept her eyes on the small TV screen mounted in the corner of the car. The news was playing a loop of the explosion at the Cohen Pharmaceutical plant. Smoke billowing, sirens wailing.

"Arthur Cohen faces potential criminal charges," the anchor announced. "Negligence leading to mass chemical exposure."

Emely closed her eyes. Her father. A criminal.

When she arrived at the Wright building, the receptionist-a girl Emely had once tipped a hundred dollars for Christmas-didn't smile.

"ID, please," she said, popping her gum.

"It's me, Sarah. Emely."

"Policy changed. ID."

Emely handed it over, her face burning. After a ten-minute wait where she could hear the whispers of employees behind the glass partition, Liam, Kody's assistant, came out. He didn't offer a handshake. He just gestured for her to follow.

Kody was sitting behind his massive mahogany desk. He didn't stand up. He didn't look up from his computer until Liam closed the door.

Emely tried to smile. She walked toward him, instinctively reaching out. "Kody, I got your text. Is everything okay?"

Kody held up a hand. "Sit there, Emely." He pointed to the leather chair opposite the desk. The distance between them felt like an ocean.

He slid a single sheet of paper across the polished wood. "Sign this."

Emely looked at the document. The words swam before her eyes. Termination of Engagement.

"You want to... postpone the wedding?" Her voice was small, pathetic.

Kody sighed, running a hand through his gelled hair. "Cancel. It's over."

"Why?" The word cracked. "Because of the factory? Kody, we've been together for ten years. Since high school."

Kody stood up then, walking to the window to look out at the city skyline. "The Cohen name is poison, Emely. My investors are getting nervous. I can't have Wright Enterprises dragged down by your father's incompetence."

"It was an accident!" Emely gripped the arms of the chair.

Kody turned around. His eyes were cold, assessing. He looked at her not as a woman he loved, but as a liability. His gaze traveled down her body, lingering on her midsection, her thick thighs.

"Besides," he said, his voice dropping to a cruel murmur. "Look at you. Do you really think you fit the image of a CEO's wife anymore? You're an embarrassment."

The air left the room. Emely felt like she'd been slapped. "You said you didn't care about the weight. You said it was just stress."

"That was before you doubled in size." Kody pulled a wet wipe from a dispenser on his desk and wiped his hands, as if just breathing the same air as her had made him dirty. "You disgust me, Emely."

The office door swung open. A petite blonde woman with a waist the size of Emely's neck poked her head in.

"Honey, did you want the salmon or the steak for lunch?" Her voice was syrup.

Kody's face transformed instantly. The cruelty vanished, replaced by a warm, doting smile. "Steak, Annie. Rare."

Emely recognized her. Annie Wells. His new secretary. Hired two months ago.

Annie looked at Emely, her blue eyes widening in mock surprise. "Oh! Is this the delivery lady? Did she bring the dry cleaning?"

Kody didn't correct her. He just looked at Emely with flat, dead eyes. "Sign the paper and get out."

Emely stood up. Her legs were shaking so hard she thought she might collapse. She didn't sign. She grabbed the paper, crumpled it in her fist, and turned around.

"You're a coward, Kody," she whispered.

She walked out, passing Annie, who was smirking. As the elevator doors closed, Emely saw Kody walk over to Annie and wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her close.