After I was assaulted, he was the one who went with me to the hospital for the examination, who sat beside me at the police station while I gave my statement.
When the entire school pointed and whispered, he was the one who held my hand and walked me through the crowd：“No matter what happens, I'm right here.”
Back then, I believed I had the two best people in the world.
Now both of them had betrayed me.
And behind my back, God knows how many times they'd slept together.
Every time I'd taken Leonora to the clinic for an abortion, every time I'd nursed her through recovery afterward, the memory of it made my stomach turn.
Bile surged up my throat. I spun around and ran.
I didn't know how far I went. By the time I stopped, there were no tears left.
Numb, I pulled out my phone and dialed a number：“Mrs. Henson, the bride swap you mentioned with your biological daughter. I agree.”
Delight flooded the voice on the other end：“Then in one week, Alma marries Seth, and you'll go to Harbor City for the Ashford family's luck bride ceremony.”
Once everything was settled, I went to the clinic to resign.
I wasn't just an internet personality. In real life, I was a licensed psychologist.
The moment I stepped through the door, I could feel something was off.
Then the male colleague who'd harassed me before shoved a video in my face：
“And here I thought you were some pure, innocent thing. Turns out you're a slut behind closed doors.”
“Barely legal and hanging around alleys with guys, handing out condoms yourself.”
“When you're doing therapy sessions with your male patients, you probably hand those out too, huh?”
He stood up without warning, lunged forward, and ripped my bag out of my arms.
“Let's see if this bag is full of condoms too.”
He dumped everything out at once.
Several unopened boxes of condoms tumbled onto the floor.
His eyes were filthy with intent：“Clara, how many men have you slept with, exactly?”
“If I'd known sooner what kind of woman you were, I wouldn't have wasted my breath.”
The images I had locked away broke free all at once, every frame vivid and merciless.
Pinned down in that alley. Terror flooding my chest, swallowing everything else whole.
But even then, I'd held on to enough reason to remember the survival advice I'd read online.
Pretend to cooperate to minimize injury. Offer a condom to prevent disease.
And for that, someone uploaded the footage. The victim became the slut.
“What's the matter, nothing to say? After all that time pretending to be……”
“SLAP!”
I cracked my palm across his face with everything I had.
His expression twisted with rage. He seized a fistful of my hair. “You were messing around with that many guys when you were barely out of high school, and you think you get to hit me for saying it?”
I tried to wrench free, but he flipped me around and pinned me to the floor.
“You're already this used up. One more time won't make a difference, right?”
His hands were reaching for me. A scream tore out of my throat, and some force I didn't know I had sent a chair swinging into his body.
Everything dissolved into chaos.
I stumbled out, a wreck, fingers shaking so badly I could barely unlock my phone.
Seth had destroyed that video a long time ago. How was it still out there?
In the work group chat, it had been posted by an anonymous account that no one could trace back.
I contacted a private investigator.
In less than ten minutes, I had my answer.
When I saw the name ‘Leonora Fox’, my mind went blank.
A sentence my college roommate once said surfaced out of nowhere“You got sold out and you're still sitting there happily counting the money with the person who sold you.”
With trembling hands, I messaged that same roommate.
She replied in under a minute.
Leonora had always been in love with Seth.
Everything made sense now.
Back when the video first leaked, Leonora, who had never spoken a single word to me before, showed up the very next day wanting to be my friend.
