Four years. I poured the best years of my youth and every ounce of my heart into my boyfriend Damian, becoming the perfect live-in girlfriend. But when his childhood sweetheart, the woman he'd always carried a torch for, returned from London, he gave her every bit of his care and affection. On my birthday, just because his sweetheart liked mangoes, he ordered a mango cake despite my severe allergy. When the sweetheart faked concern for me, he said casually: "Amelia's just my housekeeper. She's sensible. She won't make a scene." That was when I woke up. I was nothing but a substitute, a bed-warmer to fill the years she'd been away. This time, I didn't cry. I didn't make a scene. I didn't beg for his attention the way I'd done so many times before. I started a thirty-day countdown. "Damian, it's time to say goodbye." Chapter 1 Amelia's POV For four years, I gave my youth, my pride, and my loyalty to Damian Mosley without reservation. It wasn't until Blake Cross decided to return from London that I realized I was nothing more than a tool to keep his bed warm. The day Blake's flight landed at JFK, Damian completely forgot our third-anniversary dinner. He left me alone at an empty restaurant table, didn't even bother with a decent excuse, and merely said offhandedly that an old friend needed him more. I stood by the dim living room window, pressing my phone tight to my ear. On the other end, my mother's gentle voice crossed six time zones, traveling all the way from Paris. "Amelia, sweetheart, have you decided?" she asked. "The design school called your father yesterday. They want your signed acceptance letter by the end of the month." I stared at the cold glass, watching the reflection of my exhausted face. "I'll go, Mom," I said softly. "I'm coming back to Paris." A relieved breath came through the phone. "Thank God," she whispered. "Your father and I have been worried you'd trap yourself here for the rest of your life. We'll get the guest room ready right away, and your father will start looking for a studio apartment near the university." "Mom, you don't have to go to all that trouble," I said, keeping my voice steady. "I just need to put an end to things." "We understand, sweetheart. Just come home. We're waiting for you." We said goodbye, and the screen went dark. I sat alone on the edge of the sofa in the pitch-black living room, listening to the low hum of the refrigerator. My eyes had no more tears left. When pain lasts long enough, it stops burning and turns to cold, dead ash. At two in the morning, the heavy sound of the front door lock turning shattered the silence. The door swung open, and the harsh hallway light flooded in. I didn't get up to hand him his slippers the way I had every night for three years. I didn't take his coat. I just sat there, blinking against the sudden light. Damian kicked off his leather shoes and tossed his keys onto the entryway table. He noticed me on the sofa and paused. "Why are you sitting in the dark?" he asked in his usual cold tone. He didn't walk toward me. He didn't meet my eyes. "Thinking," I replied calmly. "You haven't answered a single message all night." Damian loosened his silk tie and unbuttoned his collar. "The tech startup's servers crashed before five," he said smoothly, lying without a flinch. "I was in the system room with the junior engineers all night, patching it up. My phone died." A total lie, delivered with such practiced ease. He was certain I would never doubt him. He took off his suit jacket, draped it over the armchair, and headed straight for the bathroom. The bathroom door clicked shut, and the sound of running water echoed through the apartment. On the coffee table, his personal phone suddenly lit up. A rapid series of notifications buzzed, vibrating against the glass surface. I reached out. My fingers were steady, not a single tremor. I picked up the phone. For three years, I'd respected his privacy and never touched his screen. But tonight, I didn't care. I entered his birthday on the lock screen. It unlocked instantly. The chat app was open, right in the center of the screen. The contact was labeled with nothing but a lone star emoji. "Damian, thank you so much for tonight," the latest message read. "The apartment you rented for me in Brooklyn is amazing. You even remembered I like white lilies on the kitchen counter. I don't know what I'd have done without you today." My fingers went ice-cold as I scrolled up through the chat history. Every single message from Blake had been answered within sixty seconds. When she landed at noon, he replied: "I'm waiting at Terminal 4." At eight, when she complained about jet lag, he replied: "Got your favorite clam chowder. Opening the door now." And when I texted him asking if he wanted chicken soup for dinner, his reply to her was: "Take a hot bath. I'll handle the landlord." I switched back to our chat thread. The screen was filled with nothing but my green message bubbles, a one-sided monologue that never ended. "Have you eaten lunch?" "Remember to take your vitamins." "Can you be home before ten?" Not a single reply. The occasional response was a single cold word: "Busy." I stared at the gap between the two conversations. It was almost absurd enough to be funny. My chest felt hollow, like an abandoned building with all its windows smashed out. But my heartbeat didn't even quicken. The pain had long since gone numb. It had finished its final, slow torture. I carefully wiped the fingerprints off the screen with my sleeve, set the phone back exactly where it had been on the glass table, and leaned back into the sofa. I remembered the day I first met Damian on campus, four years ago. Back then, he was the brilliant computer science prodigy, favored by professors, the object of desire for half the female student body. The way he looked at the world was always cold and distant, as if nothing on earth deserved his attention. I'd been a fool, chasing him for an entire year. I'd figured out the exact way he liked his pour-over coffee, bitter and black. I sat in the front row without fail at every robotics competition. When his roommate was away on spring break and he ran a fever, I stayed by his side without undressing, nursing him through the night. When he finally agreed to be my boyfriend three years ago, I thought my devotion had melted that block of ice. I thought he was simply someone who didn't know how to show warmth to the world. It wasn't until six months ago, when his laptop hard drive crashed and I sent it for repair, that I saw the truth. In a hidden folder dated years ago, there were thousands of photos of Blake Cross. Blake laughing at a summer picnic. Blake asleep on the train, wrapped in Damian's jacket. Blake holding both his hands tightly at their high school graduation. I eventually tracked down one of his old high school friends, bought him a few beers, and finally got the truth out of him. Ever since he was twelve, Damian had been hopelessly in love with Blake. She'd rejected him before leaving for London to pursue her fashion dream, telling him they were better off as childhood friends. And a month after Blake left the country, Damian finally agreed to date me. I was never his girlfriend. I was just a substitute teacher, keeping order in an empty classroom, waiting for the real teacher to decide whether to come back. Now, Blake was back in New York. And my thirty-day silent countdown was about to begin.

Amelia's POV The bathroom timer went off. Thirty seconds later, Damian walked out with a towel around his neck. Water droplets fell from his dark hair, soaking through his gray cotton T-shirt. He didn't even glance at me. His gaze went straight to the coffee table, landing precisely on the phone. He snatched it up, unlocked it, and his thumbs flew across the screen. He walked quickly into the study, never pausing for a second. I stood in the living room doorway, watching his back. "Damian," I said, breaking the silence, "it's past two in the morning. Aren't you going to sleep?" He didn't turn around. "I need to check the deployment logs," he said, eyes glued to the screen. "Go to bed. Don't wait up." I didn't argue. I didn't point out that he'd claimed his phone was completely dead. I just walked back to the hallway and watched him through the half-open study door. As he typed out another message, a rare, gentle smile curved his lips. In three years of living together, I'd never seen him smile like that. With me, he was always stern, exhausted, or cold. At that moment, the knot that had been lodged in my chest for so long finally came undone. He wasn't emotionally obtuse. He wasn't incapable of love. He just saved all his tenderness for someone else. I closed the bedroom door, locked it, and lay down on one side of the large bed. For the first time in months, I slept peacefully. I woke at seven the next morning, put on a trench coat, and went down to the corner diner. I bought two plain bagels, brought him a black coffee, and got an iced tea for myself. When I got back to the apartment, Damian was already sitting at the kitchen island, wearing a crisp white shirt. He looked up from his tablet, took the paper bag from me, and started spreading cream cheese on a bagel. He ate quickly, glancing at his watch every two minutes. "You seem to be in a hurry," I said, taking a slow sip of tea. "It's Saturday. Two weeks ago, you promised you'd take me to the botanical garden this weekend." Damian paused. The butter knife froze mid-air. He cleared his throat and looked away, avoiding my gaze. "Amelia, the project funding committee had a last-minute emergency. Professor Vance called an urgent review. I have to be at the lab by ten." I chewed my bagel calmly and nodded. "Okay." He was surprised that I didn't show any displeasure or argue. In the past, whenever he broke a promise, I'd either pout, or cook an elaborate meal to win him back, or even beg him to stay just one more hour. My unusual calm was clearly making him uneasy. He set down the knife and reached across the counter, patting my wrist. "I'll make it up to you next month," he said, making another empty promise. "We'll go upstate for the whole weekend. I promise." I didn't respond to his promise. His gaze moved away from my face to the wall by the refrigerator. There hung a small brass hook, holding a thick tear-off calendar—one I'd picked up from an antique shop the previous afternoon. On the first page, a bold, striking number was printed: "30." "What's that?" he asked, frowning at the bright red digit. "Since when did we start using a paper calendar?" I stood up, walked to the calendar, and pinched the corner of the top page between two fingers. With a crisp tear, I ripped off the page marked "30" and dropped it into the trash can beneath the counter. The page below showed "29." "It's a countdown," I said evenly. "The deadline for an important project." Damian let out a sigh of relief. He visibly relaxed. "Right, your design firm is bidding on that rebranding account. Don't push yourself too hard." He wiped his mouth with a napkin, grabbed his briefcase, and headed for the door. "I might be late tonight. I'll stop by that Broadway patisserie on the way back and get you some lemon tarts." The door clicked shut behind him. I stood in the silent apartment, listening to his footsteps fade down the hallway. What he didn't know was that lemon tarts were Blake's favorite—not mine. I was allergic to citrus zest. I'd told him on our first date three years ago, but he'd never remembered. Only after the hallway fell completely silent did I go into the storage closet and drag out three heavy-duty black garbage bags. It was time to clean house. I started with the bathroom. On the sink sat a pair of matching ceramic toothbrush cups, one I'd bought when we first signed the lease. His was navy blue. Mine was pale pink. I threw the pink cup into the garbage bag without hesitation. Then the matching bath towels, the strawberry body wash he'd complained was too sweet, and my backup skincare products. Next, the living room. On the sofa were two throw pillows embroidered with our initials. I ripped off the pillowcases and stuffed them into the bag. The matching mugs on the dining table, the framed photo of us at his college graduation—where he wore only a faint, forced smile while I beamed with pride—even the succulent I'd tended on the windowsill, all went into the bags. By noon, the apartment felt noticeably emptier. Every trace that a woman named Amelia had ever lived there was being systematically erased. To him, this three-bedroom apartment had always been nothing but a convenient hotel—someone did his laundry, and hot meals appeared on time. Unless the walls themselves started crumbling, he'd never notice a thing was missing.

Amelia's POV At six in the evening, the sun sank below the Manhattan skyline, casting long orange streaks across the hardwood floor. I tied up the three black garbage bags and dragged them one by one into the service elevator at the back. I hurled the remnants of three years of my life into the metal dumpster in the alley. The lid clanged shut. My palms were dusty, but my shoulders felt lighter than they had in years. I went back upstairs, sat on the empty sofa, and unlocked my phone. I opened social media and found an account I'd discovered months ago: "Blake Cross Studio." Just five minutes ago, it had a new post. The photo was taken from the passenger seat of Damian's Audi. The dashboard clock read 5:15 PM. Outside the window, the Hudson River shimmered in the golden sunset. In the bottom right corner, Blake's manicured hand held a pastry box tied with the signature blue ribbon of that famous Broadway patisserie. On the center console next to the box lay Damian's black watch, the one I knew so well. His hand rested casually beside hers. The caption read: "Some people always know how to cheer you up after a long flight. Seven years, and he still brings the only dessert worth my attention." I stared at the photo. It was the exact patisserie Damian had promised to stop by for me that morning. He hadn't been trapped in any emergency project review. He'd spent the entire afternoon driving Blake around the city, buying her favorite desserts, playing the loyal knight. I remembered how I'd first found Blake's social media account. Last winter, Damian left his tablet on the kitchen island without locking it. A shipping notification popped up: an expensive, handcrafted emerald cashmere scarf was out for delivery. Three weeks later, at Christmas, Damian gave me a scarf. Same emerald green. Same cashmere. I'd thought it was a thoughtful gift—until I saw Blake's post from London. She was wearing the exact same scarf, with a caption: "Even across the ocean, he knows green is the color that brings out my eyes." Damian had bought two. One for the woman he adored. One for his live-in housekeeper. I looked around the living room. The throw blanket was emerald. The dinner plates had olive-green rims. Even the hand soap in the bathroom was eucalyptus and pear. Every preference Damian had imposed on this apartment wasn't his own. It was a perfect replica of Blake Cross's taste. For three years, he'd sculpted me into her shadow, using my face and my body to build a safe, domestic shrine to the goddess he couldn't touch. A cold, heavy feeling settled in my stomach, but not a single tear fell. My grief had long since dried up, replaced by absolute, bone-deep clarity. At 11:30 PM, the front door lock clicked again. Damian walked into the foyer. His hands were empty. No pastry box. No mention of the lemon tarts he'd promised. Instead, he faintly smelled of floral perfume and expensive gin. He walked past the dining table, undoing his cuffs. Suddenly, he stopped and looked around. His brow furrowed in confusion. "Did the cleaner come today?" he asked, staring at the bare countertop. "Where did the throw pillows go? And the fruit bowl?" I leaned against the sofa arm, smiling calmly at him. "I threw them out," I said flatly. "They were old and dusty. I decided to declutter." Damian frowned, studying the bare coffee table. "You threw out the pillows? Those were custom, weren't they?" "They're just fabric," I said, my voice without inflection. "Things wear out. If they're useless, they just take up space. Better to throw them out and have some peace." He stared at my face for two seconds, but I wore an unassailable, composed smile. He shrugged it off, writing it off as a woman's whim. "Whatever. It looks cleaner this way anyway." He sat down at the other end of the sofa, loosened his collar, and tapped his knee thoughtfully. "By the way, Amelia," he said, feigning casualness. "You used to do embroidery and hand-sewing, right? Do you still?" "Sometimes," I said. "Can you make me a vintage embroidered hoop? You know, the kind with retro botanical patterns stitched in gold thread." He pulled out his phone and started scrolling. "Someone at the office wants one as a souvenir. You're good at this. Can you finish one by next week?" I didn't need to look at his screen. Two days ago, Blake had posted a set of vintage Victorian embroidery hoops on her public feed, with the caption: "The new studio walls need something like this. Too bad all the good artisans are fully booked." He wanted me to spend hours hand-sewing a gift for the woman he loved, so he could pass it off as his own and win her favor. The audacity was breathtaking. "Sure," I said, looking him straight in the eye. "I'll make it for you." A flicker of guilt crossed Damian's face, but selfish relief quickly took over. "Thanks," he said, awkwardly patting my shoulder. "I'll send the design details to your email." He stood up and walked straight into the study to message her again, completely unaware that in every way that mattered, I had already left his world.