“Liam managed the master log,” her message read. “Brendan came up with the ideas, and Liam executed the details while the others joined in for entertainment.”
My hands trembled as I opened them.
Revenge 14: Convince her that Brendan forgot her birthday.
Revenge 31: Hide her presentation slides right before her job interview.
Revenge 47: Make her wait two hours alone at the restaurant, then claim she got the date wrong.
Revenge 81: Laugh at her handmade gift in front of everyone.
There were hidden photos of me crying in my car, videos secretly recorded from across the street, and audio clips of my tearful apologies shared with laughing emojis.
Then I found Revenge 96.
Fake car crash + blood donation. If this works, it will be our greatest achievement yet.
Below it, Brendan had replied:
It’s guaranteed to work. Chloe would do anything if she thinks I’m dying.
I shut off my phone, ran to the bathroom, and threw up in the sink.
My mother found me sitting on the cold floor. Without asking questions, she gently held my hair back the way she had when I was a child.
“Three entire years of my life,” I sobbed quietly against her shoulder.
“I know, sweetheart,” she whispered soothingly.
“How could I have been so blind?” I cried out.
“Because you were looking for reasons to believe he loved you, not searching for proof that he hated you,” my mother answered softly.
We moved to Tucson the next week.
My father began working at a regional firm, while my mother settled into early retirement.
Changing cities didn’t magically fix everything. Some mornings, I still missed Brendan. I remembered good dinners or rare afternoons when he seemed genuinely affectionate.
Whenever nostalgia tried to rewrite the past, I opened the revenge folder, read Revenge 96, and remembered exactly who he was.
I found a part-time job at a downtown bakery and enrolled in a community arts program.
One afternoon, I stopped outside a small dance studio and watched a class through the window.
The instructor opened the door.
“Are you looking to sign up for a class?”
“No,” I replied softly. “I just used to dance a long time ago.”
“Well, that’s an easy problem to fix,” she smiled, inviting me inside.
My first sessions were painful.
My muscles were stiff, my timing was poor, and every mirror reminded me of that university championship.
But I kept returning.
