Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English | NEW
Synopsis
Just when I had finally gathered all the evidence to report my high school bully, Tiffany Sterling,
Julian Miller, who had supposedly been bullied alongside me, took the file from my hands. He pulled me into his arms with absolute tenderness.
"Chloe, let me handle this. You should put all this behind you and start a new life."
I sobbed against his chest, truly believing I had found my savior.
Until three years later, in a gated luxury neighborhood, I saw Tiffany slap him across the face, wearing the exact same arrogant smirk from years ago.
"Did you enjoy that?"
Julian bowed his head with twisted devotion, knelt down, and kissed the toe of her designer heel.
The moment I saw Tiffany again, my chest seized. My entire body broke into an uncontrollable tremble.
She was just as she had been back then—gorgeous, haughty, and untouchable.
Except she shouldn't have been here!
I hid behind a stone pillar across the street, biting down on my lip until I tasted blood.
A man stepped out of the luxury car parked opposite her.
He walked over to Tiffany, his head submissively lowered.
He let her run her manicured fingers slowly through his hair, down across his lips, and resting at his throat.
The next second, her hand cracked across his face.
"Did you enjoy that?"
I heard Tiffany ask.
The man didn't utter a word. Instead, he dropped to his knees with quiet reverence.
He kissed the tip of her shoe.
Like a fanatic worshipping his goddess.
I stared at the scene in sheer disbelief, gasping for air.
Why was Julian kneeling at Tiffany's feet? Why was he kissing her shoes?
And why was Tiffany here when she was supposed to be behind bars?
My hands shook violently as I pulled out my phone and dialed Julian's number. My racing pulse pounded in my ears.
"Hello? Where are you?"
On the other end of the line, Julian's voice was shaking even harder than mine.
"Chloe, I'm tied up with something right now. I can't talk. I'll call you when I'm done."
He hung up. I stumbled out of the gated community.
It was mid-summer, yet a bone-chilling cold swept over me.
Cars zipped past in a blur. I felt trapped inside a soundproof bubble, cut off from the entire world.
Before I collapsed, everything faded to black.
When I woke up, the ER doctor told me it was a mix of severe shock and heat exhaustion. Once the IV fluids finished dripping, my head cleared up a bit.
There were still no messages from Julian.
I took an Uber home and tore through our apartment like a madwoman, ripping through all of Julian's things.
His closet was packed with our matching couple's hoodies. Next to his pillow sat a plush doll printed with my face.
In his desk drawer were my medical charts and two thick journals filled with detailed notes he had kept on my therapy sessions.
Page after page, packed with meticulous care.
I slumped to the floor and broke down into agonizing sobs.
I had just found endless proof of his love for me, but all it really proved was how terrifyingly well he had faked it.
Finally, tucked away in the deepest corner of the closet, I found his old high school backpack.
It was stained with dried paint, ink, and even blood that bullies had maliciously poured over it years ago.
Inside, there was only an old iPhone 6.
With trembling fingers, I tapped the screen open. There was only one contact saved in the entire phone.
The contact name read: "My Untouchable Goddess."
Tiffany was his goddess. Then what the hell was I?
Tears blurred my vision as I scrolled through five years' worth of chat logs.
As the sun sank below the horizon, I snapped pictures of every crucial message with my phone.
During those few hours, every word I read felt like a serrated blade carving into my heart.
Sitting in the fading twilight, one realization became crystal clear to me: unbearable agony could turn into bone-deep, relentless hatred!During my junior year of high school, I transferred to Julian's school.
On my very first day, I walked into the hallway restroom and caught Tiffany Sterling beating Julian until his temple bled.
"Need to pee? Go use the one downstairs," Tiffany said, tilting her head as she ground her heel into Julian's face.
I was terrified. But just as I turned to run, my eyes met Julian's.
His eyes looked like a placid, untouched lake—crystal clear, calm, completely devoid of fear.
"Let him go, or I'm going straight to the principal's office!" I heard myself shout.
Tiffany looked up. She took her foot off Julian's face and offered me a sweet, toxic smile.
"Fine."
The next second, she grabbed a fistful of my hair and slammed my forehead directly against the porcelain sink.
"Then you take his place."
From that day forward, Tiffany's target became me.
Or more accurately, me and Julian.
She would force us to slap each other across the face. Whoever's face was less swollen had to strip off a layer of clothing.
I tried telling the school. I even called the police.
Yet every single time, Tiffany showed up the next morning completely untouched, while I was dragged into corners and beaten even worse.
When I went home that weekend, my usually gentle mother blew up at me the second she saw me.
"What do you mean you want to transfer again?!
Your dad just passed away! Do you have any idea how many strings I had to pull to get you into this prep school? And you start causing trouble on day one!
The administration called me! They said you're picking fights with classmates every single day! Even the police came to my door telling me to keep you in line!"
That was the day I realized Tiffany had connections far beyond the reach of local cops.
I closed my eyes in despair, telling myself I just had to survive two more years.
I didn't care how powerful her family was. Once I went away to college out of state, everything would get better.
The night before the SAT, Tiffany broke into my home and snapped my right wrist.
"Hey there, little straight-A nerd," she purred. "I'm sure you can still get a top score using your left hand, right?"
I didn't sleep that entire night. I cried while practicing filling in bubble sheets with my left hand.
I thought the nightmare would finally end once the test was over.
Instead, when I walked through my front door after the exam, my mother welcomed me with a stinging slap across the cheek.
"Is this what you've become?! Did I raise you just so you could whore around with some random boy?!"
My mother screamed at me hysterically. Behind her, Tiffany was lounging on our sofa with her legs crossed, watching me with pure mockery.
Julian stood off to the side, silent as always.
My mother dragged me by my collar to the framed portrait of my late father, her eyes wild with rage:
"Get on your knees and apologize to your father! Tell him you're a disgrace!"
I cried out in grief and fury, "Mom! Why won't you just let me explain?!"
My mother looked dazed, her eyes glassy and unfocused. "I raised you with everything I had, and you treat me like this?! Are you going to kneel or not?!"
I refused to kneel in front of my father's memory while Tiffany sat there watching. It was sickening.
"You won't kneel? Fine... then I have nothing left to live for!"
She threw herself off our 18th-floor balcony. That afternoon, I lost my mother too.
In the chaos that followed, a blister pack of pills slipped from Tiffany's pocket onto the floor.
Only later did I find out they were potent hallucinogens.
When my test scores came out, my ruined wrist meant I could only get into a local community college.
The day before classes started, I compiled every scrap of evidence I had gathered, ready to report Tiffany to the state prosecutor.
Julian stopped me.
"Chloe, let me do this. You shouldn't spend the rest of your life trapped in hatred.
If your parents were still here, they wouldn't want to see you like this."
His eyes were just as they were when I first met him—gentle, pure, and sincere.
I buried my face in his chest, believing he was my salvation.By the time Julian returned home, I had already put everything back in place.
He wrapped his arms around me like he always did, murmuring about funny little things that happened during his day. A wave of nausea hit me so hard I gagged.
I shoved him away, ran into the bathroom, and dry-heaved over the toilet.
Julian rushed in right behind me, patting my back with anxious concern.
"What's wrong? Why are you suddenly sick?"
The faint red mark of a slap still lingered on his cheek.
I reached out and touched it. His body stiffened instantly.
"What happened here?"
He shifted uncomfortably and touched his face. "I bumped into something at work today."
I forced a faint smile and sat back against the tile floor.
"If I remember correctly, Tiffany gets released from prison this year, right?"
He stared at me in surprise. I had never willingly brought up Tiffany's name in years.
"Where's the safe? Now that she's getting out, I can't sleep. I want to see the evidence files again."
Julian had told me back then that after he reported Tiffany, he locked all the documents in a safe so I wouldn't be triggered by them anymore.
If I wanted to expose Tiffany now, I needed those two years of evidence back.
Julian sighed heavily. "Is this because her release date is coming up? Are you having another episode?
How about I book an appointment with your therapist again? You should go talk to him."
My breath hitched as I stared at him in utter disbelief.
Years ago, when my depression was at its worst, Julian claimed he found me a top psychiatrist.
I never realized that my so-called "therapy" was actually being locked in a clinic room, subjected to constant psychological manipulation and gaslighting.
When I was finally released six weeks later, Julian gently told me Tiffany had been convicted and sent away.
He had fabricated the entire thing to keep me docile.
Choking down my revulsion, I took his hand. "I'm fine. I'm okay now, just curious."
I couldn't blow my cover yet. I had to find that safe.
Whenever Julian showered, he always put on buttoned-up pajamas. Even in the sweltering heat of summer, he wore long sleeves to bed every single night.
I had never questioned it before, but tonight, everything clicked.
Peeking through the cracked bathroom door, I saw his body covered in crisscrossing scars, both old and new.
Many of them were fresh, oozing raw red scratches.
I remembered what I had read during my frantic online searches this afternoon.
The forums said that people like them enjoyed this twisted dynamic mutually.
If they wanted their sick little fetish games, why drag me into it? What did my innocent mother ever do to them?
Hatred surged through my veins like ice water. I texted Julian saying I felt unwell and went to sleep in the guest room.
This continued for several days, but I still couldn't find the safe anywhere in the apartment.
Desperate, I went back to my parents' old house. Sitting before their portraits on the memorial table, I broke down in tears.
"Mom... I'm so sorry. I was so stupid."
I had let the enemy sleep beside me for years, living a lie while you died for nothing!
As I wept, my hand brushed against a red cloth covering a box beneath the altar table.
On an impulse, I yanked the cloth away.
A digital safe sat right there!
Julian had hidden it in my dead parents' home!
I punched in our anniversary, and the lock clicked open.
Yet inside, instead of the medical reports, photos, and incident logs I had painstakingly collected, there was only a stack of handwritten notes.
My hands shook as I picked one up.
The happiest part of my day is being stepped on by you.
I will do anything for you, Tiffany.
I grabbed the notes and shredded them into tiny pieces.
He had the audacity to stash his sick, perverted confessions right beneath my parents' pictures!
None of that mattered right now. My priority was finding my original evidence.I hailed an Uber back to the apartment, intending to search his study one more time.
Unexpectedly, as I reached the door, muffled sounds echoed from inside.
It sounded like a leather belt striking bare flesh.
I clamped a hand over my mouth and took two steps back, my heart pounding in my throat.
"This is what gets you off, isn't it? Two years playing house with Chloe must've been so boring."
"You really are a pathetic little pet. You crave the pain."
Tiffany's mocking, sultry voice drifted through the door.
I took a sharp breath and shoved the door wide open.
Tiffany sat on our living room couch in sheer black stockings and stiletto heels. Julian was kneeling at her feet, his shirt unbuttoned.
I glared at Julian with pure hatred.
"What are you doing?"
Julian scrambled to his feet in a panic, stammering excuses that made no sense.
Tiffany stood up leisurely, not the slightest bit flustered.
"Long time no see, straight-A student."
"Can't an old friend catch up with an old pal?"
She tilted her head, watching me with the exact same condescending cruelty from high school.
My fingernails dug so hard into my palms that they pierced the skin, fighting the instinctive terror wired into my bones.
"Did you enjoy prison? Congratulations on getting out."
She burst into hysterical laughter, as if I had told the funniest joke in the world.
"Prison? Hahahahaha! Oh, absolutely. All thanks to you!"
Julian cut in abruptly, stepping between us.
"Enough! Chloe, I'm going to take Tiffany home first.
We all need to move past what happened back then. Just think about it and calm down!"
Without another glance at me, he wrapped an arm around Tiffany's waist and walked out the door.
I collapsed onto the couch.
Move past it?
What about my mother?! She was completely innocent!
Just to satisfy Tiffany's sick, sadistic boredom, my mother was drugged into psychosis and jumped to her death.
And the monster responsible suffered zero consequences.
I told myself over and over: hold it in. Endure it until you find the evidence!
Around dinner time, Julian came back.
He sat across from me at the dining table. After a heavy silence, he spoke first.
"Chloe, why can't you just let it go?
We were young back then. Tiffany was immature, but it's been two years! Are you going to stay trapped in the past forever?!
Besides, Tiffany already paid her price!"
His voice grew heated, almost defensive.
Paid her price? What price did she ever pay?
I stared blankly at my plate and kept my mouth shut.
He let out an exasperated sigh, sounding defeated.
"You want that old evidence, right? Fine. I'll tell you the truth: it's gone."
My head snapped up. I stared at him, stunned.
"The day after you handed it to me two years ago, I burned every single page!"
My mind went completely blank. Tears spilled silently down my cheeks.
Two years of relentless torment, my broken wrist before the SATs, my mother's horrific death... all wiped away with a casual "I burned it"?
Perhaps the raw hatred in my eyes was too intense, because Julian's gaze turned cold and annoyed.
"Stay here and reflect on yourself. I'll pick you up in three days!
If you're still this obsessed, I'll bring the therapist back to help you get your head straight!"
He slammed the front door behind him, leaving me alone in the dining room to shatter completely.
Three days later, Julian returned.
He carried a designer dress in a gift box and helped me slip into it.
"Chloe, happy birthday."He pressed a gentle kiss against my neck. Only then did I realize today was my birthday.
I remembered my birthday last year, when Julian had spent the whole day with me.
Back then, he looked into my eyes with clear, adoring warmth:
"I hope my Chloe can leave all her pain in the past and live happily forever."
Only a year had passed, and everything was a sickening lie.
He took my hand. "The party's about to start. Chloe, I invited a lot of people to celebrate with you."
I pressed my lips together, silent.
Ever since high school, I had hated crowds. I had no close friends left.
Every birthday before this had just been the two of us at home.
Why this year...? I glanced at Julian, but his face gave away nothing.
When we arrived at the hotel, Julian pushed open the grand doors to the private banquet hall.
A spotlight hit us, and I instinctively squinted.
When my eyes adjusted, I saw a room full of faces I hadn't seen in years.
There was Kaitlyn Drake, who used to stand guard outside the girls' bathroom while Tiffany beat me.
There was Trent Cooper, who dumped black ink over my head during class just to make Tiffany laugh.
Every single one of my tormentors was there!
I gripped Julian's arm in sheer panic.
"What... what is this?!"
I stared at the crowd in terror.
Julian patted my hand, offering me what he thought was a soothing smile.
The words that came out of his mouth chilled me to the bone.
"Chloe, your fixation is unhealthy, so I invited them to your party.
Tiffany wants to use this opportunity to formally apologize to you.
After tonight, we leave it all behind. Forget about the evidence and the past, okay?"
With that, Tiffany stepped forward, draped in a striking crimson cocktail dress.
She extended a manicured hand toward me, wearing that same predatory, dangerous grin from the high school bathroom.
"Sorry about back then, straight-A girl."
A flippant, five-word apology to erase two years of hell.
My vision flared red. I slapped her hand away with all my might.
"Drop the act, Tiffany! I will never forgive you. Never!"
Tiffany stumbled back slightly. The very next second, a hard backhand struck across my face, sending me crashing to the floor.
Trent pointed at me, sneering, "Tiffany lowering herself to apologize is giving you face! Don't be an ungrateful bitch!"
Beside her, Julian instantly pulled Tiffany into his arms.
He gently cradled her hand, pressing kisses to her knuckles without sparing a single glance at me on the floor.
"Does it hurt, Tiffany? I'm so sorry. I failed to protect you!"
Looking at the room full of people standing united against me, the last ember of warmth in my heart died.
After soothing Tiffany, Julian turned to me, his eyes blazing with fury.
"Chloe, apologize to Tiffany right now!
She swallowed her pride and apologized in front of everyone! What more do you want?!"
I stood up slowly. The blood in my veins felt like pure ice.
The burning sting on my cheek forced me back into reality.
I took a deep, steady breath and looked Julian dead in the eye.
"Julian Miller, you make me sicker than any of them."
Meeting his suddenly panicked gaze, I grabbed the collar of the dress he had dressed me in and ripped it straight down the middle.
I turned on my heel and walked out.
The moment I exited the hotel lobby, I broke into uncontrollable sobs.
When my mother died, the only thing that kept me alive was the burning need for justice.
Now that the evidence was destroyed, my only anchor had vanished.
"Chloe? What are you doing out here? What happened?"
I looked up. A man in a police uniform was looking down at me with genuine concern.
"Officer Stone?"
Officer Mark Stone was the only person who had truly tried to help me when I was bullied.
He had just joined the precinct back then, an idealistic rookie who tried to fight the system alongside me.
Seeing my state, he spoke gently.
"You know, back then I thought you were the bravest girl I'd ever met. Even after everything they did to you, you still stood up to protect yourself."
A sudden realization struck me like lightning.
Two years ago, after I compiled all that evidence, I had emailed a full digital copy to Officer Stone to ask if we could build a case!
I scrambled to my feet, my heart pounding with hope. Just then, my phone rang.
It was Julian.
Chapters (5)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Watch & Promotions
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