Chapter 5
The phone kept ringing. I stared at “Mason Knox” flashing across my screen but couldn’t bring
myself to answer.
My screen filled with his desperate messages–frantic questions about Mom’s whereabouts, where she’d gone, where I’d gone, why I wasn’t answering his calls.
Reading his texts, my fingers trembled, emotion’s churning inside me.
So now he remembered to care about Mom and me? It all felt meaningless now.
I watched his name blinking on my screen, then finally turned off my phone.
I’d been away from work for a while. During these days, I’d cut myself off from all outside contact, all voices, hiding myself in a corner of this city.
Since Mom’s death, I hadn’t truly rested. I felt exhausted, my eyelids too heavy to lift, wanting nothing but sleep.
I tried to sort through my thoughts, searching for a way to start over, but reality felt like an airless net, binding me so tightly I could barely breathe.
Mason Knox–once the most beautiful presence in my life, now my deepest nightmare.
I never imagined that the man I’d loved for so long, the man I’d sacrificed everything for, had been orchestrating an elaborate scheme from the moment we got together.
Back then, Mason and I met when we were both nobodies. He was just starting his business venture, full of passion and ambition, while I was a fresh college graduate with dreams and hopes for the future.
I gave him everything I had.
But what I never expected was that he’d never trusted me–that for all these years, he’d been testing
- me.
All those years Mom and I pinched pennies to pay off his “debts,” only to end up like this.
I’d cried until I had no tears left.
20.32
Run from Your Killing Lies, Leave You to Suffer Forever
Chapter 3
I used to believe we would walk this path together forever. Now I realized how terribly wrong I’d
been.
During the days we were together, he was always busy. I always thought his busy schedule was for our future, so even when I didn’t see him for long periods, I never questioned it.
Until that day when I overheard his conversation with Piper.
This world is ridiculous, isn’t it?
Compared to his deception, I almost would’ve preferred our relationship to die in a blaze of outright
betrayal.
But reality doesn’t change based on what I want.
I couldn’t accept it, which is why I ultimately chose to leave–to leave this world of lies and betrayal.
So I submitted my resignation without telling anyone, including Mason.
I just wanted to escape–escape from the place that broke my heart and the man who made me wish I were dead.
What I didn’t know was that during the days after I left, Mason was creating storms wherever he
went.
20:32 D
