I Will Climb Over the Mountain and See the Boundless Clear Sky

Junior year, my rich boyfriend bought me an apartment.

It sat in the most expensive development downtown, right next door to the love nest his childhood sweetheart had bought for her working-class boyfriend.

The first day I moved in, he gave me my orders.

You've got one month. Break them up, or get out.

I nodded like my life depended on it, then chose my words carefully.

"The HOA fees on this place are too steep, I can't keep it up. Once it's done, could you switch it to cash instead..."

He frowned, thoroughly put off.

"Whatever you want."

I pressed my lips together and gave him my word.

"Don't worry. Once it's done, I'll disappear completely."

He looked at me like I was an idiot.

"I only told you to break them up. I never said anything about breaking up with you. Where's your head at?"

I blinked.

But once this semester was over, I was going abroad to study.

If we weren't breaking up, was I supposed to keep him around for the holidays?

01

Samuel Gilbert had a bad temper.

I thought it over and decided not to correct him.

Once he had his little sweetheart back, there'd be no more use for a prop like me anyway.

"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and take a picture, post it."

"Don't forget the location tag."

The man on the couch shot me a sidelong look, then tossed a phone at me.

The newest model on the market, no screen protector, no case.

I fumbled to catch it.

Then I snapped a few shots of the view outside and the room inside, and paired them, out of practice, with an over-the-top caption.

Loving someone is like tending a flower. Thank you, my Sam, for giving me the first real home of my life~

The second I posted it, the phone wouldn't stop buzzing.

I didn't have to open it to know eight out of ten were snide little digs.

The rest were pure venom.

Nothing to be done about it. The phone was Samuel's doing.

Everyone in it was either some snob of a young master or young lady like him, or a bootlicker like me.

And those were exactly the people who could carry the news, with perfect aim, to the ears Samuel wanted it to reach.

Sure enough, half an hour later, the doorbell rang.

Lena Fisher was here.

Samuel went to answer it. I was in the kitchen, staring blankly at the chicken soup bubbling on the stove.

The two of them said something at the entryway, too low for me to catch.

Until the woman's voice came closer and closer.

"...Where is she? Three months in and you buy her an apartment? I'd love to see what kind of woman slipped you this love potion..."

I took a deep breath and walked out of the kitchen.

And ran straight into Lena, fury blazing.

The instant she saw me, she froze.

Two seconds later, she suddenly laughed out loud.

"Samuel, have you lost your mind, or have you been reading too many body-double stories? Where did you dig up someone who looks this much like me?"

The man stood behind her, his gaze settling heavily on her, but he said nothing.

I wiped my hands awkwardly on my apron and forced out a smile.

"Hi, you must be Lena? Sam's mentioned you a lot. I..."

Before I could finish, Lena's fingers had already clamped onto my chin.

Those almond eyes, seventy percent like mine, brimmed with careless malice.

"No wonder people in the circle say you're all groveling and pretense, yet you won't post a single clear photo of your face. Turns out you just don't have the face for it."

"This face cost quite a bit, didn't it?"

My chin ached under her grip. All I dared do was throw Samuel a pleading look.

He only glanced coolly at the hand on my chin and sighed.

"Lena, don't. What if you break the nails you just had done?"

Lena let go.

The next second, a slap landed on my face, not light, not hard.

I froze. She smiled.

"Tsk. Pretty convincing."

"Go on, tell me. With a face like that, how much are you planning to milk out of him?"

My left cheek stung faintly.

I thought, out of nowhere, of childhood, of doing something wrong, of my mother's ruler always coming down across my face.

Harder than this. Louder than this.

But the pain was the same.

"Answer her."

The man's voice pulled me back from the strange drift of my thoughts.

I looked into those eyes, dark as a deep pool, and couldn't tell what answer he wanted to hear.

Maybe all I had to do was make Lena jealous.

"Miss Fisher, I'm not with Sam for money. I really do care about him."

As if she'd heard a great joke, she started laughing.

Then just as quickly she stopped, her eyes rimmed with red.

"Samuel, back when we broke up, you were the one who said a good dog doesn't block the road, a good horse doesn't turn back to old grass."

"What now, you're worse than an animal these days?"

"Let me tell you, I have a boyfriend now. Stay out of my life..."

Samuel let out a cold laugh.

"A boyfriend? That poor climber who takes you to the dining hall when he treats you to a meal?"

"Still better than you!"

...

I quietly backed into the kitchen.

Rich people really did know how to play.

Even a long-awaited reunion needed a throwaway stand-in as a backdrop.

If this were a novel, someone in my position would've had to make a scene for three hundred rounds before exiting.

But I saw it differently.

After all, from the very start, it was never him I'd come for.

When Lena left, she gave Samuel a slap that rang through the room.

The man sat on the couch, his face dark.

I took ice from the freezer, wrapped it, and pressed it gently against his cheek.

The apartment was dead quiet. He frowned and said, low,

That's the first time she's ever hit me. All for that guy.

The truth was, I didn't really know the history between him and Lena.

I only knew he still couldn't let her go, a year after they broke up.

And me, I couldn't let go of his money.

Three months ago, the day I was voted the goddess of Ashford University's physics department, Samuel came to me out of nowhere.

His opening line was fifty thousand. Did I want to be his girlfriend.

I gritted my teeth and, with no backbone at all, turned him down.

I don't sell myself.

He laughed then.

A whole row of neat white teeth flashing in the sunlight.

I'm not asking you to sell yourself. This is a confession.

Every word came down like a note from an angel.

Enough to make my head spin and my heart race.

Back then I thought Samuel wasn't as bad as the campus forums said.

He had to be a genuinely good person.

A good person who was also very rich.

So when I saw the girl on his phone who was seventy percent like me, it took me zero seconds to accept that I was a stand-in.

In literature, stand-ins usually don't end well.

So I didn't bother copying Lena's clothes or her expressions. I only played the part of his emotional crutch and love bodyguard when it was needed.

And made a little extra cash on the side.

Samuel was the most generous person I'd ever met.

In a good mood, he'd take me out for nice meals, take me sightseeing, and throw money my way now and then.

In a bad mood, he loved to throw money at things.

A course I had to retake, he'd offer ten thousand as a starting price and tell me to handle it.

Group events he didn't want to attend got dumped on me, and the cash he sent never dropped below four figures.

The moment Lena so much as stirred on her end, he got even crazier.

Like he wanted to tell the whole world how loyal the "girlfriend" he'd bought with money was to him.

In three months, I'd saved up enough to study abroad.

My academic advisor, who knew my situation, was a little surprised, and hinted, carefully, that maybe we should talk.

I knew. My reputation as a simp and a gold digger had already spread across campus.

People said all kinds of things.

But I really didn't care.

Compared to growing up in an orphanage from the age of four, what was any of this?

Samuel wasn't after my body or my heart. He was only after this face.

For this face, he bought me a new phone, took me to high-end restaurants, and now and then threw in a surprise.

This apartment was his gift to me last month.

I'd just come out of the lab. The moment I stepped outside, he pulled me straight to the county property records office.

Two bedrooms, one living room, a prime location, in a famously luxurious complex.

When he bent his head to sign, the sun from the window caught the side of his face, his long lashes casting shadows beneath his eyes.

For a moment, my heartbeat lost its rhythm.

Without knowing why, I caught his hand while he was still signing and asked, quietly,

Samuel, what if I didn't want this apartment, and someday we

He frowned slightly.

It's not up to you to refuse. Lena's living right next door with that guy. How am I supposed to relax if you're not there watching?

Only then did I understand. So he'd bought me the apartment for Lena's sake too.

I nodded, and that little skip in my heartbeat slowly settled back into calm.

Then it suddenly clicked for him.

Someday what?

My pen paused, and then I smiled, my eyes curving.

Nothing.

After that, I put in even more effort than before.

Or, in other people's words, I got even more shameless.

Mornings in the lab, afternoons buried in the library.

On days I had no class, I did the coursework he couldn't be bothered with and signed him in for the lectures he didn't want to attend.

For breakfast, I'd get up half an hour earlier than everyone else, buy it, and go out of my way to bring it to him, even though he didn't need it at all.

I honed my simp skills to perfection.

So now, hearing Samuel's question, I answered without a second thought.

Miss Fisher just can't let you go, that's all. She got upset the second I finished saying that.

The lines between his brows did ease a little.

But his gaze suddenly landed on me.

I didn't think you'd actually care about me a little, seeing how your eyes light up at money.

Care?

Before I could work it out, a long-fingered hand brushed the side of my face.

Still hurt?

I shook my head.

His touch grew more suggestive, his voice soft.

You did well this time.

My eyes lit up at once, and I ventured, carefully,

Then this time, besides the thousand for the post, could you add another thousand? I did get slapped, after all

Catching the way his face darkened again, I quickly lowered my price.

Five hundred works too.

His face went cold completely. He pulled a bank card from his pocket.

There's a hundred thousand on this. Consider it me buying this one month of yours. Enough?

A hundred thousand, to a young master like him, was nothing more than the cost of an afternoon tea.

He'd probably meant to humiliate me.

But I couldn't hold back the curve at the corner of my mouth.

Enough, more than enough.

A thousand per post. That's a hundred posts.

Two thousand per errand. That's fifty errands.

Three thousand per time I take the fall. That's

Before I could finish the math, the man spoke again.

Starting tomorrow, invite Lena along every time we eat.

I hesitated a little, remembering the back of Lena as she'd walked out.

What if Miss Fisher won't come?

Figure it out yourself.

With that, he went back to the bedroom.

I held the bank card and silently told myself,

Just this one last month left.

You can do it, Zoey.

Getting Lena to come to dinner turned out easier than I'd expected.

Because I cleverly invited her boyfriend too.

Funny thing.

When I went to knock, he was standing there with a takeout box from the campus dining hall, in the middle of a fight with Lena.

I knew exactly which counter that food came from.

Because it was the cheapest one.

And a girl raised with money like her could never stomach that kind of thing.

So I rattled off tonight's menu on the spot.

An hour later, four people were seated around the table.

The mood was strange.

I fussed back and forth, serving dishes and hunting for something to talk about.

Almost no one at the table paid me any attention.

Samuel's eyes kept circling back to the two across from him, and he ate without tasting a thing.

Every so often Lena curled her lip and shot me a mocking look.

Her boyfriend was the only one who played along, praising my cooking, saying science majors were sharp.

He even offered to wash the dishes for me after we finished eating.

The smile froze on Lena's face.

"What are you doing? It's not your place to be washing dishes"

"It's fine, I've got it" I jumped in to smooth things over.

He didn't buckle under the pressure at all.

"A person should be grateful."

Lena's voice was shaking now.

"One meal and now you owe me gratitude? Then I suppose you owe me for the roof over your head too"

"I never wanted to live there in the first place."

"Morris Winfield! Can you stop being like this all the time?"

"I told you. If you think we don't work, then we break up."

...

I watched, stunned.

I never imagined the two of them would start fighting like that.

Or that a man could actually live off a woman and still hold his chin that high.

In the end Lena slammed the door on her way out, and Morris didn't stay to wash any dishes for me.

By all rights, the two of them fighting should have made Samuel happy.

But he sat at the table, and at some point he'd lit a cigarette.

He rarely smoked.

The last time was the day I found Lena's photo.

Back then he'd blown the smoke right into my face without a second thought, laughing, asking whether I minded.

This time there was no winner's pleasure on his face. His eyes settled on me, dark and unreadable.

"No one to wash the dishes for you. Disappointing, isn't it."

I froze for a beat, then shook my head hard.

"I like washing dishes."

The young master really was impossible to please.

Anyone could see he'd been driven half out of his mind.

And still he had to find some petty way to take it out on me.

There was nothing I could do but eat it.

Luckily his phone rang and pulled his attention away.

A voice came through it, thick with crying.

Samuel was out the door almost without thinking.

Afraid something had happened next door, I jogged a few steps after him.

And saw Lena, flung against his chest, sobbing until she could barely breathe.

I looked for a few seconds.

Then I turned away.

Back in the kitchen, I broke a bowl by accident.

A sharp edge of porcelain sliced my finger, and blood welled up at once.

It didn't hurt, and I didn't reach for the first-aid kit.

I just crouched on the floor, staring blankly at the beads of blood that kept seeping out.

But my mind was still on what I'd just seen.

Until a scream came from behind me.

Then a man's furious shout.

"Zoey, you think you can pull this on me?!"

I looked up, lost. Samuel had the woman shielded in his arms, and the fury in his eyes was enormous.

When had they come in?

I asked him quietly,

"What is it?"

The man was so angry he laughed.

"You've got the nerve to ask what it is?"

"You knew the door was open, so you smashed a bowl on purpose to get my attention. Do you have any idea how badly blood makes Lena faint?!"

I glanced at Lena, who couldn't even stand steady in his arms, and opened my mouth.

"I didn't know. And I didn't do it"

He cut me off, his voice cold as frost.

"Zoey, the worthwhile thing about a person is knowing where they stand."

"Don't try these cheap little tricks in front of me again, or I can't promise I won't take back what I've given you."

I went rigid.

After a long moment, I found my voice again.

"All right. I'm sorry."

He looked down at me from where he stood.

"Clean this up, then go outside first. You can come back in once Lena's recovered."

With that he didn't spare me another glance, and carried Lena into the bedroom.

I wrapped my still-bleeding hand in a tissue and cleaned everything up.

Then I pulled on my coat and stepped out the door.

The empty hallway was brightly lit.

Late autumn was nearly here, and when the cold wind came through, I leaned against the wall and slowly sank down.

Then I took the vocabulary book out of my pocket.

After a long while, in all that quiet, I heard myself sniff.

The polished floor tiles faintly mirrored the way I looked right now.

I smiled at the me down there.

It's fine.

Samuel and I were only ever a deal between two parties anyway.

That night I waited a long time, and no message from Samuel ever came.

The clock crept to one, and my whole body had gone stiff with cold.

People who have known poverty can bear the cold. What they can't bear is the cost of getting sick.

On my third sneeze, I quietly opened the door and went in.

I didn't go back to the bedroom. I curled up on the sofa and pulled the blanket around me into a tight ball.

Bit by bit the warmth returned, and just as I was drifting off, a shadow fell across the space in front of the couch.

Cigarette smoke drifted over. I fought down the urge to open my eyes.

Even with them shut, I could feel the heat in that stare.

What had Samuel come for?

Maybe to warn me.

But in the end he didn't "wake" me.

He finished one cigarette and left.

And I opened my eyes, and couldn't fall asleep again.

At six in the morning, after a quiet, quick wash, I didn't go back to the bedroom.

I just took two half-dry shirts off the drying rack, pulled them on, and went out.

After all that, I caught a cold anyway.

Probably afraid of catching it from me, Samuel stopped making me cook.

But Lena still came by often.

The young master and the young lady liked to order a whole table of expensive delivery food.

My only job was to come out of the room once they were done, mask on, and clean up what was left.

Now and then Morris came too, but he only ate in silence.

Watched, in silence, as Lena leaned in close to Samuel's ear on purpose and giggled right in front of him.

He didn't get angry.

He'd even help me clear up, then walk into the kitchen and ask where the dish soap was.

I told him not to bother, because Samuel had had a dishwasher installed.

"Stop washing by hand from now on. It's not as clean as the machine."

When Samuel said it, he glanced at my hand, still wearing a bandage.

There was something unsaid in that look.

I figured it was disgust.

So I didn't tell him that when I said I liked washing dishes, it was true.

In those years at the orphanage, washing dishes was the chore that earned me my first piece of candy.

Later, in school, washing dishes at a small restaurant was how I earned the first ten-dollar bill of my life.

It was like the hidden card in my drab life.

But how would the young master ever understand that.

He didn't need to.

That time, Morris looked awful when he left.

The next day, he asked for a breakup.

Lena clearly couldn't take it. She nearly tore the room next door apart.

Samuel, though, was in a good mood.

He took me to the highest-view fine-dining place in Los Angeles and opened a very expensive bottle of red wine.

I cradled the wineglass, sipping in small mouthfuls, and it went to my head a little.

Samuel lifted his eyes lazily and suddenly said,

"Still want to see the ocean? Your birthday's in a couple of days. I'll take you."

I froze for a second.

I thought of the time I took his fifty thousand, grinning ear to ear, and he asked what I was so happy to spend it on.

I'd said, offhand, that I wanted to see the ocean.

Because my mother's only photograph was taken by the sea.

Standing in front of the water, she smiled soft and sweet.

Growing up, I'd stare at that photo and wonder if maybe the ocean had some secret power, something that could draw out the hidden other side of my serious mother.

The thought had taken deep root.

But I'd never once acted on it.

And I never thought Samuel would still remember.

The alcohol had left me warm all over, and I agreed, glad.

Before we set out, I dug out the long dress Samuel had given me and put on light makeup.

Only when I arrived did I learn that Samuel's trip out to sea wasn't to celebrate my birthday.

It was just to lift Lena's spirits.

And the ones there to keep her company, besides me, were that crowd of his friends who had never once thought well of me.

"Damn, this really was set up for Lena, wasn't it?"

"Why does that dress feel like Lena has almost the same one? Tsk, so shameless."

"Say what you want, this little schemer really is different. She's got a bit more flavor to her than the real thing."

"Look at her, she's about to cry from us just looking at her. Sam, you didn't tell her this was some private date, did you?"

Samuel, standing at the edge of the crowd with his head bent, listening to Lena, glanced up at me.

His expression was careless.

"You lot, don't scare her."

The crowd dispersed, the chatter faded.

But the ill-meaning eyes stayed on me.

I stood in the corner. Now and then a server passed, and by the time they reached me all that was left was juice that did nothing for an empty stomach.

I drank two glasses, and my stomach burned.

Then a message came in from my advisor.

"Zoey, your review's been approved. You can book your flight."

I let out a breath. My mood finally lifted a little.

Turning to head outside, I looked down to type a reply.

I didn't expect it: a hard shove came from behind, and I toppled straight into the champagne tower beside me.

First the cold, then the pain.

Then the sound of the crowd laughing around me.

And last, I saw Samuel, standing at the very center of them, frowning, his lips pressed tight.

Glass shattered across the floor, and by the time I dragged myself up out of the wreckage,

I could no longer tell where I'd been cut. Blood dripped down my arm.

Lena scrambled in panic into a man's arms.

A server came forward and draped a bathrobe over my shoulders.

"Mr. Fisher says for you to go back to your room and rest. He's going to stay with Miss Fisher. If you can't look after yourself, then try not to come out."

"He also said... if you insist on distracting him, I'm to arrange for you to go back right now."

The sea at this late hour looked black and bottomless, and the sound of the waves breaking against the rocks echoed in my ears.

I looked over at Samuel.

He wasn't looking this way at all. His head was bent, all his attention on Lena.

The wind hit me, and I shivered.

"Fine. Then I'll trouble you. I want to go back."