Boyfriend Loved the Fake Heiress; I Left, Why Cry

My blind boyfriend always said he'd earn the money, that I should just focus on my job and never take a part-time gig.

But I signed up anyway, behind his back, screening bags at the subway during morning rush, hoping to save a little more for his eye treatment.

And on my very first day, I saw him walk into the station hall without a cane, his stride steady and sure.

He was leading Ida Summers by the hand, the fake heiress who had taken everything from me.

Behind them came my mother, who was supposed to be dead, my father, who was supposed to have died of grief with her, and my brother, who was supposed to have gone abroad heartbroken.

I pulled my mask up and followed close behind.

The whole group headed straight for the marriage registration point in the middle of the hall.

My best friend, who was supposed to be away on a business trip, was already waiting there, a veil in her hands, waving them over.

"Come on, today's the opening day for the subway station's registration office, the staff aren't even clocked in yet, you two can grab the very first slot!"

"I checked with Noreen Summers, she said work would keep her too busy today to come snooping, so go ahead and register with a clear mind."

Afraid of being caught, I hadn't told her about the part-time job either.

My mother stood beside my father, smiling. "Today's also the fake anniversary of the day his father and I supposedly died. She gets off work tonight and has to rush over to pay her respects, so she won't be crashing your wedding night."

My brother waved a hand. "Even if she does come checking, it's fine. I'll pretend I'm missing Mom and Dad and call her to stall for time."

Lewis Gilbert kissed the side of Ida's forehead, his voice low.

"Played poor, played blind all these years, and I finally coaxed you happy enough to register with me."

So the love I thought I had was a con, staged by every single one of them together.

I took out my phone and sent one message.

You said the moment I gave the word, you'd come without a second thought.

We're registering at the subway station. Are you coming?

...

My best friend, Yara, wore a mocking little smile.

"Honestly, who was she even guarding against with all that snooping? Turns out in the end she's the outsider."

My brother's eyes were full of scorn. "Too insecure. Scared her man would run off."

My mother shook her head. "That's just how she is, suspicious of everything, no class at all."

My father gave a soft snort. "Bringing shame on herself."

I looked at Lewis, waiting for him to say one word in my defense.

Five years together, he knew better than anyone that I wasn't born a jealous checker.

It was that one time crossing the street, when I watched his cane jam into the gap of a manhole cover.

His whole body pitched forward, and he almost got flung under a passing truck.

I was shaking all over when I ran and caught him.

After that, I got into the habit of checking on him.

It wasn't distrust.

I was just terrified that one time I wouldn't be watching, and he'd truly be gone.

But his tone stayed flat. "It's a happy day, let's not bring her up. Ida's the star today."

He gave a light wave of his hand, and the huge curtain in the center of the hall dropped away.

A shimmering veil of light spilled down from the ceiling, and beneath it stood a floral arch two meters high.

The electronic screens all around lit up at once, scrolling through photographs of Ida.

From an awkward young girl to the striking beauty she was now, every frame carefully chosen.

The crowd buzzed.

No wonder some staff had wondered this morning what was behind the curtain, and the station manager had only smiled a secret little smile.

"Rich people and their romance games."

I stared and stared, and then, suddenly, I laughed.

Every last piece of it was something I'd once described to Lewis.

Back then he'd bowed his head, pained. "I'm sorry I can't give you what you want."

And I'd smiled and comforted him. "Who needs you to make it real? Just being with you, always, that's already more than enough."

But in the end, every one of those wild little daydreams, he'd remembered word for word.

And used them on someone else.

Lewis pulled out a ring box and dropped to one knee.

"Ida, I know how much ceremony means to you, so of course there has to be a proposal."

He looked up at her, his gaze tender and fixed.

"Marry me?"

Passersby stopped to watch.

"Say yes!" the shouts went up, one after another.

Ida covered her face, moved, then bent down and kissed him. "Yes."

The diamond slid onto her ring finger.

Cheers broke out, and the crowd showered them with blessings.

My father and mother beamed as they handed out wedding candy to strangers.

When a passerby was too shy to take it, they'd press the candy straight into their hands.

"She's our only daughter, and she's getting married today, come on, be happy for us!"

I was the real daughter.

Yet in their eyes I might as well not have existed.

Ida, grinning, fed Lewis a piece of candy, then reached for the other velvet box in his pocket.

He caught her hand. "Don't. That's a nine-ninety-nine free-shipping ring, saved for stringing Noreen along."

Yara snickered. "Cheap woman, cheap goods."

Ida pouted, playing coy. "Still stringing her along? The game's over. She's not even worth nine ninety-nine."

Lewis's eyes went soft with indulgence. "Fine. Just say the word, and I'll lay it all out whenever you like."

She folded her arms. "Then call her right now."

Something flickered in Lewis's eyes. His fingertips brushed her cheek.

"My lady, today is our registration day."

"I don't want to hear her cry. It'd ruin the mood."

For an instant, the ache stabbed through my chest.

Third year we were together, I'd burned up with fever in the rental apartment, so miserable the tears just came.

He'd panicked, fumbling to wipe them away, never quite finding the spot, sweat breaking out on his forehead.

"Don't cry. I can't see, but I can hear."

He'd pressed a hand to his chest, his voice rough.

"When you cry, it wrenches at me, right here."

Back then I thought he truly hurt for me.

Now I know he just found it annoying.

My phone chimed once.

That person had replied: Address.

I sent him the subway location.

I sent the message and looked up to see Ida twist her mouth, as if it cost her something to allow it.

"Fine, we'll let her know when we hold the ceremony."

Lewis said nothing.

She frowned. "What? Does it hurt to think about her?"

"Lewis, the whole point of having you act was so she'd believe she'd been saved, and then break when she found out the truth."

"Don't tell me you actually fell into the role. You don't like her, do you?"

Their mother laughed and took Ida's hand.

"Silly girl. That little liar isn't half of what you are. Why would Lewis ever like her?"

"Back then we just couldn't stand her. But she was legally a Summers, so we couldn't just throw her out. That's why your father and I faked our deaths, took you and your brother, and left. We left her behind to fend for herself."

So that was it.

When they brought me back from the orphanage to the Summers family, I thought I finally had a home.

But no matter how carefully I stepped, in their eyes I was always the liar.

When I said I didn't push Ida down the stairs, I was lying.

When I said I didn't take that five hundred dollars, I was lying.

When I said I'd come first in the grade without cheating, still lying.

For a while I wondered if I just wasn't likable enough.

After they "died," I wondered if I was a curse, bad luck to everyone around me.

When I had given up on everything, Lewis appeared and saved me.

But in the end, family or love, I never really had any of it.

Lewis pulled a cool, thin smile and adjusted her veil for her.

"She's coarse and slow. What is there about her to like?"

"I just realized, forget the ceremony, we haven't even taken our wedding photos."

Ida smacked her own forehead. "I forgot!"

Yara pointed toward the exit. "There's a place right by the station that does wedding photos, prints them on the spot."

"If we go now, before the staff here clock in, we can shoot and come back in time."

Ida glanced at the line behind them and frowned, torn.

"But then we wouldn't be the first couple to register."

The corner of Lewis's mouth curved. "That's nothing."

Five minutes later, every couple behind them had a box in their hands.

Inside each was a solid gold necklace.

His smile was easy and clear, his voice gentle.

"Congratulations to all of you in advance. My wife wants to be the first to register, so if you wouldn't mind holding our spot, we'll take our photos and be right back."

The crowd went quiet for a beat, then broke into noise.

"Oh my God, is this what rich people's love looks like?"

"The groom is so devoted, handing out gold just to make his bride happy!"

"Of course they should go first. What's a little waiting to us!"

"I hereby declare I'm happy to be cut in line by true love!"

Ida leaned against Lewis's shoulder, her face flushed, unable to keep the smile off her lips.

I watched, quiet.

I thought of the time I skipped lunch for two straight months to buy him a watch for his birthday, until I passed out on the side of the road.

When he opened that thousand-dollar watch, he turned his face away, his shoulders shaking.

I thought he was moved.

Turns out the watch was so shabby he was afraid he'd laugh out loud the second he spoke.

I picked up my radio and asked the station manager for time off, then followed them up to the station exit.

Amid the crowd, I hid behind the door of the photo studio like a mouse peeking at the sun.

Watching them sit close and cozy in front of the camera, something in me emptied for a moment.

Before I understood what I was doing, I had already dialed.

Through my blurred vision, I saw Lewis look at his phone screen, his brow drawing together.

Once, twice, three times...

He never picked up.

As if, five years ago when he confessed, he'd never said, "Any time, any place, I'll always pick up your call on the first ring."

Ida leaned in for a look and let out a cold snort.

"Is that pest checking up on you again?"

She reached over and hit the end button. "You're not allowed to answer, or you won't have a wife anymore."

Lewis ruffled her hair and gave a helpless laugh. "As you command, my lady wife."

He sent me a message. Busy. I'll get back to you later.

I stared at those few words and laughed until I cried.

You didn't send a voice message. So you can see now?

Lewis stiffened, then almost reflexively called me back.

I picked up, my voice barely there. "Hello."

"Noreen, listen to me..."

Out of the corner of his eye, Lewis caught Ida's face darkening, and he paused.

He cleared his throat, and the urgency in his voice flattened out.

"It's nothing. I just wanted to tell you, the seven hundred ninety thousand in your account, I spent all of it."

Then he hung up.

I stood frozen where I was, as if struck by lightning, my mind blank for a moment.

The next second, I fumbled my banking app open and checked my balance.

Zero.

That little circle broke me, and the tears came down in fat drops.

Inside the photo studio, Lewis took out a pigeon-blood ruby necklace and fastened it around Ida's neck.

"I used the money she saved and added five million to buy it. Call it her gift to you."

Ida's expression eased. She checked herself in the mirror, the corners of her mouth curving up.

She turned and pressed a kiss to the side of Lewis's face, her voice soft and smug.

"Five years of her blood and sweat, and in the end it's my dowry. Call it her show of goodwill."

Mom slipped a dragon-and-phoenix bracelet onto her wrist.

"Seven hundred ninety thousand is still too shabby. She is the one I gave birth to, after all, so Mom will make it up to you with a bracelet."

Dad drew a set of brand-new car keys from his inside jacket pocket.

"Dad's giving you a Maybach. Go wherever you want from now on."

It felt like a hole had been torn open in my chest.

To save that seven hundred ninety thousand, I had scrimped for five years.

I always ate the cheapest greens, the ones the market stalls sold off right before closing.

One down jacket, patched and re-patched, got me through four winters.

My phone screen had been cracked for three years, and I never fixed it.

Penny by penny, I saved. Ten thousand more and it would have been enough for his eye surgery.

Well, now the money was gone, and Lewis didn't need the surgery either.

I let out an absurd little laugh.

Everything I had given it all for was just a romantic gesture he handed to someone else, just a wave of my parents' hands and their gilded extravagance.

Back at the marriage registration desk in the subway station, they stepped back into the line.

Ida looked at the wedding photos, satisfied, then went on talking about the wedding.

"Let's set the wedding date for after Noreen has the baby."

"She loves money so much, so we'll just buy the child off her and announce at the wedding that it's ours."

She let out a scornful little snort.

"She's really getting off easy. If I weren't afraid of the pain and didn't want to give birth myself, how would a child of hers ever make it into a family like ours."

It was like a bucket of cold water thrown over me. I was shaking all over.

No wonder, before the pregnancy, he suddenly turned so clingy, wanting me several times every night.

And once there was a child, he grew unusually tense.

He took me for checkups on schedule and watched over me every day to make sure I ate on time.

Once, when I worked overtime past midnight, he did something rare and lost his temper.

"If you won't take care of yourself, at least think about the child in your belly!"

Now that I thought about it, it wasn't me he was anxious about. It was the little life inside me.

I lowered my head and touched my belly.

But what he didn't know was that the child was gone.

A few days ago his fever spiked to a hundred and four, and late at night I couldn't get a car, so I carried him unconscious on my back and ran three streets to the hospital.

I was in such a rush getting there that my foot slipped and I fell. There was blood, all over my lower body.

Afraid he'd be heartbroken and blame himself, I never dared tell him, not even now.

Maybe this was fate.

Somewhere in that daze, I heard Lewis say, "I'm going to the restroom."

The next second, someone grabbed my arm.

I looked up. Lewis was pulling me toward a corner.

Off in the distance, Yara was touching up Ida's makeup and hadn't noticed anything over here.

"You already know." His voice was certain.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Which part are you talking about?"

"That you know I faked being blind? That our relationship was fake? Or that the child was meant for Ida?"

"Lewis, these five years, you deceived me so cruelly."

His eyes slid away from mine. "Why are you here? Who told you?"

My phone chimed.

That person had sent a message.

Almost there. Wait for me.

I pressed the screen dark, my voice calm.

"I just happened to come to register a marriage."

Lewis fell quiet for a couple of seconds, then laughed.

"Noreen, you saw it yourself. Ida and I are registering the marriage."

My gaze didn't waver. "And?"

He studied my eyes for a moment, then sighed.

"Since you already know, let me put it plainly."

"You and I can't marry in this life. But that doesn't mean I feel nothing for you."

"I'll buy you a villa of your own, somewhere off to the side. Whatever you want, just tell me. I won't shortchange you."

I looked at how self-evident he thought all this was, and it just struck me as absurd.

"Lewis, I have no interest in playing your kept bird. And the man I'm marrying isn't you."

He frowned. "Don't say things you don't mean. I never once thought about leaving you."

"Even after I register with her, nothing between us changes. You won't get any less than what's owed to you. Understand?"

The words disgusted me so much I couldn't open my mouth.

He took my silence for agreement and pulled me toward Ida.

"Good, you've thought it through. I'll be there while you and Ida clear the air. This has to be faced sooner or later."

Pain shot through my wrist. I pulled hard to break free, but his grip was like a clamp.

All I could do was let him drag me right up to Ida.

Her eyes dropped to our joined hands for a second, and her expression went cold.

The others saw me too, and the smiles froze on their faces.

Lewis spoke. "She already knows."

Yara let out a breath.

"Good that she knows. Saves me from keeping up the act."

She looked at me. "You had no idea, did you? I only got close to you to keep an eye on you for Ida."

I looked at the impatience on her face, and against my will, certain scenes flashed through my mind.

Every year she'd message me the moment the clock struck midnight to wish me happy birthday.

When I couldn't bring myself to buy meat, she'd show up with crawfish, always claiming she was just craving it, and eat with me.

When she had a fever, I nursed her through the whole night, and when she woke she said she wanted to be my best friend for life.

The time I pulled her out of a drunk man's hands, she clung to me, still shaking, and said, "Noreen, you're so good to me. From now on, anyone who bullies you answers to me first."

Everything I'd taken as her true heart had only ever been lines from her script.

Mom and Dad stepped in front of Ida, their eyes wary.

My brother's face carried open disgust.

"What do you want? Another one of your little games to steal the spotlight?"

I looked at them coldly. "Worthless garbage. What is there here worth fighting over?"

The words had barely left my mouth when Ida's palm cracked across my face.

My ears rang. I pressed a hand to my cheek, and the burn under my fingers seared all the way down to the bottom of my heart.

"Noreen, Lewis is about to register the marriage with me, and you still sneak over here to throw yourself at him? You're the garbage."

"No father to love you, no mother to want you, so you rush to play the mistress?"

Strange looks and low whispers rippled through the crowd.

I slowly lowered my hand. My voice was steady.

"Ida, no one wants to fight you over your man."

"I came here to register a marriage with someone else. The groom will be here any minute."

Lewis's face darkened all at once. He grabbed at me. "Who are you registering with?"

Ida's expression turned ugly. She raised her phone and went live on the spot.

"Still say you're not the mistress?"

"Pawing at my fianc right in front of me. Noreen, have you no shame?"

"You say you're registering with someone else. Does he know you're pregnant out of wedlock?"

More onlookers gathered, and the ugly abuse drilled into my ears.

"So young and already this far gone. What kind of person becomes a mistress?"

"I hate this type most, using the little bastard in her belly to cause trouble."

"Mistresses deserve to die badly. Anyone who wrecks a family should go to hell."

Trapped in the crowd, I looked instinctively toward Lewis, hoping he'd say one word for me.

But his silence was louder than the slap.

Things were spiraling out of control, and people nearby who'd caught the livestream even came rushing over.

A middle-aged woman shoved to the very front, spat hard at me, and jabbed a finger at my face as she screamed:

"Shameless thing! I'm the one a mistress forced out of my own home with nothing, and seeing your kind makes me sick!"

With that she swung the bag in her hand up, making to slam it down on me.

In that split second.

A hand with clean, sharp knuckles blocked in front of me and drew me steadily into his arms.