Mallory
The thousand-dollar heels were not made for walking. They were made for standing still and being admired. Now, each step on the cold pavement is a fresh agony. I walk without a destination, a ghost in an emerald dress under the indifferent glow of streetlights. Cars swish past, their occupants faceless strangers in warm, moving boxes.
My life ended an hour ago. Now this is just the epilogue.
I see the warm, greasy light of a 24-hour diner ahead. 'Sully's', the sign says in faded red neon. I push the door open. The bell jingles, a cheerful sound that feels like a mockery. An older woman behind the counter looks me up and down, taking in the gown, the ruined hair, the tear-streaked makeup.
“Honey, you look like you’ve had one hell of a night,” she says, her voice raspy.
“Could I… could I use your phone?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper. “I don’t have any money.”
She just sighs and slides an old landline across the counter. “Go on. Local calls only.”
My fingers tremble as I dial the only number I know by heart that isn’t connected to the Greers. It rings twice.
“This better be good, it’s almost midnight,” a voice groans.
“Chloe?” I choke out.
“Mallory? What’s wrong? You sound awful. Aren’t you at your party?”
“It’s over,” I say, a fresh wave of tears blurring the diner into a smear of light. “Everything’s over. They threw me out.”
There’s a pause, then the sound of rustling sheets. “Who threw you out? The hotel? Did you have too much champagne?”
“No. The Greers. My… my parents. They disowned me. Publicly.”
Silence. Then, “Where are you?” Her voice is sharp now. Awake. Focused.
“A diner. Sully’s. I don’t know the street.”
“Stay right there. Don’t move. I’m coming.”
The line clicks dead.
Fifteen minutes later, Chloe’s beat-up hatchback screeches to a halt outside. She bursts into the diner, wearing yoga pants and a sweatshirt, her hair a messy bun. Her eyes find me, and her face crumples with concern before hardening with rage.
“Get in the car,” she says, her voice low and dangerous.
She peels away from the curb before I’ve even closed the door. She doesn't speak until we're inside her tiny, cluttered apartment, the door double-locked behind us.
“Start from the beginning,” she orders, shoving a mug of hot tea into my cold hands. “And don’t leave out a single detail.”
I tell her everything. The penthouse suite. The words ‘merger’ and ‘liability’. The microphone. The word ‘adoption’ hitting me like a bullet. When I’m done, the only sound is the hum of her refrigerator.
Chloe stares at a point on the wall, her knuckles white where she grips her own mug.
“I’m going to kill them,” she says, her voice flat. “Not figuratively. I am going to find a way to ruin them all.”
“Don’t,” I whisper. “They’re not worth it.”
“Not worth it?” She finally looks at me, her eyes blazing. “Mallory, they didn't just break your heart. They executed you. In front of everyone. For what? A business deal?”
“A stronger, more profitable future,” I parrot numbly, the words tasting like poison.
“And Paige.” Chloe says the name like it’s a curse. “Of course. She’s been gunning for your life since we were kids. I never trusted her. Not once.”
“I did,” I say, and the simple truth of it breaks me open again. I start to sob, deep, ragged sounds I can’t control.
Chloe is there in an instant, wrapping her arms around me. “I know. I know you did. You have a good heart. They just used it as a stepping stone.”
She lets me cry until I have nothing left. Then she pulls back, her expression firm.
“Okay. Here’s what happens now. You live here. My couch is terrible but it’s yours. We’ll get your things tomorrow. They have to give you your personal belongings.”
“They said they’d send them to an address.”
“Good. This is your address now,” she says with a finality that allows for no argument. “First thing tomorrow, we get you a burner phone. Then we figure out your money situation.”
“I don’t have a money situation, Chloe. I have no money. My bank accounts were all tied to the family trust. My car is registered to the Greer Corporation. Even my laptop was a ‘company expense’.”
Chloe’s jaw tightens. “They left you with nothing.”
“Less than nothing.”
I wake up on her lumpy couch the next morning, the city noise a dull roar outside. Chloe’s already gone, leaving a note on the coffee table. *Had to go to work. There’s cash in the jar for coffee and food. Don’t you dare argue. We’ll talk tonight.* A twenty-dollar bill is tucked underneath.
I can’t stay in the apartment. It feels too small, the walls closing in. I shower, borrow a pair of jeans and a sweater from Chloe, and walk out into the city that was supposed to be mine.
I find a small café called ‘The Grindstone’. It smells of burnt coffee and old books. I buy the cheapest coffee they have and find a small table in the corner. I sit for an hour, watching people come and go, living lives that haven’t been detonated.
My hand feels empty. For twenty years, it almost always held a pen, a pencil. My fingers twitch with the need to create something, anything, to prove I still exist.
I grab a flimsy paper napkin from the dispenser on the table and pull a pen from the bottom of Chloe’s bag she lent me. An image surfaces in my mind. Not a grand house for a fake life, but something else. A building that feels like defiance.
I start to sketch. The lines come fast and sure. It’s a tower, but not a sterile glass box. It twists, reaching for the sun like a living thing. The floors are staggered, creating deep cantilevered terraces overflowing with greenery. A vertical park. A building that breathes.
I’m so lost in the drawing that I don’t notice the man until he speaks.
“The load-bearing calculations for those terraces would be a nightmare.”
The voice is deep, calm, and close. Too close. I jump, my hand instinctively slamming down over the napkin, crumpling the delicate drawing.
I look up. He’s tall, dressed in a perfectly tailored dark suit that probably costs more than Chloe’s car. His hair is black, his features are sharp, almost severe. He’s intimidatingly handsome, with dark eyes that seem to see right through me. He’s holding a small cup of espresso.
“I’m sorry?” I stammer.
“The sketch,” he says, his gaze fixed on my hand. “It’s an ambitious design. Beautiful, but structurally… complex.”
My cheeks burn with shame. A stranger, a powerful-looking man, commenting on my silly little napkin drawing. It’s Paige’s voice in my head all over again.
“It’s nothing,” I say, my voice tight. “Just a doodle.”
He doesn’t respond immediately. His eyes lift from my hand to my face. He takes in the faint puffiness around my eyes, the borrowed clothes, the way I’m hunched over the table as if protecting myself from a blow. A flicker of something I can’t decipher crosses his face. It’s not pity. It’s… intrigue.
“Nothing,” he repeats, his tone unreadable. “A shame.”
He gives a slight, almost imperceptible nod, and walks away, taking a seat at a table across the room, alone. He opens a laptop and the moment is over.
But it’s not. I’m left staring at the crumpled napkin under my palm. For a single, fleeting second, someone looked at my work, my real work, and didn’t call it a hobby. He called it ambitious. He called it beautiful.
I carefully smooth out the napkin. The tower is still there, a little wrinkled, but unbroken. It’s the first thing in two days that feels like it might be salvageable.
