Where could she go?
The question echoed in her chest like a hollow bell.
Where could she go?
Who would she talk to?
Her friends? No. Never. They had never liked Christian. From the beginning, they'd looked at him with narrowed eyes and pursed lips. She had just managed to convince them this afternoon.
And now, to show up broken and crying?
No. She couldn't take their pity. Or their told-you-sos.
Go home?
A bitter laugh choked out of her throat. Home.
That house hadn't been a home since her mother died five years ago. The moment her mother's body was lowered into the ground, the doors of warmth and safety closed behind her.
She had become an outsider overnight.
No longer the beloved daughter.
Just the girl in the background. The one who got leftovers.
Who could she turn to?
Christian's family?
Her chest tightened. Christian's mother liked her at first, but she had been sassy since they moved the new house.
No.
She had no one.
No one at all.
Saraphina walked the streets, lost. Her legs moved but she didn't know where they were taking her. She passed restaurants with glowing lights, couples laughing inside. Music spilled from speakers. Cars honked. Life moved around her like she was invisible.
Her shoes slapped against the pavement.
She didn't care where she ended up.
Her eyes stung.
Her heart felt like it had been carved out.
Yes. She was fat.
She knew.
She saw the stares. Heard the laughter behind her back. Even Christian had reminded her today like it was a curse she carried.
But what was she supposed to do?
Growing up, her stepmother barely fed her. Saraphina was the unwanted child from another woman—something that couldn't be erased. Something that made her less.
She had eaten scraps from the kitchen floor. Crumbs from the dining table after everyone had left. Sometimes, nothing.
She remembered crouching by the back door at night, rummaging through the trash can for leftover rice that hadn't turned sour. She ate like a beggar just to survive.
The only kindness she had ever known came from Nanny Jane—the old housemaid who would slip her crackers and cold pieces of chicken under her pillow. But the day her stepmother caught her, Nanny Jane was fired on the spot.
Saraphina never saw her again.
Her heart had broken in quiet pieces then, too.
She had thought—maybe if Papa found out, he'd stop it.
She told him everything.
But he only looked away and said, "You should be grateful. You live in a house with a roof. Not everyone is lucky."
To be grateful. For hunger, for scraps.
Saraphina had stopped hoping after that. She grew up invisible.
But she'd found a small escape.
The day her results came out and she got into the university… she had quietly changed the admission to a school in another state. No one knew. Not her stepmother. Not her father.
She got a partial scholarship—just enough to cover two years in fashion design. She told herself: I'll survive. Somehow. I just need to get away.
When her father found out, he threatened to disown her if she left.
And she left anyway.
It hadn't been easy.
She worked odd jobs—selling clothes, helping caterers, running errands, braiding hair on weekends just to afford textbooks and meals. She slept in a cramped hostel room with three strangers and studied by candlelight.
But it was hers. Her freedom. Her choice.
And then she met him.
Christian.
Another student hustling through part-time jobs. Just as poor. Just as tired. But he smiled with that crooked grin and told jokes even when his shoes had holes.
They bonded over instant noodles and unpaid bills.
He called her pretty when no one else did.
He held her hand like she was precious.
And Saraphina, for the first time in her life, felt… full.
Loved and cherished.
She had clung to that feeling like it was air.
That was why, in her third year, when Christian said he couldn't pay his school fees because he'd used the money for his mother's hospital bill—she didn't even hesitate.
She gave him everything she had saved.
Every penny.
Even though that money was supposed to be for her own fees.
Even though she had been counting and saving it for months.
She gave it up for him.
She took a leave of absence from school, telling herself she'd return later. Maybe work more, save up.
But she never went back.
Years passed.
And all of it—everything—had been for him.
She gave up her dreams of graduating in a fashion school, having a brand, her freedom
Her life had wrapped itself around him like thread around a spool.
And now?
Now some woman—some half-naked stranger—was reaping the love and promises she fought for?
Her lips curled bitterly.
No.
No.
She clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palm until it hurt.
He was hers.
She had suffered for him.
Loved him when he was nothing.
Helped him stand when he couldn't afford a bus ticket.
No woman would take that from her.
He must be under a spell.
She must have bewitched him—seduced him, lied to him.
Christian had forgotten who stood by him when the world turned away.
But she would remind him.
She would bring his heart back.
No matter what it took.
Even if it cost her everything she had left.
And before she even realized it, her feet had carried her back to the apartment she shared with Christian's family.
As she stood in front of the familiar brown door, her heart felt like stone. Heavy and still. There was no real welcome here. No open arms. But it was shelter.
She pushed the door open slowly and stepped in.
Silence greeted her. Not warmth. Not concern. Just silence.
No one asked where she had been all night. No one noticed the red mark still faint on her cheek. No one saw the swelling in her eyes or the way her shoulders slumped like something inside her had broken and never healed.
They didn't care.
But Saraphina moved quietly down the hallway anyway, carrying her broken pieces with her.
They would be family soon, after all.
Or so she had believed.
She curled into the store room's narrow bed, wrapped in the clothes she had worn for two days, and cried herself to sleep again. This time, the tears were quieter. Older. Like they'd stopped begging for someone to hear them.
And then the days passed.
Christian didn't come home.
Not the first day.Not the second. Not the third.
Saraphina kept checking her phone, waiting at the door.
Then, on the fourth evening, her phone buzzed.
A message from him.
Her heart jumped—and then immediately dropped. Her thumb hesitated before unlocking the screen.
"Thought I'd give us a chance to start over. We will be getting married after all.
Just the two of us.
Room 105.
Come if you want to make this work."