Chapter 2Stolen Identity Sweet Revenge

When I returned to the room, Janelle was pacing near the balcony, her face pale and anxious.

I ignored her, setting my bag down on my desk as if nothing had happened. After a few minutes of agonizing silence, Janelle crept over to my side, her voice trembling. "Rowan... who was that guy you were talking to downstairs?"

"Just some idiot who got scammed online," I said casually. "I told him to call the police."

Janelle froze.

Almost immediately, her phone began to buzz in her pocket—vibrating again and again with incoming notifications. She stared at her pocket, too terrified to pull the device out.

After what felt like an eternity, she cleared her throat, her voice dry. "Rowan... we're still best friends, right?"

"Of course," I said, turning to look at her with a gentle, empty smile.

In my past life, I truly had considered her a sister. I had pitied her because of her dysfunctional family and her grandmother’s failing health. That pity was the only reason I had agreed to cover for her when Zach confronted us.

Only later did I learn the truth. Janelle’s grandmother had indeed been sick, but Janelle hadn't spent a single dollar of Zach's money on her medical bills. Instead, she used those funds to pay for extensive plastic surgery and a master’s program abroad. By the time she returned to the country, she was entirely unrecognizable—polished, sophisticated, and beautiful.

By then, my relationship with Zach was already falling apart. He constantly complained that I was too cold, too reserved, and lacked the playful warmth of the girl he had fallen in love with online.

At a college reunion, surrounded by our former classmates, Zach had drunkenly scoffed at me. "Rowan's just a trophy," he had said, swirling his whiskey. "She's beautiful, sure, but she has the personality of a brick. She’s nothing like the girl I talked to back in college."

I had sat there in burning humiliation. That was when Janelle, elegant and dripping in designer jewelry, had laughed softly and raised her glass.

"Well, that's because the girl you were talking to wasn't Rowan," Janelle had said with a conspiratorial wink. "Our Rowan is gorgeous, but she’s terribly shy. I had to act as her Cyrano to help her land you. Zach, you owe me a seat at the head table when you two finally get married."

With a few lighthearted sentences, she had rewritten her fraud as a sweet, sisterly favor.

But Zach had stared at Janelle for the rest of the night, his eyes vacant and intense.

When we got home, I finally confessed the entire truth to him. I thought he would understand the sacrifice I had made to protect a friend.

Instead, Zach gripped my shoulders, his eyes wild with anger. "So the person I fell in love with all those nights was Janelle? Why did you lie to me, Rowan?"

"You came to school demanding to see me," I had cried, trying to pull away. "Janelle couldn't pay back the money. If I hadn't stepped in, she would have gone to prison—"

"I fell in love with the soul behind those messages!" Zach roared, shaking me. "Not this empty shell! Do you think you're so special just because of your face? How do you know I wouldn't have accepted Janelle just the way she was? Her personality made you look entirely worthless."

From that night on, Zach attended every social gathering where Janelle was present.

Once, when I was burning with a high fever and begged to stay home, Zach had physically dragged me out of bed and forced me into his car.

"You're doing this on purpose, aren't you?" he had sneered as we sped down the highway. "You're trying to keep me from seeing Janelle. Why are you so desperately jealous? She literally built this relationship for you."

"I told you, I never asked her to talk to you!" I screamed through my tears, shivering from the fever. "She scammed you! She stole your money!"

"Then I wish she had kept lying to me forever!" Zach snapped.

I spent that dinner in a feverish daze, watching the two of them laugh and talk. By then, Janelle was far too ambitious to settle for a trust-fund kid like Zach; she had returned to the country to marry a wealthy, divorced tech executive.

I realized then how pathetic I had been. I decided to leave Zach once and for all.

But he couldn't handle the rejection. On the drive back from Janelle's wedding, blind with rage and liquor, he jerked the steering wheel and slammed the passenger side of the car directly into the highway guardrail.