Part 2
PART 2
That night, I returned to my Pasadena apartment, locked the deadbolt, and pulled a large suitcase from the closet.
For the first time in three years, I wasn’t thinking about how to fix things with Brendan. I was figuring out how to remove myself from his life.
I packed clothes, important documents, and several family photos.
When I found the silver dance shoes from that championship, I stopped.
For years, looking at them had filled me with strange guilt. Now I finally understood why. Brendan had turned my proudest achievement into the excuse for my punishment.
At two in the morning, someone pounded on my door.
“Chloe, open the door right now,” Brendan called out from the hallway.
My heart raced, but I walked over without unlocking it.
“Go away, Brendan,” I said firmly.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” he asked, sounding mildly annoyed.
I laughed bitterly.
“I heard everything at the clinic today.”
Silence.
Then he asked, “Who told you?”
He didn’t ask if I was alright or what I had heard. He only cared who had exposed him.
“Nobody told me,” I answered through the wooden door. “I heard you and your friends with my own ears.”
Brendan paused.
“Chloe, you are completely exaggerating as usual.”
“Exaggerating?” I shouted back. “You made me donate blood for a fake accident!”
“It was just a harmless joke,” he scoffed.
“A harmless joke?” I repeated in disbelief.
“Nobody held a gun to your head and forced you to donate,” he snapped back dismissively.
Whatever love remained inside me disappeared.
“You’re right, Brendan. Nobody forced me,” I said, taking a deep breath. “We are completely finished.”
Brendan gave a dry laugh.
“Don’t be ridiculous over a small prank.”
“We are done,” I repeated with absolute finality.
“You’re ending us over this?” he yelled, his tone turning angry. “After everything I’ve ever done for you?”
“What exactly did you ever do for me?” I asked back softly.
He answered instantly.
“I gave you a prominent place in my social life.”
Once, those words would have made me feel grateful. That night, I finally understood how little I had accepted from him.
“You never gave me a place, Brendan,” I said coldly. “You simply turned me into an emotional punching bag to avenge another woman.”
He slammed his fist against the door.
“Do not bring Scarlett into this conversation.”
It had always been about Scarlett.
I removed the silver necklace he had given me on our first anniversary and slipped it through the mail slot.
“Just leave, Brendan,” I said quietly.
“You are going to deeply regret this decision, Chloe!” he threatened before walking away.
My parents arrived early the next morning to help load my boxes into their truck.
My father immediately noticed the bruise on my arm.
“Did Brendan cause that?” he asked softly, his eyes filled with worry.
I nodded.
He asked nothing else.
My mother found my silver dance shoes sitting on top of the trash bin.
“Aren’t you going to pack these away?” she asked gently.
“I never want to see them again,” I admitted.
She closed the box and handed it back to me.
“Then we will buy new ones someday, but next time you will dance purely for yourself.”
That night, we stayed at a hotel near the airport because I couldn’t handle another night alone in Pasadena.
At ten thirty, an unfamiliar number called.
“Chloe, please don’t hang up,” a woman’s voice pleaded as soon as I answered.
Scarlett.
I almost ended the call, but she quickly continued.
“I knew Brendan held a grudge, and I knew about some of his petty tricks, but I swear I had no idea about the fake blood donation.”
“How comforting,” I replied sarcastically. “So you only approved of the minor humiliations.”
Scarlett went quiet.
“You have every right to hate me.”
“You aren’t important enough for me to waste my energy hating you,” I answered honestly.
Her breathing caught.
Then she said something unexpected.
“Brendan never actually did any of this for my sake.”
I sat upright.
“What do you mean by that?”
“When I lost that competition four years ago, I cried for one night and moved on with my life, but Brendan couldn’t let it go,” she explained.
“Then why did he do it?” I demanded.
“Because you won,” Scarlett answered with a heavy sigh. “Brendan was obsessed with the idea that someone like you should never beat me.”
A chill moved through me.
“Someone like me?”
“You had no wealthy family name, no high-society connections, and no elite tutors,” Scarlett clarified. “You came from a humble background, yet you danced better and forced the people he considered superior into second place.”
Silence filled the line.
“So it was never about defending your honor,” I whispered.
“No,” Scarlett confirmed quietly. “It was entirely about Brendan’s fragile ego. And Chloe, there’s something much worse you need to know.”
“What is it?” I asked, my heart racing.
“The ninety-nine acts of revenge were not just verbal jokes among his friends,” she warned. “Brendan has been meticulously documenting every single one for years.”
“Documenting them how?”
“He keeps a secured digital folder filled with exact dates, hidden photographs, screenshots, and videos,” Scarlett revealed.
“Why would he keep all of that?” I asked in horror.
“Because they planned to unveil the entire file to you tomorrow night,” Scarlett admitted. “Number ninety-nine was showing you the whole archive in front of everyone at a party, telling you that your entire three-year relationship was just an experiment to see how much humiliation you would tolerate for love.”
I looked toward the adjoining room where my parents were sleeping.
Brendan hadn’t just planned to leave me.
He wanted to break me completely.
“Chloe,” Scarlett whispered nervously before hanging up, “you need to know who helped Brendan organize this nightmare from the very start.”
