Chapter 2

Stacy lifted her head toward the window, eyes full of defiance.

I pulled the curtain shut.

That night, Stacy updated her feed.

She and Ryder were carrying on at a bar, a crowd of guys and girls gathered around them, cheering them on.

Her neckline was cut low, and in the fifteen-second clip, Ryder's eyes never once left her chest.

Her caption read: : 【I'm giving up everything to run to you.】

But all I saw were three words: throwing herself away.

A call came through on my phone. It was Garry Gilbert.

“Godmother, Stacy says she wants to break up with me. Did I do something wrong, something that made her angry?”

I picked up my glass and took a sip of water.

“Have you seen her feed?”

“She blocked me right after she sent the message. I can't see anything.”

“I'll send it to you.”

I forwarded the video to Garry.

He was quiet for a long time.

“Godmother, this guy doesn't seem like a good person. I have to go save Stacy.”

“Garry, she's not going to turn back.”

“There are plenty of good girls out there. I believe you'll meet someone better.”

Garry was a former student of mine. Good grades, good looks, good family.

After he graduated, he came by my house to visit me, and that was how he met Stacy.

Once the two of them got together, Garry started calling me godmother.

Both of Garry's parents were members of the National Academy of Sciences. Clean money, clean background.

I'd thought this was Stacy's good fortune.

But then she met Ryder, and after a couple of lines from him her head was turned. She said she was sick of a dull life, that she wanted something fresh and exciting.

Fine. Let's see whether she'll be satisfied once she's actually living the "exciting" life.

The next day, Stacy sent me an address in the run-down tenement district.

【Ship my stuff here.】

Rent there ran two hundred a month, all single-room flats.

The toilets were shared outhouses.

Stacy used to think even a public restroom on the street was too filthy to touch. Now she was willing to live a life of emptying a chamber pot every morning.

I packed up her clothes and called a courier.

I sent over the tracking number, and Stacy fired back a message.

【Don't think I don't know what you're up to. I'm only living here for now. Ryder says he'll make money and get me a better place!】

【One day you'll understand what you lost because you looked down on people! You'll grow old with no one to care for you, and I'll be happy for the rest of my life!】

Care for me?

The kind who pulls out my oxygen tube?

No thanks, I really don't need that.

I sent back two words.

【Congratulations.】

Then I turned and went to the hospital for a checkup.

In my last life, when I was hospitalized, there was a nurse a few years younger than Stacy who took the most tender care of me.

She told me she was an orphan, and that being near me felt like being near her mother.

Doing the math, she should be twenty now.

Meeting her early, taking her in as a goddaughter, wouldn't be a bad thing.

I found Sally Dickerson without trouble, and we warmed up to each other quickly.

Back home, Stacy's feed had updated again.

She was holding a cup of homemade juice from some sidewalk stand, calling it the taste of freedom.

I looked at that cheap packaging. Just like her now. Cheap.

Day after day, Stacy posted to her feed.

Eating a spicy hot soup bowl at a street stall with Ryder.

Sneaking into three movies with Ryder without paying.

Riding on the back of a borrowed electric scooter with Ryder.

Every caption the same: fresh, free, exciting.

She seemed to be trying with everything she had to prove to me how wonderful her life was now.

But I remembered: street-stall food used to give her diarrhea.

She used to hand back the change herself whenever a vendor rang her up wrong.

Once, when Garry's Porsche broke down and he borrowed a Honda to pick her up, she said it wasn't good enough for her precious backside.