Chapter 1

Harris gave me the silent treatment for seven whole days just because I carpooled with a male coworker on the way home.

Late at night, I was alone in the ER, cold sweat dripping from the excruciating pain in my stomach.

I called his number over and over again, but all I got was the despairing, automated voice: "The line is busy."

He was an incredibly cold and aloof man, with a borderline pathological possessiveness over me.

During our five years of dating, he demanded that I delete all non-essential male contacts. I even had to report our professional conversations in my WhatsApp work groups to him.

He always spoke in the most deeply affectionate tone, saying:

"Chloe, I have a pure soul. I can’t stand even a speck of dust in our relationship. I want what we have to be absolutely pure."

To maintain this so-called purity, I turned my life into an isolated island.

It wasn't until I connected to the hospital Wi-Fi that I happened to scroll past a new post from a popular relationship influencer on Ins.

[Thank you to my exclusive listener. Thirty consecutive nights of listening to me until dawn got me through my darkest hours.]

In the long screenshot attached to the post, the phone number at the top wasn’t completely blurred out. It ended in '0921'—my birthday, and the exact custom number he insisted on using.

I carefully compared the timestamps in the screenshot.

Every single call took place late at night, exactly when Harris had shut me out, claiming he "needed independent space to think."

I quietly stared at those call durations—each lasting two to three hours. Suddenly, the physical pain in my body felt completely numb.

I tapped the cancel call button.

This sick, twisted version of purity? I didn't want it anymore.