The day after my divorce was finalized and the assets were divided, I got into a car accident and woke up with amnesia. Later, my ex-husband, Liam, tracked me down. He told me that if I stopped acting crazy every day, he would consider remarrying me. I froze, biting down on my ice cream spoon. After a long pause, I finally spoke: "Yeah... no thanks! I... I... I'm actually perfectly fine just keeping the money." 1 When I woke up, the first thing I saw was my best friend, Chloe, looking incredibly distressed. She told me not to be sad. She said my health was the most important thing, and even though I was divorced, I still had to live my life. She told me the kids would be fine living with Liam, and there was no point in fighting for custody because I wouldn't win anyway. I just stared at her. After a long time, I couldn't help but ask, "Who is Liam?" Chloe froze, a look of utter bewilderment on her face. A moment later, she snapped out of it and ran to get the doctor. The doctor said the trauma from the car crash had given me amnesia. Chloe hurriedly asked me how old I thought I was. I thought about it for a second. "I'm eighteen! Didn't I just graduate high school yesterday?" Chloe burst into laughter. She squatted on the floor, laughing so hard she was clutching her stomach and punching my hospital bed. "Oh my god, Maya, you are... your amnesia is fantastic! Yes, you're eighteen. Eighteen is amazing! There's no Liam, no kids... just you and me..." I was even more confused. 2 Chloe took me home to her apartment once the doctors confirmed my memory wasn't coming back anytime soon. Only then did she give me a brief rundown of my current situation. I am Maya Lin. During my freshman year of college, I fell in love with a broke guy named Liam Sterling. I dated Liam for ten years, from eighteen to twenty-eight. I stayed by his side while he built his startup, eating instant ramen and struggling together. I gave birth to his children, and I took care of his elderly parents. And then, this year, he dragged me to court and divorced me. "??? What?" I was absolutely shocked. What kind of tragic soap opera was my life? After a long pause, my voice trembled as I asked, "So, what you're saying is, I acted as this guy's unpaid servant for ten years, and at twenty-eight, I got kicked to the curb?" Chloe nodded. "Yes. You also have two kids. A son who's six, and a daughter who's four. But because you were a stay-at-home mom with no personal income, and both kids said they wanted to live with their dad, full custody was awarded to Liam." "...What??? The two kids I busted my ass to raise are just gone..." Even though I didn't remember any of this, it sounded absolutely horrifying. I was on the verge of tears. Then Chloe laughed and patted my shoulder. "Don't be too sad. At least you have money." Tears welling in my eyes, I tentatively asked, "How much?" Chloe sat up straight. "Maya, listen to me. You got 20% of Liam's marital assets. That includes a 10% equity stake in three publicly traded companies, and two massive townhouses in Manhattan. It's valued at roughly $260 million." "..." Silence. Deep thought. Then, I cautiously asked, "Chloe, you aren't messing with me, right?" "If I'm lying, I'm a dog." That day, I stared out the window at the sky in a daze. I had lost ten years of memories. I had no idea how I had lived the past decade. But Chloe said I was rich. And when I was eighteen, the thing I loved most in the world was money. So I figured this wasn't a bad deal at all. 3 Chloe took some time off work. For a few days, she dragged me around to various offices to finalize the transfer of assets. I didn't see this Liam guy Chloe mentioned. He had outsourced all the asset division paperwork to his lawyers. We were busy for almost a month. After that, Chloe helped me list all the properties under my name for rent. She did the math for me. The monthly rental income alone would be around $160,000. That day, I stared at the endless string of zeros in my bank account. Then I looked up at the mirror. Staring back at me was twenty-eight-year-old me, looking incredibly polished and well-groomed. I scratched my head. Not bad at all. 4 I had nothing to do all day, but Chloe had to work. So I just stayed at her apartment and played video games. When Chloe ordered lunch for delivery, she always ordered a portion for me too. She worked late. When she finally got home, she looked like a zombie, collapsing onto the sofa completely dead to the world. I put down my controller and massaged her shoulders. Must have been muscle memory, because I gave a fantastic massage. Once Chloe recovered some energy, she started venting: "Liam is a literal monster. You started working for him for free the second you graduated. His mom was in poor health, so after you got off work, you had to massage her shoulders and rub her back." "..." As she talked, Chloe got angry, grabbed my arm, and flicked my forehead. "Maya, you were so spineless! Whenever I wasn't around, you just let them walk all over you! That whole family bullied you because they knew you didn't have anyone else who cared about you." I rubbed my forehead, feeling a little wronged. "But I don't remember any of that! I only remember you." Chloe stopped mid-rant, then laughed. "That's true! You don't remember, and it's better that you don't. As long as you remember me, that's enough. I won't bully you." I believed her, because Chloe and I grew up together. We were both raised in the foster care system. When I was little, I followed Chloe everywhere. She fought for my snacks and washed my clothes. When we got older, she tutored me. She was a year older than me. When I was a senior in high school, she was a freshman in college, and she called me every single day to make sure I was studying. She wanted me to test into her university, but her scores were ridiculously high. I studied myself half to death, but I still didn't have the grades to get into an Ivy League. The day the scores came out, I hugged Chloe and bawled my eyes out. Chloe flicked my forehead. "What are you crying for? You scored in the top five percent. That's amazing. Why are you crying?" She patted my head. "You did great." Later, I went to a university in Chicago, still crying about it. 5 Whenever Chloe brought it up, she was full of regret. She said she never should have let me go to Chicago. "If you hadn't gone to Chicago, you wouldn't have met Liam. And if you hadn't met Liam..." I interrupted her eagerly. "Then I wouldn't have $260 million!" Chloe put her hands on her hips. "What's more important, the money, or the last ten years of your life?" I tried to guess the correct answer. "The money?" Chloe looked at me like I was a lost cause. "You! You are more important. If you're miserable, all the money in the world is useless. Thank God you got amnesia. Otherwise, if you got depressed and did something stupid, what good would the money be?" "Umm... it could buy me a really nice mausoleum..." Chloe laughed out of pure exasperation. "Get out!" "..." Chloe had always been a powerhouse, and she still was. She was the General Manager of a multinational corporation, pulling in around $55,000 a month. But she was incredibly busy, sometimes traveling for work, and she was constantly worried about leaving me alone. So she started dragging me along on her business trips. Eventually, she figured that since she was bringing me everywhere anyway, she might as well not pay for it out of her own pocket. So she hired me at her company to be her executive assistant. I was thrilled! I had spent the last few months reading dozens of romance novels about billionaire CEOs falling in love with their cute assistants. On my first day, I confidently marched into the office wearing a sleek pencil skirt and blazer. I made her coffee, organized her files, and ran around doing errands. I looked like I was working incredibly hard. Eventually, she found it hilarious, told me to stop running around, and handed me a spreadsheet. "Have Ava show you how to do this. Take your time, there's no rush." "You got it, boss!" And just like that, I officially started working. 6 I went to work with Chloe and left with Chloe. I didn't have much to do, so my tasks were usually finished early. Chloe, on the other hand, had a mountain of work. I would always wait for her in the breakroom. One day, she saw me sitting there watching online lectures on my phone. She suddenly realized something and asked me seriously, "Maya, do you want to go back to school?" "...I do." Since I had amnesia, I didn't know how to do a lot of office work. I was basically starting from zero, and every time I messed up, I felt pretty useless. When we were kids, Chloe was my role model, and she still was. I wanted to be like her—handling everything effortlessly. It was so cool. So Chloe enrolled me in classes. Every day after work, I would drive to a continuing education center. I took systematic project management courses, sprinkled with training on various enterprise software. I filled two entire notebooks before things finally started clicking. Oh, so that's how it works. Once I finished those, Chloe signed me up for corporate accounting classes. I studied for a year, and I had a total epiphany. So that's what all this means. Work started becoming a breeze. 7 After I had been working for a year, Chloe started having me shadow Ava on project negotiations. Ava was three years younger than me. She was a Project Manager, and her personality was amazing. She spoke very gently, and she took great care of me. One time, after a meeting, she went downstairs to buy herself a coffee and bought me an ice cream. I happily scooped up my ice cream, and Ava laughed. "Chloe told me you're twenty-nine, but I swear I never believe it. Maya, you act like a kid! Like a really hardworking, obedient kid." I thought about it for a second, then solemnly informed her, "I actually have two kids." "Stop messing with me. We've worked together for over a year, and I've never even seen your husband." "We're divorced." "Girl, you literally look like a teenager." "Mhm... well, technically I'm a divorcée." Ava was completely bewildered. She didn't believe me, and I laughed, because honestly, I didn't really believe it either. In my head, I had just finished high school. How could I be twenty-nine? But I had been eating well and living stress-free for two years, so I really did look young for my age. When I first got divorced, I apparently looked terrible and exhausted. But I guess millions of dollars is the best skincare routine. Right after I got out of the hospital, Chloe dragged me to all sorts of dermatologists and spas. She also said I was too weak and signed me up for MMA classes. As an eighteen-year-old in my mind, whatever Chloe said was gospel. If she said go east, I would never go west. If she said MMA, I wasn't going to sign up for Taekwondo. We hired a private chef to make nutritious meals, and the healthier I ate, the better I looked. Since I had amnesia, I had zero emotional baggage. I had infinite money, didn't need to work, and could eat and sleep as much as I wanted. Over those few months, even my hair got noticeably thicker. Honestly, the past year and a half had been incredible. I completely forgot the messy, miserable ten years I supposedly lived. My eighteen-year-old brain was a clean slate, soaking up new knowledge without any pressure, and Chloe was always behind me, supporting and guiding me. But I guess the universe couldn't stand seeing me so comfortable. One day, while I was with Ava at a client's office building, I ran into a guy. 8 Ava's meeting that day was highly confidential, so I wasn't allowed in. She left me in the lobby coffee shop to eat ice cream and read a book. Halfway through my book, I felt someone staring at me. I looked up and saw a man in a tailored suit, his brow tightly furrowed. He just kept staring at me. I froze. I felt like I recognized him, but I couldn't put a name to the face. Later, when Ava came down from her meeting, I grabbed the coffee I had bought for her and walked over to meet her. As I brushed past the man, I heard him say, "Are we pretending not to know each other now?" The comment lacked any context. I gave him a weird look, ignored it, and walked out the door with the coffee. But the man followed us out. "Maya Lin, can't even say hello when we run into each other?" I turned around, and Ava turned around with me. Ava saw the man and smiled politely. "Mr. Sterling! It's been a while." Liam ignored Ava completely, keeping his eyes locked on me. I looked at the guy. Mr. Sterling? Could this be... Liam? I whispered to Ava, "Is he Liam Sterling?" "Yeah! The CEO of Sterling Group. You know him?" "...Yeah, I think he's my... ex-husband..." Ava was completely stunned. She looked at me, then at Liam, then back at me. Liam glared at me. I thought about it for a second, then held out my hand. "Hi." Liam didn't shake it. He looked at me, his eyes filled with contempt and mockery. "Maya, I underestimated you. I actually thought you were a good mother! In court, you fought so hard for Oliver and Lily, but the second you got your payout, you never came to see them once... Thank God the kids weren't given to you. Someone like you doesn't deserve to be a mother." A sudden, inexplicable wave of grief washed over my heart. But once the sadness faded, I racked my brain and still couldn't remember what Oliver and Lily looked like. "Maya, you better come visit this weekend. Otherwise, don't even think about seeing Oliver and Lily for the rest of your life." Liam walked away, leaving a deeply confused Ava and a very thoughtful me.
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