I was serving dinner when my son accidentally knocked his bowl of soup onto the floor. He stood there, shivering violently, not daring to look at me. "What are you crying for? You can't even hold a bowl of soup steady. You're just as useless as your father!" "Why did I even give birth to you? You're nothing but a drag!" 1 I stood with my hands on my hips, my voice shrill enough to pierce the thin walls of our damp, hundred-and-fifty-square-foot basement apartment. Jude’s hand froze on the doorknob. He was holding a plastic bag of marked-down bread, his knuckles white from the strain. He looked at me, then down at Sammy, who was shivering on the floor. The dark pools of Jude's eyes clouded over with a heavy, painful shadow. "Maeve..." his voice was raw, barely a whisper. "Listen to him. He’s only six." "So what if he's six?" I sneered, slamming my hand onto the rickety wooden table. "Six years old and he still doesn't know how to walk on eggshells? He'll end up just like you, starving to death in this rat hole!" Jude lowered his gaze. He didn't say a word. He walked over, knelt down, and used his sleeve to wipe the tears from Sammy's face. The cuff of his shirt was frayed, washed out to a pale gray. "Daddy," Sammy whimpered, "I'm hungry..." "Daddy will get you something," Jude said, pulling a crumpled twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. It was what he had earned this afternoon hauling upright pianos at the music shop. After cleaning up the mess on the floor, he glanced at me one last time. There is no anger in his eyes—just a crushing, suffocating exhaustion. He patted Sammy gently on the back and walked out the door. The moment the door clicked shut, my knees buckled. I slid down and collapsed onto the linoleum floor. In my head, the System’s electronic voice went off like confetti cannons. [Incredible! Absolutely villainous! The male lead's Heartbreak Index is off the charts!] [Reward of $15,000 has been deposited! Next mission preview: Kick the male lead out on a freezing winter night. Let him catch a raging fever in the cold so he can cross paths with the destined Female Lead in his deepest despair!] I took a slow, shaking breath. This job paid well, but it was soul-crushing. Every time I completed a mission, my conscience took a brutal beating. Now that Jude was gone, Sammy instantly dropped the act. The trembling, pitiful little boy disappeared. "Mom," he said, sitting cross-legged in front of me like a tiny, critical director. "That last line—'starving to death in this rat hole'—the delivery was great. Solid nine out of ten. But that 'dead weight' bit at the beginning? You hesitated. It felt a little forced." "Oh, really? You want to try being the bad guy?" "I can't," he said, throwing his little hands up. "I'm cast as the victim. But hey, when Daddy hugged me just now, I wiped some spit and snot on his shoulder to make it look more realistic." I silently pulled out fifteen hundred dollars from my stash and handed him his cut. He scoots over, slides the money into a metal cookie tin hidden beneath the bed, and peeks back out. "Mom, can I get a little extra this time? I want to buy Daddy a nice pair of work gloves. His hands are all cracked from moving those pianos." "No," I said, keeping my face stern. "A ninety-ten split. That was the deal we made." "Gotta teach financial literacy early, right?" He pouted, but then pulled a few bills from his own stack and pressed them into my palm. "You buy them then, Mom. You have better taste anyway." I held the crumpled cash, a sudden lump forming in my throat. The cookie tin held Sammy's "acting fees." We put on these cruel dramas to trigger the System's rewards, then pool the money to buy Jude pain-relief patches, knee braces, and the expensive stomach medicine he refused to buy for himself. Three months ago, I woke up with this entity in my head. It told me I was the "evil ex-wife" in a classic redemption romance novel. My job was to abuse the fallen male lead, Jude, and his son, until the gentle female lead appeared to save them. Then, I was supposed to run off with whatever money I could steal, leaving them to suffer in poverty until she healed their broken hearts. My first instinct was to tear the System apart. But then we negotiated. It agreed to pay me a hefty cash reward for every "cruelty mission" I successfully completed. I did the math. Jude’s hands had been severely injured years ago when his family went bankrupt, and now hauling pianos left him in agonizing pain every night. Sammy was severely malnourished, a head shorter than other kids his age. And we were living in a basement where black mold crept up the walls. Between playing the villain and ensuring they actually survived, I chose a third path. I played the cruel stepmother, Sammy played the abused child, and we split the profits, secretly using the money to keep Jude alive. "By the way, Mom," Sammy says, shoving the tin back under the bed. "When Daddy picked me up from school yesterday, he stood outside the pharmacy for a long time. He didn't go in. His stomach must be hurting again." "I know." I reached under my pillow, pulled out my phone, and ordered stomach medicine and heating patches. "Later, pretend you're going out to play. Grab the package from the Amazon locker and tell him... tell him you found it." "Ah, the classic 'I found it on the street' routine," Sammy rolled his eyes. "Mom, can we get a more challenging script next time?" I ruffled his messy hair. "We'll see." 2 The next mission from the System came fast. [Major Winter Heartbreak! Kick the male lead out of the house. Force him to spend the night under a bridge in twenty-degree weather. Once his fever hits 104, the Female Lead will make her grand entrance and nurse him back to health!] [Reward: $30,000!] That night, a brutal blizzard hit the city. There is no heating in our basement. Even wrapped in our thin blankets, I could see my own breath puffing into white clouds. Jude sat at the edge of the mattress, studying an old sheet music score under the dim glow of a cheap desk lamp. It was a piece he wrote years ago. Once, his only dream was to be a concert pianist. But when his family's business collapsed, he lost the means to play, and those compositions became nothing more than useless scraps of paper. I took a deep breath and picked up a basin of cold soapy water. "Jude," I said, stepping over. "You were twenty minutes late tonight. The soup is ice cold." He looked up, dark bags weighing heavily under his eyes. "The shop had a last-minute delivery." "A last-minute delivery?" I let out a mocking laugh. "Does a last-minute delivery pay an extra twenty bucks? Does it put real food on your son's plate?" "Maeve..." "Don't say my name!" I raised my voice, making sure it carried. "I must have been blind to marry you. From a brownstone to a basement, from a pianist to a glorified mover. Jude, this is all you'll ever be. Just accept it!" He pressed his lips together, his jaw clenching tight. I steeled my heart, raising the basin, and threw the water directly at his chest. The cold water drenched his shirt instantly, sticking to his skin. He shivered violently, but he didn't flinch. He didn't move. "Get out!" I pointed to the door. "I can't stand the sight of you. Go freeze your head and think about what a pathetic failure you are!" Jude slowly stood up. Water dripped from his collarbone, splashing onto the floor. He looked at me for what feels like an eternity. His gaze was so intense, so dark, it felt like he was trying to etch my face into his memory. "Okay," he said quietly. Just one word. Soft, but so heavy it made my chest ache. He turned and grabbed the thin jacket draped over the chair. It was a jacket I secretly bought for him, lined with a hidden down layer I had hand-stitched inside. To him, though, I had claimed it was just a cheap rag I found in a donation bin. He opened the door, and the freezing wind and snow howled inside. Sammy poked his head out of the covers. I gave him a quick nod. He caught on instantly. He jumped out of bed barefoot, crying out as he threw himself toward the door. "Daddy! Daddy, don't go! Mom, please don't make him leave!" Jude's silhouette froze in the doorway. He turned around. Sammy clung to his leg, sobbing hysterically. "Daddy, it's too cold outside! You'll freeze!" The crying sounded so painfully real. For a second, even I couldn't tell if he was acting. Jude kneeled down, using his wet sleeve to wipe Sammy's face. "Be good, Sammy. Daddy's just going out for a little bit. Just a little bit." "You're lying!" Sammy buried his face in Jude's neck. "You're not coming back! Mom says you're useless and you can't afford to keep us, so you're going to abandon me!" My heart twisted violently. Sammy and I usually go over our scripts before every scene. But this line... I never wrote this line. Jude was trembling. He pulled his son close, his voice cracking. "Daddy will never abandon you. Never." He looked up at me one last time. There was no hatred in his eyes. Only a silent, desperate plea. A quiet, humbling prayer that said: "Don't do this. At least not in front of our son." I turned my face away, forcing my voice to sound like ice. "Take your little drama outside. Don't ruin my night." Jude stood, gently nudging Sammy back into the room, and quietly closed the door behind him. The howling wind was instantly cut off. Sammy's tears stopped on a dime. He wiped his face, ran to the small basement window, and stood on his tiptoes to peer out. "Mom, Daddy's heading toward the highway overpass." I grabbed the backpack I had prepared hours ago. Inside was a thick fleece blanket, a thermos filled with hot ginger tea, some over-the-counter fever reducers, and hand warmers. "Lock the door behind me. Don't open it for anyone. I'm going to drop this off. Stay warm." "Got it," Sammy climbed back into bed. "I know the drill." I pulled on my mask and beanie, slipping out the back door. The snow was falling hard now. Jude's figure was just a tiny speck beneath the streetlights. He walked slowly, stopping occasionally to cough. Even with the extra insulation I sewed in, that jacket was barely enough for a night like this. I took a shortcut to the overpass, hiding the backpack behind a stack of abandoned concrete slabs in the darkest corner. Then, I hid inside a large, rusted drainage pipe nearby, watching him walk in. He stood in the darkness for a long time, then slowly slid down against the concrete wall, pulling his knees to his chest. He looked so small. Like a child abandoned by the entire world. I bit down on my hand to keep from sobbing out loud. Jude sat there for about ten minutes before he noticed something. He reached behind the concrete slab and froze. He pulled out the thick blanket. He stared at it for a long, silent moment, then felt the warmth of the thermos. And then, he did something that made the blood run cold in my veins—he raised his head and looked directly at the drainage pipe where I was hiding.
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