Chapter 20 

When Jacob proposed, I believed I’d finally found my escape from a life of uncertainty. 

His world was so different from mine – polished, privileged, promising everything I’d never known. 

We were engaged for years, a status that felt more like a holding pattern than a commitment. 

His family made it abundantly clear: I wasn’t their first choice. 

My ordinary background was a stain on their pristine social canvas. 

I was the scholarship kid, the outsider who’d somehow caught their son’s attention. 

Jacob was good at making promises. 

He’d sweep me into grand gestures, talk about our future with such conviction that I almost believed we were invincible. 

“We’ll prove them wrong,” he’d say, kissing me with a passion that made me forget their disapproving glances. 

Finding my biological father was supposed to be a turning point. 

A connection I’d always craved. Martin Lopez – a name that came with a complicated backstory and a stepsister, Bella Lopez. 

She seemed perfect at first: polished, welcoming, everything I thought I wanted to be. 

My father’s last words echoed in my mind: “I want to be there when you say ‘I do‘.” But fate had other plans. 

The wedding dress – a cheap rental that held all my broken dreams – now hung like a ghost in my closet. 

Ten hours after sending Jacob the final breakup message, I found myself alone, surrounded by the remnants of a life that had never truly been mine. 

Bella, my stepsister turned lover, had been systematically dismantling our relationship for months. 

Her “coincidental” illnesses, her strategic interruptions, her constant presence – all calculated moves I was too blind 

to see. 

Jacob had transformed from my rescuer to my tormentor. 

The man who once promised to rebuild my world had instead destroyed everything I believed in. 

My father’s funeral was just hours behind me. 

The weight of loss pressed down on me – not just the loss of my father, but the loss of every illusion I’d cherished. 

Dreams of family, of love, of belonging. 

Chapter 20 

As midnight approached, I found myself in a cold, empty room. 

The wedding dress – a symbol of hope and betrayal – felt heavy as I slowly peeled it off. 

Exhaustion consumed me, and I sank to the cold tiles, my body finally surrendering to the numbness that had been building for months. 

I didn’t know then that this was just the beginning of my transformation.