Chapter 1

“Hey, I heard your girlfriend’s working a delivery job now? Out in the summer heat, hauling boxes all day. That’s real love right there! Don’t you feel bad making her do it?”

I had just parked my delivery van and was about to call a customer when I heard a guy’s voice from across the street.

I glanced over. Two guys were leaning against a car, backs toward me, chatting.

A girlfriend working herself to the bone to support her boyfriend…

I couldn’t help but smile a little. That sounded a lot like me. Another couple fighting side by side for their future.

True love can survive anything, right? In that moment, I felt like I’d made the right choice.

But then the other guy spoke—and the voice froze me in place.

“Feel bad? She’s doing it because she wants to. It’s not like I forced her.”

That voice. I knew it.

Ryan Lawson.

We’ve been together two years. I couldn’t possibly make mistakes.

But… Ryan? The guy who was always gentle, always soft-spoken—how could he say something so cruel?

I yanked out my phone, staring at our last text thread. His most recent message was still there:

Sophie, I’ve got work to do. Be safe, okay? Love you. Babe.

We met in college. He was a year older than me.

Right before graduation, he said he’d landed a job in a nearby city. Training pay: $1,200. Once permanent: $1,800. It meant we couldn’t see each other every day anymore—only on weekends.

I felt bad for him, working so hard for so little. I worried he wouldn’t eat well, that he’d look shabby and get laughed at.

So, I used the money I’d saved from campus jobs to buy him clothes, to make sure he had something decent to eat.

And to speed up our dream of buying a place together, I picked up this summer job delivering packages. We’d save up for a down payment together.

But if he was supposed to be working in another city right now… why was he here?

Did he have a twin brother he never told me about? Someone with a voice exactly the same?

My heart refused to believe those ugly words had come from Ryan.

Two years together isn’t a fling. No one could fake love that long.

Ryan, I knew he was warm, kind, always thoughtful. He’d never talk like that.

To be sure, I grabbed a box from the van and pretended I had a delivery across the street. As I got closer, I angled myself to see their faces.

One look—and my whole body went cold.

It was him. Ryan. My so-called broke boyfriend.

Only… he didn’t look broke at all.

His clothes, his sneakers, his watch—every single thing on him screamed expensive.

He looked like a completely different person.

For a second, I wondered if he really did have a twin.

Desperate, I stepped back, pulled out my phone, and called him.

The phone across the street rang.

I locked my eyes on him.

He glanced at the screen, smirked, and muttered to his friend, “Speak of the devil.”

He didn’t answer. He just let it ring.

That tiny bit of hope I’d been holding onto shattered into dust.

He had lied to me.

His friend laughed. “Man, you’re cold. She thinks you’re broke, working some dead-end job in another city. Meanwhile, you’re here living it up. She’s out there busting her back delivering packages just so you two can buy a house after graduation—and you won’t even pick up her call?”

Then Ryan chuckled, completely unbothered.

“Sophie? She’s just a fling. Fun while it lasts, but nothing serious. A girl like her could never belong in my world.”

The truth hit me like a brick.

All the years, all the struggles, all the love—I thought it was real.

But it had all been an act.

And I was the fool who believed it.