For three years, I believed Brendan loved me, so when his friends called in the middle of the night claiming he had been critically injured while testing a sports car near Bakersfield, I never questioned them. By the time I reached a private clinic in La Jolla, I was terrified enough to donate blood immediately because they insisted Brendan urgently needed a compatible donor.
“If you truly love me, you won’t ask how much blood they need. You’ll donate without another word.”
Forty minutes later, I left the blood bank weak and lightheaded, with cotton taped over the bruise forming on my arm. I genuinely believed I had just helped save the man I loved until I noticed a nurse carrying a medical cooler through the hallway with my name, Chloe Bennett, written across the side.
Curious, I followed her and watched through an open doorway as she removed my blood bag and dropped it directly into a biohazard container. Before I could understand why, laughter drifted from a nearby VIP suite.
“I honestly can’t believe Chloe fell for it again.”
I moved closer and looked through the partially open door. Brendan was lying comfortably in bed without a single visible injury, casually scrolling through his phone while Mason, Wyatt, and the same friends who had sounded terrified hours earlier surrounded him laughing.
“Which prank are we checking off with this one?”
“That makes ninety-six.”
My stomach turned as they began reminiscing about other incidents I had spent years believing were accidents or terrible coincidences. They laughed about sending me into a rainstorm searching for an anniversary bracelet Brendan supposedly lost, even though I became sick afterward, and they remembered convincing me he was unconscious after emergency surgery so I would spend an entire night praying inside a chapel.
Then they mentioned the false plagiarism accusation that destroyed my final semester and caused me to miss graduation while desperately trying to clear my name. Whenever those disasters had left me crying, Brendan had convinced me I was too sensitive, but now I understood that my pain had been entertainment.
“Only three more to go. Ninety-nine acts of revenge and our deal is officially fulfilled.”
“And what happens after that?”
“Brendan dumps Chloe for good and gets back together with Scarlett.”
Scarlett Montgomery had been expected to win the regional contemporary dance championship four years earlier. She came from a wealthy, influential family with elite coaches and sponsors, while I was simply the daughter of an accountant and an elementary school teacher.
But I had won.
Listening from the hallway, I finally learned that Scarlett had cried to Brendan after losing, and he had started dating me specifically because of that competition. His plan was to make me fall deeply in love with him and then punish me repeatedly for humiliating the woman he believed should have won.
For three years, I had blamed myself whenever Brendan became cold or dismissive. I kept trying harder because I believed he struggled to express affection, never realizing that making me feel inadequate had been the purpose from the beginning.
“Don’t make such a massive deal out of it, guys. Chloe chooses to get overly involved in everything, so nobody actually forces her.”
There wasn’t even guilt in his voice.
I quietly backed away before anyone noticed me and made it outside, where I collapsed onto a concrete bench. Then my mother called to say my father had finalized the lease on their new house in Tucson and reminded me there would always be a room for me if I wanted to come.
For months, Brendan had been the reason I refused.
I looked at the bruise on my arm and thought about ninety-six humiliations that had secretly become jokes among people I trusted.
“Mom, please save a room for me.”
After we hung up, Brendan sent me a message.
“Come over tomorrow morning. We still have three things to resolve.”
He still believed he had three acts of revenge left.
He had no idea number ninety-six had already ended everything.
That night, I returned to my Pasadena apartment, locked the door, and pulled a large suitcase from the closet. For the first time in three years, I wasn’t wondering how to repair my relationship with Brendan or what I had done wrong. I was planning how to remove myself from his life completely.
I packed clothes, documents, and family photographs until I found the silver dance shoes I had worn when I defeated Scarlett. For years, they had carried a strange sense of guilt because Brendan had slowly taught me to associate my proudest achievement with everything that went wrong afterward.
At two in the morning, someone began pounding on my door.
“Chloe, open the door right now.”
I recognized Brendan’s voice immediately but left the deadbolt locked.
“Go away, Brendan.”
“What on earth is wrong with you?”
“I heard everything at the clinic today.”
The silence that followed told me more than any confession could have. Brendan didn’t ask whether I was okay or apologize for what he had done. He only wanted to know who had exposed him.
“Nobody told me. I heard you and your friends with my own ears.”
When I confronted him about tricking me into donating blood for an accident that never happened, Brendan dismissed the entire thing as a harmless joke. He reminded me that nobody had physically forced me to donate, as though my willingness to save someone I loved somehow made his deception acceptable.
“You’re right. Nobody forced me. We are completely finished.”
He laughed at first, apparently convinced I would calm down and return to him as I always had. When I repeated that our relationship was over, his amusement disappeared and he demanded to know how I could throw away three years after everything he had supposedly done for me.
“What exactly did you ever do for me?”
“I gave you a prominent place in my social life.”
Once, that answer might have made me feel lucky. Now it showed me how little I had been receiving while convincing myself it was love.
“You never gave me a place, Brendan. You turned me into an emotional punching bag to avenge another woman.”
He slammed his fist against the door and warned me not to bring Scarlett into the conversation. I removed the silver necklace he had given me on our first anniversary, pushed it through the mail slot, and listened as it struck the hallway floor.
“You are going to deeply regret this decision, Chloe!”
The following morning, my parents arrived to help me move, and my father immediately noticed the bruise from the blood donation. My mother found my old dance shoes near the trash and quietly returned them to me, reminding me that someday I could buy another pair and dance for myself instead of anyone else.
That evening, while we stayed at a hotel near the airport, an unfamiliar number called my phone. The woman on the other end was Scarlett.
She admitted knowing Brendan resented me and had played some cruel tricks, but claimed she had never known about the fake accident or blood donation. I sarcastically congratulated her for approving only the smaller humiliations, but what she said next changed my understanding of the entire revenge scheme.
“Brendan never actually did any of this for my sake.”
Scarlett explained that she had cried for one night after losing the dance championship and then moved on. Brendan was the one who couldn’t accept that someone without wealth, influential connections, elite tutors, or a prestigious family name had defeated the woman he believed belonged above me.
“So it was never about defending your honor.”
“No. It was entirely about Brendan’s fragile ego.”
