Rebecca. The name now tasted like ash in Sarah's mouth, but there had been a time when it represented everything pure in her suffocating life as a Chen heiress. One of the few people who had seen her – truly seen her – beyond the weight of her family name and New York's expectations.
The memory of their first meeting still burned bright, though now it was tinged with a different kind of fire. Sarah had been rushing to her first college class, arms full of books and pristine stationery, when destiny orchestrated what seemed like a perfect collision. A girl with striking red hair – more ginger up close – had crashed into her, sending their possessions scattering across the hallway floor.
"Inside, I have a happiness with you," Sarah had said impulsively when she found the red-haired girl again in statistics class, watching her shy retreat to the back corner. The words had tumbled out before she could stop them, earning her a startled look that quickly melted into one of the warmest smiles she'd ever received.
That moment had felt like magic – the first time someone had looked at her without the shadow of recognition in their eyes, without the calculated interest that came with the Chen family pictures splashed across social media and society pages. Rebecca's confusion over their classmates' constant stares had been refreshingly genuine, almost innocent.
"I never thought a day would come when someone wouldn't recognize my family," Sarah had laughed during advanced calculus, watching Rebecca fidget under the weight of their peers' curious glances. "Don't worry about them, Becca. Just ignore it."
They'd bonded over everything: their shared struggle to maintain identity within traditional families, their love of contemporary art that their parents would never understand, and their guilty addiction to trashy reality TV shows that would have horrified their social circles. Late nights spent analyzing both Renaissance masterpieces and "The Real Housewives" with equal passion, sharing secrets and dreams in the safe space they'd created together.
Sarah had trusted her completely. That was her first mistake.
Their friendship had seemed destined, inevitable – the shy girl with fiery hair and the heiress who longed to be seen as more than her family name. They'd grown from nervous college freshmen into confident young women together, sharing every triumph and setback. Rebecca had been there through it all: the fights with her parents, the pressure of maintaining the Chen legacy, and later, the complicated decision to marry Marcus.
Now, as Sarah stood in her penthouse with that damning evidence on her phone, she wondered how much of it had been real. Had Rebecca been playing a longer game from that very first collision in the hallway? Had she manufactured that beautiful moment of genuine confusion, knowing exactly who Sarah Chen was all along?
The wine in Sarah's glass had grown warm, much like the memory of their last conversation at the charity gala. Rebecca's red dress was so similar to the sweater she'd worn on that first day of college and now seemed less like coincidence and more like calculated symbolism. A final mockery of their shared history.
Sarah closed her eyes, remembering how Rebecca had squeezed her hand under the table at that last gala, whispering words of support about her marriage to Marcus. The same hands that had... No. She couldn't think about that yet. The betrayal was still too fresh, too raw, too impossible to process.
Sarah laughed at her question and heaved a sigh of relief, 'I never thought a day would come when no one would not recognise my family. Don't worry about them Becca just ignore,' Sarah responded to the question before letting her know that they would be friends for a very long time.
The irony was suffocating. The one person she'd trusted to help her maintain her identity had become instrumental in its unraveling. Rebecca, who had once represented freedom from the Chen family expectations, had delivered the final proof that no one in Sarah's world could be trusted completely.
Her phone buzzed again, and this time, Sarah knew without looking that it would be Rebecca's name on the screen. Another message begging for understanding, for forgiveness, for a chance to explain. But some betrayals went beyond explanation, beyond forgiveness. Some wounds couldn't be healed with carefully crafted words and tearful apologies.