Reply to an Old Dream

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Three in the morning, rain coming down, and I grabbed a courier gig.

One box of ultra-thin condoms, one red lace teddy. Tip: a hundred bucks.

Looking at the surname Henson on the order, the fingertip pressed to my screen trembled.

I swallowed nervously. Sir, your delivery's here.

Just leave it outside.

A woman's voice on the phone. The knot in my chest loosened.

Not Miles Henson.

I was about to go when the door clicked open and a man took the bag from my hand.

"Celine Vance?"

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. "Long time no see, Mr. Henson."

The air froze between us. I forced a small laugh and waved goodbye. "Don't let me keep you, Mr. Henson. I've got other orders to run."

The second I turned, Miles caught my rain-soaked hand.

"What happened back thenI was wrong about you."

1.

"I didn't know that you really liked"

"I was young back then and didn't know any better. It wasn't anything like really liking you."

I cut off whatever he was struggling to say.

I watched his eyes dim a shade.

Raindrops slid off my rain jacket onto the carpet, soundless, and somehow heavy.

I took a deep breath and lifted my head with a smile.

"Mr. Henson, I forgot about all that a long time ago. There's no need for you to keep it in mind."

Then I gently pulled my hand free.

His palm still held a little warmth where mine had been. He sighed, helpless. "These few years, after you left the Hensonsthis is what you do?"

There was concern in it, and blame, but mostly contempt.

I didn't answer, and I couldn't be bothered to.

The door behind him hadn't been shut all the way, and a flash of skin and noise spilled out.

Miles frowned and looked back, and I slipped away in that gap.

Only when I ran out of the hotel lobby and into the rain did the knot in my chest finally come down.

Six years. I'd never once thought I'd run into Miles Henson again.

And least of all like this.

My phone chimed. I saw two zeros added onto the original hundred-dollar tip.

I let out a long breath. Miles hadn't changed.

He liked to solve things with money. People too.

I got on my scooter without looking back and left that place that made me so uneasy.

When the group chat found out my tip was ten thousand, it blew up.

Holy crap, Celine, did you win the lottery or what?

If I'd known, I'd have grabbed that order!! I could kick myself!

Celine, that guy didn't take a liking to you, did he? Trying to keep you?

Right, our Celine's so pretty, no wonder someone's got their eye on her.

Watching the messages flash up one after another, I gave a bitter little twist of a smile.

No. He doesn't like me.

What's that mean? You two know each other?

The chat lit up again, everyone jumping in a line at a time, all of them curious about my story.

Yeah. My mom was a housekeeper at his family's place before she died.

A dynasty heir and a housekeeper's daughter. Anyone could see the gap was too wide for anything to happen.

Life isn't a TV drama. There aren't that many prince-falls-for-Cinderella scenes.

The chat quietly moved on to something else.

Right. Miles didn't like me.

And he didn't like that I liked him.

After all, I was just a dead housekeeper's daughter. Someone living under another family's roof, there to be toyed with.

My mother was a housekeeper for the Hensons for thirty years. Even on the day she died, she was still worrying that Fay Henson's clothes hadn't been picked up from the dry cleaner's.

She gave nearly her whole life to that family.

So her dying wish, leaving me in their care, became the beginning of my story with Miles Henson.

The first time I met him, Miles stepped out of a luxury car in a white shirt and set his foot on the bare concrete outside my home.

He asked me, "Celine, will you come to the Hensons' with me?"

I looked at our empty, stripped-bare house, and I nodded.

I knew this was the only thing my mother had left me.

Sitting in the Hensons' car, I remembered what my mom said to me before she died.

"At the Hensons' you have to be sharp, and quick to work. Whatever you do, don't slip up and give anyone a reason to throw you out."

"Celine, I couldn't pick you a good father. That's my fault, and I'm sorry."

"Celine, you have to do everything you can to stay with the Hensons."

So except for school and homework, I kept my head down and worked.

Even though Miles said again and again that there were people to do all that, I never dared to stop.

Back then Miles had just come home from studying abroad, with endless parties, always drinking until the middle of the night before he came back.

I'd make hangover soup for him and wait in the front room no matter how late it got.

He liked me a lot back then. He was always telling people, "Celine's so thoughtful."

Later, wherever Miles went, he wanted to take me along.

Everyone said the Henson heir had picked up a little tail, and plenty of them teased me with the nickname.

I thought I'd found solid ground at Miles's side.

I thought I was supposed to be different from the rest.

Until the end of winter in '18, when I met Maggie Fox at a dinner party.

The person who changed the whole course of my life.

She made sure I understood that I hadn't just failed to find solid groundI had never even made it to Miles Henson's side.

"Hi, I'm Maggie Fox. Miles's fiance."

That day, my whole world caved in.

Only then did I learn the dinner was a welcome-home party Miles had thrown for Maggie. She was the guest of honor.

And this match between them had been settled back when they were children.

Maggie sat beside Miles, the white dress making her look fresh and clean, an air of wealth about her that you couldn't look away from.

The two of them fit together.

Fit together so perfectly I wanted to make myself disappear.

"Mr. Henson, I'd like to go home first."

I stood in front of Miles, not even daring to lift my head.

Miles didn't ask anything. He just told the driver to take me back to the old estate.

"Miles, why's your little shadow leaving so early?"

"Right, doesn't she usually stay till the end with you?"

"Ooh, could it be Maggie's back and she's jealous?"

I'd barely stepped outside when the teasing started up behind me.

Maggie sat there, watching the half-closed door, something amused in her eyes.

"Miles, does she have a thing for you?"

Miles let out a short laugh, then clicked a cigar and set it between his lips.

"Jealous over a housekeeper's daughter?"

"Maggie, you really are getting sillier with age."

Two lines, tossed off with a laugh, went into me like needles.

That was the truth. No matter how I dressed it up, I was nothing but a housekeeper's daughter.

I wasn't good enough for Miles. I didn't even have the right to stand at his side.

That day, I fled back to the Henson house.

I thought as long as I buried those shameful feelings and knew my place, I could go on scraping by in the Henson home.

But heaven didn't grant me even that.

Early the next morning, I saw Maggie at the old estate.

Behind her sat piles of luggage, and every servant in the Henson house was carrying it in.

She cut through the crowd and stopped in front of me, her arrogant gaze sizing me up.

"Your mother had real talent. Even gone, she still managed to slot you into the Hensons as an indentured maid. Thirty years of housekeeping really paid off."

"But your mother could win the old lady over. And you? Whose favor have you won?"

I kept my head down, not daring to answer a word.

Everyone was watching for my reaction, a look in their eyes like they were here for a show.

Maggie laughed to herself and pointed a slender finger at the toe of her shoe.

"My shoes are dirty. Clean them for me."

In that moment my whole body went rigid, unable to move, and yet I still crouched down and brushed the invisible dust off with my sleeve.

My mother had told me I couldn't be thrown out.

In the gap where I looked up, I saw Miles, who had just come through the door.

The instant our eyes met, everything I'd swallowed rose to the surface.

He looked over from a distance, his clear, carrying voice reaching my ears through the light.

"Maggie, done playing yet? Are we going or not?"

Playing?

I'd known Miles might not stand up for me this time. But I never thought he'd choose that word.

When I first came to the Henson house, I was young, and it was hard to avoid being bullied by the older staff.

Some called my mother scheming, some said I was shameless and throwing myself at him, and some went behind my back to make trouble for me.

They found every way to shove the dirty, exhausting work into my hands.

Back then Miles said, "Celine, you're not a Henson servant. You don't have to bow and scrape."

So he stood up for me. He put them in their place for me.

But now he watched me get bullied and called it playing.

Warmth flooded my eyes, and no matter how I fought it, the sting in my nose wouldn't go down.

I watched Maggie run to Miles in her heels, and the sight of them leaning together turned my eyes red.

"Some people, honestlya toad lusting after swan meat. Plans blown clean off the table!"

"Doesn't even look at what she is, still hoping to get into the Hensons?"

"If her mother hadn't sweet-talked the old lady into taking her in, she wouldn't have made it through the Henson door."

After Maggie came, all the ugly words and petty tricks landed in front of me again.

The ways they tormented me kept multiplying, worn down until I didn't have room to breathe.

That bowl of hangover soup, I never made again.

Finally, Miles knocked on my door.

He carried the cold from outside on him, mixed with the smell of liquor. "Celine, are you angry?"

"You won't even make me hangover soup anymore?"

I buried my face in the covers and didn't answer.

He let out a long sigh, then went on, "Celine, Maggie grew up abroad. She's casual about the way she talks and acts, but she's not a bad person."

"Celine, you need to learn to get along with her."

"Celine, you've always been such a good girl."

So he had known everything all along.

He simply hadn't wanted to put his beloved in a difficult spot, so my hurt counted for nothing.

Tears soaked the pillow while I let the grief and helplessness spread through my chest.

After that, I swallowed my resentment and learned to keep my mouth shut even tighter.

But trouble came faster than I ever imagined.

That day was Maggie's birthday party.

Every prominent family in New York had come to the old Henson estate, and everyone knew Maggie and Miles were nearly engaged, so within a few words they started offering congratulations.

I stayed in a corner, watching Miles fasten that one-of-a-kind necklace around Maggie's neck.

In that moment, I felt like a thief coveting something that belonged to someone else.

And that was also the day I was nailed to the pillory as a thief.

"Celine, did you take that necklace?"

When Miles stood in front of me demanding it, my mind went blank.

Everyone in the room turned to look at me, their eyes hungry for the show.

"I... I didn't!"

I lifted my head, trying to make Miles see the honesty in my eyes.

"The whole party, I never even went near her!"

I tried to defend myself, laying out my proof.

Miles knit his brows and glanced around, then lowered his voice. "Celine, it's fine even if you took it. It's only a necklace."

Before I could speak, he turned back to soothe Maggie. "All right."

"I'll buy you a better one."

Maggie pouted, cursed Miles a few times, and let it go.

But because of that one sentence from Miles, I was branded a thief for good.

I rushed to him like I'd lost my mind, clutching the hem of his clothes, crying, "I didn't, I didn't steal her necklace!"

The tears came before the words; I sobbed until I couldn't catch my breath.

"I already said it's fine even if you took it, so what are you crying for?"

"Your father beats you until you're covered in wounds and you don't cry, and one sentence from me and you can't stop?"

"Celine, don't put on an act."

There was no feeling in those words, only a warning underneath them.

My gripping hand released the hem of his clothes, as if cutting off the last thread of my attachment to him.

The party broke up earlier that day than any before.

The wild whispers around the old house only grew louder, everyone murmuring and sizing me up.

I hid in my room and cried for three days, for myself and for Miles too.

The night my whole body burned with fever, I felt like I'd fallen into a black hole.

In the haze, I thought I saw my dead mother.

"Mom, I miss you so much."

"I don't want to stay here anymore, I want to leave..."

Somewhere beyond my awareness, the door crashed open with a bang.

"Damn it!"

"She hasn't come out in three days and none of you noticed?"

Miles kicked open my door and rushed me, burning at a hundred and four, to the hospital.

In the drifting gaps of consciousness, I still wanted to clear my name.

"Mr. Henson, I really didn't steal Miss Fox's necklace."

"It doesn't matter."

"Celine, none of this matters."

There was worry in Miles's eyes, and a trace of weariness too.

In that moment I couldn't name what I felt. There was hurt, there was anger, but mostly it was my heart giving up.

Whether or not I was a thief didn't matter to Miles.

The reputation of a housekeeper's daughter meant nothing in his eyes.

"It doesn't matter to you, but it matters to me."

Miles said nothing, only hired a nurse to look after me at the hospital.

Later Miles said the necklace had been found, tucked in a lining pocket of Maggie's bag.

He said he'd make Maggie apologize to me. I answered him, "It doesn't matter."

And it truly didn't anymore.

I once thought Miles was the light that would save me.

But now I finally saw that he wasn't.

That farce and that illness severed the tie between me and Miles completely. I no longer followed him, and I almost never showed up anywhere he was.

I avoided him, and I avoided Maggie too.

The year of the admissions exams, I even secretly changed the college choices he'd set for me and applied to a university down south.

I wanted to be far, far away from him.

Apart from schoolwork, Miles and I barely spoke anymore.

Now and then he'd try to say a few caring words, and I'd hear the first line and find an excuse to walk away.

I thought everything would go smoothly.

Until the day before the SATs, when I got a call from the police department.

"Is this Celine? Your father's been in a car accident. He's not going to make it. Come to the county hospital right away."

Half a year had passed, and for the first time I knocked on Miles Henson's door.

"Mr. Henson, my dad's been in a car accident."

My whole body was shaking as I said it.

However deeply I hated my father, he was the only family I had in this world.

Miles moved fast. He grabbed his keys and took me straight to the hospital.

It was only after I made a call that I learned my dad had come into the city just to drive me to my admissions exams.

At the hospital, I saw my father lying in the morgue, and the tears broke loose.

In that moment, I understood I had lost the only family I had left.

"Celine, I'll handle everything with your dad."

"My condolences."

I was only eighteen then. Other than trusting Miles, I had no other choice.

But it wasn't until he brought the settlement waiver to me that I learned exactly what he had handled.

"Celine, sign the waiver first."

I looked at the name sprawled across the waiver, Maggie Fox, and that was how I learned it was Maggie who had run my father down and killed him.

I pointed at her name, trembling as I raised my head to ask him, "So you knew it was Maggie who killed my dad, and that's why you said you'd handle it?"

"I didn't know at first."

"Celine, it's already happened. Taking the compensation and signing the waiver is the best choice for you."

In the pitch-dark hospital corridor, the last trace of light left on Miles dimmed out.

"Do you think everything in this world can be solved with money?"

"That's my father. He isn't a string of numbers you can measure."

His cold, arrogant eyes carried a flicker of impatience. He knit his brows. "Celine, don't think I don't know what you're thinking."

"You've hated your dad since you were a child. Trading his life for money is a deal that costs you nothing."

"You're not seeking justice for your father. You just want to use this chance to get back at Maggie."

"Because you like me. Isn't that right?"

That was when I learned that past a certain point, pain leaves you unable to cry.

Even your voice goes hoarse.

"Celine, the Hensons raised you all these years. It's not as if the family can't afford one sheet of paper."

That cold, thin sentence tore my wound wide open.

"I'll sign."

I didn't handle anything else concerning my father.

I only knew a sum of money appeared in my account, from the Fox family.

The day the acceptance letter arrived at the Henson house, Miles flew into a rage.

By the time the call reached me, I was already on a train heading south.

"This guy really isn't anything good."

"So you just slunk off like that? Didn't ask for a cent?"

Hearing this, my roommate was indignant on my behalf.

I shook my head and said nothing more.

The next second, a group notice from Roderick Simmons came through.

Someone wants to invest in our project. A big shot.

Everyone get ready. Private Room 888 at Skyline No. 3.

My roommate and I looked at each other, a trace of confusion in our eyes.

After college, a few close friends and I built a lifestyle app, mainly for round-the-clock on-demand service.

It covered errands, housekeeping, odd tasks, dog walking, picking up and dropping off kids, and more, with our old class president Roderick as the nominal boss, running around chasing investment.

But no investor had ever liked the project, which left us doing everything ourselves to build up the order volume first.

Miles's order that day had come to us by pure accident.

We reached the door of the private room, and the moment I pushed it open I saw Miles seated in the head chair.

My feet froze on the spot.

So it was me he had come for.

"This is our development team manager, Celine Vance, she"

"I know."

Miles cut Roderick off, his gaze fixed straight on me.

Everyone had questions in their eyes but didn't dare ask; after all, the whole point of this evening was to land the Hensons' investment.

After a few rounds of drinks, several of them were already drunk.

Miles made a slow circle around the room, pulled out the chair beside me, and set his phone down on the marble tabletop with a click.

In that moment, my heart lurched up.

On the lit screen was a photo of Marvin Vance and Roderick together.

"Celine, tell me."

"This child, is he mine?"

There was a chill in that low voice. I shivered without meaning to, my heart pounding as if it had jumped into my throat.