I Loved Your Ghost Not You

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I was just shooting the breeze with my buddy that day, completely unaware until I happened to glance back and saw Viola standing there. Her face was dark as a thunderhead, practically vibrating with rage.

We had been venting about the exhausting, messy realities of dating. I was mid-sentence, casually saying that she was just a placeholdersomeone to pass the time with, because compared to Mona, everyone else was just static on the radio.

I even brought up her best friend. I said that with the lights off, there wasn't a damn bit of difference between them anyway, and that faking my way through that little performance had been a total waste of my energy.

The truth was, sleeping with her best friend had originally been a desperate, clawing attempt to get back at Viola.

But the morning after, I overheard the two of them laughing about it. Viola actually told her friend that it was a calculated move. She said it was just a way to teach me a lessonthat once I felt dirty, once I was terrified shed throw me away for being tainted, Id finally stop throwing tantrums and fall in line.

Her friend even chimed in to compliment my body, laughing that I was just a little too inhibited, and if Id let loose a bit more, she would have had the time of her life.

But what Viola didn't see coming was this: I truly, fundamentally, did not give a single damn.

The day after I slept with Shirley, Viola showed up at her door.

She sank into an armchair, her posture painfully languid, her tone entirely too casual.

"Don't look so tense. I'm not here to read you the riot act. I know Holden came to your place last night."

"I let it happen."

Shirley let out a low whistle.

Viola lit a cigarette, the flame illuminating the sharp angles of her face. "How was he?"

"Pretty damn good," Shirley said, sinking back into the opposite sofa, a reminiscent gleam in her eyes. "I see why you keep him around. The boys got fire. Built perfectly, firm everywhere it counts."

"He's just wound a little tight. If he leaned into it, he'd be lethal."

"And that look on his facelike he was right on the edge of crying? Jesus, it was so pure it almost hurt. Thinking about it now makes me..."

Viola kept smiling, but the expression was entirely localized to her mouth. It never reached her eyes.

"Still," Shirley mused, "you knew he was only crawling into my bed to get back at you. Why give him the green light?"

"Because now hell learn his place," Viola said, her voice completely flat.

"Hes been acting out lately. Throwing fits, testing my patience. It was getting exhausting. Once he realizes that throwing a tantrum gets him absolutely nowhere, hell stop."

Shirley looked thoroughly entertained. "Aren't you worried that giving him a taste of the buffet will turn your house cat into a stray? What if he decides he likes sneaking out?"

Viola let out a dismissive scoff. "He won't."

"Holden grew up in the foster system. Hes been starved of affection his entire life. You give a guy like that a single drop of warmth, and he treats you like a life raft. He loves me down to the marrow of his bones. Last night was just a blind, impulsive lashing out because he was hurt. He doesn't have the spine to make a habit of it."

She tapped her cigarette against the ashtray, the words spilling out with a cloud of grey smoke.

"I know how he ticks. Once the anger burns off, the guilt is going to eat him alive. Hes going to feel filthy. Hes going to be terrified that Ill look at him and see something used. After this, hell be perfectly docile. No more shouting, no more crying. Low maintenance."

"Let him cross the line once, and I buy myself a lifetime of absolute obedience."

"It's a good return on investment."

Shirley clicked her tongue, giving a slow, mocking round of applause.

"Spoken like a true CEO. You train your men the way people train dogs."

"But from what I remember, Holden is practically a saint. The guy doesn't have a mean bone in his body. What the hell did you do to push him over the edge? Was it... because of Hayden?"

"Don't tell me he walked in on you two" Shirley made an explicit gesture with her hands, a wicked grin spreading across her face.

Viola shot her a dead-eyed glare.

"Keep your mind out of the gutter. He just saw us kissing."

Shirley whistled again.

"Seriously though, what's the endgame here? Hayden is back in the States. Who are you picking? Hes the ghost youve been chasing for a decade."

"You only keep Holden around because their names sound the same, and they have the same jawline."

"Hayden isn't going to share you."

The cigarette smoke veiled Viola's face, blurring the hard lines of her expression.

She let the silence stretch out.

"I'll deal with it when I have to," she finally said. "Holden can't survive without me. Worst case scenario, I keep him set up somewhere quiet."

"He's na?ve. If I don't protect him, this city will chew him up."

Then, remembering something, she shot Shirley an ice-cold look. "You made him use protection, right?"

Shirley froze, taking a fraction of a second too long to recover.

"Obviously."

Viola crushed her cigarette into the glass tray. She pulled her trench coat tight around her shoulders and stood up, her voice dropping to a glacial chill. "I let you take a bite out of my property last night. But hear me clearly."

"There won't be a next time."

It was high noon, and the California sun was relentless and bright.

I had thrown on a fresh outfit and was in remarkably good spirits as I walked into the diner to meet Cam.

The second I slid into the booth, Cam grabbed my shoulders, checking me over like Id just survived a car wreck.

"Are you okay? Seriously, man, what's going on?"

I laughed, batting his hands away. "I'm fine. Never better."

Cam wasn't buying it. "Are you sure? When you called me last night, you were barely making sense. I kept asking what was wrong, and you just went dead silent and hung up. Then it went straight to voicemail. I was losing my mind, thinking you were in a ditch somewhere."

"Level with me. Did Viola do something to you again?"

I pulled him down into his seat, leaning back with effortless ease. "I'm genuinely fine. I just dropped my phone and shattered the screen last night. Nobody did anything to me. Viola is being Viola. She pays the bills, keeps the lights on."

I paused for a second, swirling the straw in my iced water before adding casually, "Though, her old flame did just move back from Europe. She hired him as her personal assistant. And yesterday, I just happened to walk in on them swapping spit in her office."

Cam just stared at me.

"Dude, you call that fine?!" He looked like he wanted to tear his hair out. "Are you not losing your goddamn mind? She's cheating on you!"

"I told you from day one that woman was toxic, but you treat her like she hangs the moon."

"It's whatever," I said, my tone feather-light. "I slept with her best friend anyway."

Dead silence.

Cam stared at me. He didn't even blink.

Then, he let out a whispered, earth-shattering, "Holy shit," so intense that the little girl at the next table jumped.

Realizing he was causing a scene, he slapped a hand over his mouth, looking around like we were plotting a heist, before sliding across the vinyl booth to get closer to me.

"...Who?"

"You don't know her."

"What the hell were you thinking? Was it a revenge lay?"

"Not really." I pushed my sparkling water toward him with a smile. "I just noticed Shirley has this crescent-moon scar on her shoulder. It looks exactly like Mona's birthmark. I had a few drinks in me, and for a second... my mind just played a trick on me."

Cam looked at me like I had grown a second head. "You are insane..."

"To be honest, it wasn't even a good time," I continued smoothly. "Lights off, shes exactly the same as anyone else. Nothing special to touch. Faking my way through it felt like an acting exercise."

"Viola is slightly better, I guess. She knows what shes doing, and she's got a decent face. When she smiles, there's maybe a twenty percent resemblance. But even that gets old."

"Whatever. If it's not Mona, they're all just placeholders."

"Just passing the time. Nobody needs to take it so seriously."

Cam sat there like a statue. He was so stunned hed forgotten how to breathe.

Eventually, entirely out of shock, he slowly raised his hand and gave me a thumbs-up.

I clinked my glass against his.

"Just one question," Cam started, his voice a little hoarse. "Who exactly is Mona"

His voice hitched.

I followed his frozen, terrified gaze over my shoulder, and found myself staring directly into Violas face. It was so dark and stormy you could almost hear the thunder.

A ragged, guttural sound tore its way out of her throat.

"Holden. Who the hell is Mona?"

"You better start talking. What the fuck did you just tell Cam?"

After the disaster at the diner, Viola had practically dragged me back to her penthouse by the collar.

The air in the room was suffocating. She was practically vibrating with a desperate, furious need to interrogate me.

I didn't feel an ounce of the shame you're supposed to feel when you're caught red-handed. Instead, I let my body go completely boneless, sinking deep into the velvet sofa, looking up at her with a highly amused smile.

"You heard every word, didn't you?"

I lifted a single finger and pointed it lazily at her chest. "You. Are. A stand-in."

I admitted it with devastating ease.

Viola's eyes were bloodshot. Her arms were visibly shaking.

She stared at me with a look so violently intense I thought she might try to peel my skin off.

"So all this time you've been with me... you were pretending I was someone else?"

"Yep."

The answer dropped without a fraction of hesitation.

The air in the room smelled like gunpowder.

I met her burning, furious gaze without flinching.

Right then, her phone buzzed against the marble coffee table.

She snatched it up frantically, her eyes darting away from me for just a second to read the screen.

A long moment passed. Slowly, the tight, agonizing knot between Viola's eyebrows began to smooth out.

She let out a scoffing laugh, her shoulders dropping as relief washed over her.

"Holden, you don't have to invent these pathetic lies just to get a rise out of me. I've had my people run background checks on everyone you know. There is no one named Mona."

"Who put you up to this?"

"Was it Cam?"

...God, the sheer, staggering arrogance of this woman.

I clicked my tongue. "Whatever helps you sleep at night. Believe what you want."

I stood up, planning to walk right past her to the bedroom, but her hand clamped down on my wrist like a vice.

"Where were you last night? Why didn't you come home?"

I looked at her, genuinely perplexed. "I was at Shirley's. You knew that."

Hadn't she heard that part at the diner?

Or did her ego completely block out my critique of her best friend in bed the second she heard the word 'placeholder'?

Maybe this was so far off the script she had written in her head that Viola actually froze, a deep crease forming between her brows.

"You slept with her?"

Still playing dumb.

I didn't hold back. "You sleep with Hayden, I sleep with your best friend. Seems like a perfectly balanced ledger to me."

She choked on her next breath.

She searched my face, her frown deepening into something resembling horror. "Do you not feel completely sick with yourself?"

"No? Actually, I feel fantastic. Shirley was literally on her knees, begging for my attention like a stray dog."

The only thing dirty here was the absolute trash-fire of her own ego.

Watching the sheer bewilderment crack across her flawless face, it suddenly clicked. I let out a sharp laugh.

"Wait. You didn't actually think I was going to sit around crying because I touched another woman, did you? Did you think I was going to hate myself, beg for your forgiveness, and cling to your legs promising to be a good little boy who does whatever you say?"

Her silence was a rigid, paralyzed confirmation. I had hit the bullseye.

I let my eyes drag slowly up and down her frame, my expression dripping with open mockery.

"Viola, please don't flatter yourself. I'm not that pathetic, and you're not that special. Frankly, you're pretty thoroughly average."

"You aren't the center of the universe. I'll survive perfectly fine without you."

My reaction had completely short-circuited the narrative she was trying to control.

This time, Viola was genuinely, truly furious. Her jaw locked tight, her expression twisting into something ugly and dark.

I sat back and watched her unravel. It was a beautiful view.

The veins at her temples and along the back of her hands bulged. She let out a cold, venomous laugh.

"Fine. Let's play it your way, Holden."

"You don't care, right? You don't need me? Let's test that theory."

"Let's see how many days it takes for you to crawl back."

With that, she spun on her heel, radiating absolute fury, and slammed the front door so hard the walls shook.

Heres the thing: Im not Holden. I only arrived in this world last night.

According to the System, the original owner of this body lost his parents when he was little. He grew up in crushing poverty, was rejected by extended family, and eventually got dumped into the foster system.

In a world that decays and rots, being devastatingly beautiful is a curse.

Growing up, Holden was constantly harassed by girls who didn't understand the word 'no,' and brutalized by boys who couldn't stand the sight of him.

He never had a single good day in foster care. It forged him into someone deeply insecure, hyper-vigilant, and painfully fragile.

In a way, Viola was the first person to ever look at him with something resembling kindness. She was the first person to say, Don't be afraid. I'm here.

When a kid who has been starved of love his entire life finally feels a flicker of warmth, he will throw himself into the fire just to stay close to it.

He fell entirely, hopelessly in love with her.

And Viola fed the addiction perfectly. She bought him expensive clothes, checked in on him, smothered him with financial security.

She gave him everythingexcept loyalty.

Not too long ago, Holden realized his entire life was a pathetic joke.

Viola claimed she loved him, but she was still deeply, obsessively in love with her college ex, the golden boy who just flew back from Paris.

Not only did Hayden and Holden share a striking physical resemblance, especially in the sharp curve of their profiles.

What completely broke him was discovering the mole.

Holden had a small, reddish mole on his chestthe exact spot Viola was obsessed with biting and kissing when they were in bed.

He realized Hayden had the exact same mark.

In the exact same place.

He noticed it when he accidentally walked in on them kissing in her office. Though 'kissing' was a generous term; half their clothes were already off. It was obvious where things were heading.

The tightrope his sanity had been walking for weeks finally snapped.

Holden lost his mind. He wanted to hurt Viola with everything he had.

So, he went and slept with her best friend, Shirley.

And Viola had been entirely right about him.

Halfway through the act, the blistering need for revenge was drowned out by a tidal wave of crushing regret. He started shaking. He started hating his own skin, sobbing and begging Shirley to let him go.

But nobody listens to the desperate prayers of the powerless.

Holden felt like his life was over.

Afterward, he dragged his half-dressed body out into the torrential rain, wandering aimlessly across a bridge, weeping, seriously debating just throwing himself over the edge to make it all stop.

Right before the end, he just wanted to hear his best friend's voice.

He called Cam.

But before he could even get the words out, a speeding Maybach that couldn't hit the brakes in time threw him twenty feet into the air.

As his broken body hit the asphalt, his consciousness went completely dark.

And thats when I woke up inside him.

Honestly, when the System downloaded his memories into my brain, I didn't feel pity. I felt pure, unadulterated rage.

Yes, rage.

What Holden did wasn't revenge; it was self-mutilation.

He took his own boundaries, his dignity, his very soul, and tried to use them as a weapon against someone who didn't care.

He didn't hurt anyone but himself. He dragged his own spirit through the mud and turned into the exact thing he despised.

But here is the universal truth: if you don't cherish yourself, how can you expect anyone else to treat you like you're worth something?

Real revenge doesn't look like that.

You can use people as tools. You can use them as stepping stones. But you never sacrifice yourself in the process.

You stay impeccably clean. You stand high above them. And you wait until the people who wronged you are crawling through the filth.

Until they are kneeling at your feet.

I know exactly how people like Viola operate.

Arrogant. Playing the savior while acting like the god of their own little universe.

On the surface, she convinced herself she was just keeping a pet, a stand-in for her real love. But in her blind stupidity, she didn't realize she had actually fallen for him. She took his unconditional devotion for granted, treating him like garbage because she assumed he would never, ever leave.

I have a lot of experience dealing with people exactly like her.

For three straight days, Viola didn't set foot in the apartment.

And I didn't send a single text.

In the past, whenever they fought, Viola would deploy the silent treatment. Within an hour, Holden would be practically crawling to her, apologizing profusely, over-analyzing everything he did wrong, and taking the blame even when he was entirely innocent.

She was completely conditioned to wait for him to cave first.

So this time, the absolute, ringing silence was guaranteed to make her lose her mind.

Sure enough, at ten o'clock tonight, the front door clicked open.

Viola walked in, physically supporting a heavily intoxicated man.

I stepped into the hallway, blocking her path. "What do you think you're doing?"

She gave me a cool, dismissive look, deliberately pulling the man closer against her hip. "Hayden had too much to drink. I'm putting him in the guest room for the night."

"If he's drunk, get him a hotel. He's not sleeping in the guest room."

My rejection was cold and absolute.

Viola feigned annoyance, but I could see the poorly concealed thrill of victory in her eyes.

She thought she had predicted my exact reaction.

Viola owned several properties across the city. She brought him here entirely on purpose, dragging him right past my face.

She wanted to see me crack. She wanted to watch me fight for her.

Viola hardened her jaw. "Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for someone this drunk to sleep alone? He could choke on his own vomit. I need to keep an eye on him."

"Stop being childish. Move."

I didn't budge. "I said, hes not sleeping in the guest room."

She tilted her chin up, looking every inch the victor, a smug smile finally breaking through her cold facade.

"Holden, and you said you didn't care about me anymore. Look at you, absolutely sick with jealou"

Violas entire body went rigid. The words died in her throat.

Her eyes locked onto something directly behind me, the color draining from her face in an instant.

"Holden. Who the hell is she?!"

I glanced back. The woman had just finished showering.

Her dark hair hung damp over her shoulders, and she was wearing a silver silk slip dress that clung to a devastatingly perfect hourglass figure. She was wearing the brand-new designer slippers Viola had just bought.

She possessed the kind of face and body that instinctively felt like a threat to any woman in the room.

I smiled and walked back toward her.

"Let me introduce you. This is Mona. The 'Mona' I was telling you about. She just flew in from Switzerland today."

"The reason I said no to him staying in the guest room is because..."

I dragged the words out, looking at Viola out of the corner of my eye.

"...the guest room is currently occupied."