Stepping Over You to Claim My Crown

Everyone knew my boyfriend and my best friend were sworn enemies. Yet during our Thanksgiving camping trip, I saw my best friend straddling him, her lace underwear draped over his chest. My boyfriend held her waist, thrusting into her so fiercely that neither of them noticed me standing just outside. "If I settle down just for you, would you break up with her?" "I would," he answered after a brief pause, his voice deadly serious. A sharp sting tore through my chest. All along, I had just been their cover. My best friend, Chloe, was a notorious player who went through a dozen guys a month. My boyfriend, Julian, was known by everyone as devoted, loyal, and completely monogamous. Because of that, they supposedly couldn’t stand being in the same room together. Chloe always complained that Julian was boring, rigid, and lacked passion. Julian claimed Chloe was loose and reckless, swearing she was the exact opposite of his type. Every time they clashed, I was the one playing peacekeeper. Turns out, the only idiot kept in the dark was me. Fine. If that was what they wanted, I’d step aside and let them have each other. And whatever success he had built on my back—I was taking it all back. I didn’t burst in to ruin their fun. I just quietly pulled out my phone and recorded the scene. When they finally finished, Julian stepped out and realized I had been sitting there the whole time. He grabbed the windbreaker off the back of my chair and draped it over Chloe’s bare shoulders. "Julian, I’m cold," I couldn't help saying. "Chloe’s had a few drinks. She can't catch a chill. I’ll find you another blanket in a minute." He didn't stop for me. He didn't even look back. That windbreaker was the one he wore four years ago during our long-distance days, when he flew through a blizzard on multiple layovers just to surprise me. I had a burning fever back then. He wrapped that very jacket around me and held me at the airport gate for hours. He told me that no matter what happened in the future, he would always run toward me first. Now, he was still moving just as fast. Only his direction had changed. "Chloe, what I said in there—I meant it." Julian took her wrist. "What I promised you, I'll take care of tomorrow." Chloe glanced at me, tears clinging to her eyelashes as if she were wrestling with her conscience. "Julian, what about..." Julian finally looked back at me, his brow furrowing slightly. "Clara is mature. She knows what to ask and what to leave alone." The words I had swallowed caught in my throat. Right in front of me, they casually plotted how to kick me out of their lives. "Julian." I stood up and called his name. "Who are you planning to break up with tomorrow?" His eyes flickered, and he took an instinctive half-step toward me. "Clara, don't cause a scene here. Chloe just found out she’s pregnant. She can’t take any stress right now." "Let me get her settled first. Then we’ll talk in private." Pregnant. The word dropped like lead, turning the four years I had cherished into a pathetic joke. "Fine," I nodded. "Then let's break up right now—" Suddenly, a deafening blast tore through the air behind us. The propane grill exploded. Flames instantly devoured the neighboring tent. Within seconds, nearby gas canisters caught the heat and detonated one after another. The sheer concussive blast left my ears ringing violently. Screaming crowds surged toward the exit. A flaming metal support beam snapped, falling directly toward me. I turned to dodge, but the heavy beam slammed into my lower leg. The impact brought me down, driving my knees into the scorching dirt. "Julian!" Through the thick black smoke, his eyes locked onto mine. His hand reached out. His fingers were inches from brushing my shoulder. Then, right behind him, Chloe cried out, sobbing that her stomach hurt. Julian snatched his hand back. Without a second thought, he scooped Chloe up into his arms, shielding her as he pushed toward the narrow escape route. "Get out of the way! She's pregnant!" The panicked crowd shoved forward. I braced against the dirt to crawl away, but a heavy dress shoe came crashing down on my injured leg. A sickening crunch echoed, instantly swallowed by the roar of the fire. Julian used my broken leg as a stepping stone to vault over the collapsed fence. Chloe, safely cradled in his arms, didn’t catch a single stray ember. He never looked back. Half an hour later, the flames were finally put out. My pant leg was soaked in blood, and cold sweat ran down my skin in sheets. Only then did Julian wander back over to look for me. When his eyes landed on my mangled leg, his steps faltered for a second, and he reached out a hand. Before he could touch me, his phone rang. Chloe was on the other end, crying hysterically, claiming her lower belly was cramping. Julian pulled his hand back instantly. "Everyone else had the sense to run. Why the hell did you just stand there?" He frowned down at me. "Chloe is showing signs of a miscarriage. I have to be there for her scans." "You seem lucid enough. Just make sure to get yourself bandaged up." I bit my lip so hard that the copper taste of blood filled my mouth. "You left me behind," I forced out. "Clara, since when did you start pulling these pathetic guilt trips? Don't throw a tantrum now." He tossed his car keys at my feet. "Get it patched up and head over. Chloe’s traumatized. Say something nice and comfort her later—don’t make her overthink things." I didn't pick up the keys, and I flinched away when he tried to reach for me again. My little brother, Lucas, was still lying in the ICU, waiting on the experimental clinical trial drug that Julian was in charge of. I couldn't blow everything up yet. Dragging my broken leg, I climbed into the campsite ambulance alone. As the doors swung shut, I saw Julian leaning over Chloe, gently zipping up her coat with the exact same tenderness he used to show me every time he walked me home. Early the next morning, my leg in a fresh cast, I hobbled to the ICU outside Lucas's room. Chloe was leaning against the doorframe, wearing Julian's oversized white dress shirt. She tugged casually at the collar, a mocking smile on her lips. "Clara, let's talk about when you're going to pack your bags and get lost."Faint red marks were clearly visible along Chloe’s collarbone. She reached into her bag, pulled out an ultrasound report, and casually flicked it into my face. The paper grazed my forehead and fluttered down onto my cast. Four weeks pregnant. The date lined up perfectly with the night Julian supposedly flew back early from his medical conference just to spend my birthday with me. That night, he had acted exhausted. He kissed my forehead and told me that as soon as Lucas’s condition stabilized, we’d go get our marriage license. He wasn't exhausted. He had simply spent all his lust and empty promises on someone else before coming home to me. "Julian was on his knees last night, begging me to keep this baby," Chloe purred, stepping closer and tapping the report with her manicured nail. "He said you’re uptight, dull, and cold. He only stayed with you because you were low-maintenance." "You've taken up my spot for four years, Clara. It's time to pay it back." I stared at her, my fingers tightening around my crutches. "Move. I need to see Lucas." "Lucas doesn't get his meds without Julian's signature." She blocked the doorway. "Call me Mrs. Vance first, and maybe I'll put in a good word for you." A nurse rushed past, pushing a loaded stainless steel crash cart. Unable to take it anymore, I grabbed the heavy metal tray off the top and hurled it straight at her face. Chloe shrieked as she tumbled backward, just as the elevator doors chimed open. Julian bolted out and shoved me hard. My broken leg slammed into the concrete wall. White-hot pain flashed behind my eyes. He dropped to his knees, gently cradling Chloe's face to check for scratches. "Who the hell gave you permission to touch her?" When he looked up at me, his eyes were colder than I had ever seen them. "She used Lucas’s medication to threaten me," I rasped, leaning hard against the wall for support. "Julian, get her out of here. Now." He didn't listen. Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed the attending physician. "Halt Lucas’s experimental trial regimen." My breath hitched in my throat. The voice on the other end seemed to hesitate. Julian held my gaze and added, coldly, "No one touches that protocol without my direct signature. Understood?" Instantly, the sharp blare of medical alarms pierced through the room behind me. I threw myself against the glass partition. Lucas’s chest was heaving erratically. His face was turning a terrifying shade of bluish-purple as a team of nurses rushed in to adjust the monitors. "Please! Put him back on the meds!" I grabbed Julian’s sleeve, desperate. He glanced down at my hand, then calmly reached out to straighten my crooked crutch. "Clara, you need to learn that your reckless outbursts have consequences." "Apologize to Chloe, and this ends." My voice shook uncontrollably. "I’ll apologize. Just restart the medication. Please." He went quiet for two seconds. Two seconds long enough to spark a pathetic shred of hope in me. Then Chloe let out a soft, tearful sniffle, clutching her forehead. Julian yanked his arm out of my grip. "On your knees. Three bows, forehead to the floor," he said flatly. "Skip one, and it doesn't count." Patients and visitors gathered in the hallway, watching the spectacle. I looked at Lucas convulsing behind the glass and slowly let my crutches fall. The first time my forehead struck the hard marble, I heard someone in the crowd gasp. The second time, blood ran down my brow, stinging into my eye. By the third time, I could barely lift my head back up. "Enough," Julian finally said, averting his eyes. He spoke into the phone, "Restart the protocol." The machines stabilized, and Lucas’s oxygen levels slowly crept back up. I used the wall to haul myself onto my good foot, refusing the tissue Julian held out to me. His hand froze mid-air, his voice dropping slightly. "Once Lucas is stable, I'll give you a proper explanation." I wiped the blood from my face with my sleeve. "Doctor Vance, you’ve given me far too many explanations. I can't afford to take another one." I hobbled back to the family lounge, opened my locker, and pulled four handwritten laboratory notebooks from the bottom shelf. Julian’s eleven high-impact peer-reviewed papers—every single hypothesis, mathematical formula, and set of raw clinical data—had come straight from these four notebooks. Four years ago, when I moved abroad for research, I should have used these findings to launch my own career. Instead, because he told me, *“Once I get tenure, we’ll co-author everything,”* I spent endless nights rewriting his drafts and crunching his data while he took all the glory. Eventually, his name covered the department's hall of fame, while I was reduced to a footnote: *“My supportive fiancée.”* I locked myself in the restroom and dialed a number I hadn’t touched in years. Harrison Cole. He was Julian’s fiercest academic rival—and the one person Julian’s medical board had blacklisted from collaborating with. The line rang twice before clicking open. "Clara?" I pressed a paper towel against the bleeding cut on my forehead. "Get me and Lucas out of here." "And I will hand you every single piece of raw evidence proving Julian Vance’s research is built on fraud." A brief silence followed on the other end, followed by a low, quiet chuckle. "Consider it done."We were just one final administrative stamp away from Lucas’s transfer papers being processed. Leaning on my crutches, I stepped out of the office and suddenly doubled over, dry-heaving violently into a trash can. Seeing how pale I was, a passing nurse grabbed my arm and dragged me into the lab for a blood draw. When the lab results printed, I stared at the paper in stunned silence. Four weeks pregnant. The child had been conceived the night Julian came home. The night he stopped by Chloe's place first, only to slip into my bed in the early hours of the morning. In the dark, he had buried his face in my neck, whispering how much he missed me. Now, the exact same timeline was written across two different pregnancy reports. I folded the slip of paper carefully into my pocket, choosing not to call him. With Lucas’s transfer pending, I wanted to wait until we were both out of harm's way before deciding what to do with this child. But the moment I limped past the lab doors, a frantic shout echoed down the ICU corridor. "Where is Lucas Hall's family?!" My crutch slipped on the polished floor. A cold dread gripped my chest. I practically crawled the rest of the way to the ICU doors. On the monitor, the rhythmic green spikes had flattened into a single, piercing, continuous line. The doctors were still frantically shocking his chest. Lucas’s body jolted with every jolt of electricity, only to fall limply back onto the mattress. I pounded on the glass, screaming his name, but no one looked up. Five minutes later, the doctor stopped, lowered his head, and pulled off his surgical mask. "I'm so sorry. We did everything we could." A nurse with tear-streaked eyes came out to me. "Miss Chloe came in earlier with a VIP clearance pass signed by Dr. Vance." "She played a recording of you kneeling in the hallway yesterday for Lucas... She told him that he was nothing but a burden ruining your life." "Lucas became violently agitated. It triggered a massive pulmonary hemorrhage." My heart turned to ash. When our parents died in that car crash years ago, Lucas had held my hand through a burning fever, crying and promising he’d stop getting sick so he wouldn't be a burden to his big sister. Even at the moment of his death, his greatest terror had been weighing me down. I went into medicine just to save him. And in the end, it was my presence in this hospital that killed him. A violent cramp seized my stomach, and bile mixed with blood surged up my throat. My hand brushed against a pair of surgical shears left on the nurse’s station. I grabbed them, squeezed them tight against my palm, and plunged straight toward the elevator. The city’s medical convention center was only two blocks from the hospital. Julian was currently on stage, accepting the Young Medical Researcher of the Year award. When I kicked the auditorium doors open, the spotlight was shining directly on him. He stood tall in a tailored tuxedo, wearing the exact bowtie I had hand-ironed for him. The hall was erupting with thunderous applause. Dragging my cast across the stage, I grabbed the heavy glass trophy from the podium and smashed it onto the stage floor. The shattering explosion of glass silenced the entire room. "Julian, Lucas is dead." His face drained of color, his gaze instantly locking onto the surgical shears clenched in my hand. "Chloe used your clearance pass to get into his room and killed him," I rasped, my voice shredded and hollow. "Hand her over." In the front row, Chloe covered her mouth, letting out a theatrical sob. "I only went in to cheer him up... How was I supposed to know he was that fragile..." I gripped the shears and lunged toward her. Julian cut me off, grabbing both my wrists in a vice-like grip. "Clara, pull yourself together!" "Your brother was critically ill; an acute crisis could have happened at any moment!" he hissed under his breath. "Don’t humiliate everyone here. I had no idea she was actually going to visit him." His grip tightened until my bones groaned, and then his voice projected loudly for the audience: "She's having an acute manic episode because she couldn't handle the breakup." "It's okay, Clara. Give me the shears. Calm down, and I promise I'll take good care of you." Campus security swarmed the stage, pinning me face-down against the cold floorboards. Through the haze, I saw Julian kneel in front of me. He reached out, brushing away the strands of hair glued to my forehead with dried blood. A faint flicker of hesitation crossed his eyes. "Good girl, Clara. Just listen to me." Hearing that pet name made me freeze for a split second. Over the past four years, whenever I was overwhelmed, that was what he called me. He used to talk me to sleep across a six-hour time zone difference, stay up with me through Lucas's critical nights, and wait out endless lab results by my side. I almost blurted out that I was carrying his child. The very next second, he pulled a pre-filled sedative syringe from his inner pocket and shoved the needle into my neck without a shred of hesitation. The ice-cold chemical burned through my veins. Julian let go of me, standing up and wrapping an arm protectively around Chloe. "Call the psychiatric evaluation transport," he said, slipping smoothly back into his dignified professional persona. "She's violent and dangerous. Do not agitate her any further." Before the darkness swallowed me whole, all I could hear was the screeching wail of sirens outside the hall.A bucket of freezing water hit my face, shocking me awake. My arms and legs were strapped securely to the iron frame of a cot by heavy leather restraints. Deep purple bruises ringed my wrists. The walls were stark, peeling white, and the heavy metal door had only a tiny, barred observation window. The air reeked of harsh bleach mixed with human waste. The maximum-security psychiatric facility on the outskirts of the city. The iron door groaned open. Julian walked in, with Chloe tucked securely under his arm. Chloe had changed into a soft, designer dress, with a neat little butterfly bandage over her temple. Julian held a folder, stopping two feet from my bed. *Involuntary Commitment and Long-Term Institutionalization Consent Form.* He laid the paper flat against my chest. "You attacked people with a weapon in front of hundreds of colleagues," Julian said, his eyes carefully avoiding mine. "Staying here to receive treatment is the best outcome for everyone." "Where is Lucas’s body?" His jaw tightened for a fraction of a second. "The hospital will handle the arrangements." I lunged against the restraints, hot tears spilling down my cheeks. "I am his only surviving family member!" "You are legally incompetent right now," Julian said smoothly, glancing back at the facility director waiting by the door. "As her fiancé and primary emergency contact, I have the legal authority to sign." I thrashed wildly, the stiff leather tearing the skin on my wrists. Chloe walked around to the foot of the bed and drove the sharp heel of her designer shoe straight down onto my cast. The broken bone shifted under the pressure. A wave of sickening agony washed over me, drenching me in cold sweat. "Save your breath, Clara," she whispered, leaning down. "Julian’s got it all worked out for you." "Once you outlive your diagnostic usefulness, your organs—your heart, your corneas—can go toward his research projects. At least you won't die completely useless." Julian frowned slightly. "Chloe, that’s enough." I watched him pull an engraved fountain pen from his breast pocket. It was the graduation gift I had saved up months to buy him, custom-engraved on the cap with our initials. Four years ago, the very first document he signed with that pen was his official transfer paperwork, promising he was coming home to be with me. Now, he was using it to sign away the rest of my life. "Julian." My throat burned with raw pain. "Four years. Even if you kept a stray dog for four years, you’d show it more mercy than this." The tip of his pen hovered millimeters above the paper. He finally looked me in the eye, a faint, fleeting flicker of guilt crossing his face. "If you cooperate with the treatment, I’ll make sure they treat you well. And Lucas’s funeral... I can handle it personally—" "I don’t want your charity," I cut him off. "Unstrap me right now. And call the police on Chloe for Lucas's murder." "Do those two things, and I will clear your name about what happened on that stage." It was the final chance I would ever offer him. Julian’s fingers tightened around the pen. Beside him, Chloe clutched her lower stomach with a soft gasp. "Julian... my stomach hurts again." The guilt vanished from his face. Without another second of hesitation, he scrawled his signature across the bottom of the commitment order. "The moment you went crazy on that stage, Clara, there was nothing left between us." The scratch of the pen on paper was almost silent. Yet to me, it sounded like the snap of every single bond we had built over the last four years. The facility director stepped forward to stamp the file, but a massive crash rattled the hallway outside. Before anyone could react, a second heavy blow shattered the reinforced iron door, throwing it inward with a deafening bang. Harrison Cole stepped through the doorway in a sharp charcoal suit. Behind him stood agents from the Federal Office of Research Integrity and several uniformed marshals. "Unlawful chemical restraint, falsified psychiatric evaluation, and felony false imprisonment." Harrison’s gaze locked onto Julian like a predator. "Julian Vance, once we strip away the skin Clara stitched together for you, what the hell do you actually have left?" Julian’s expression warped. "This is a private domestic matter!" "She is an appointed fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and the sole primary investigator on eleven core research patents," Harrison sneered, pulling a red-stamped federal injunction from his leather briefcase and slapping it squarely against Julian’s chest. The papers scattered across the dirty floor. Julian took one look at the federal seal, and the color drained completely from his face.