Behind The Pages

Chapter Two: The Perfect Frame

The heavy silence in the atrium felt like a tight wire about to snap. Jude remained on one knee holding out the sparkling ring, while Cara stood a step from him, her hands covering her mouth in performative shock.

My ring? No. My boyfriend.

Anger, white-hot and blinding, sliced right through the numbness in my chest. I didn't hide. I didn't turn around. I marched straight up the steps onto the platform.

“Jude?” My voice echoed off the stage floor, cutting through the silence.

Jude flinched. He spun around, his eyes widening in instant terror as he saw me standing there. “Y-Yuri? What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the exact same thing,” I said, my voice dangerously calm as I stepped closer. “You told me this morning you had a double shift at the firm.”

Cara’s face went pale for a fraction of a second before her expression hardened into a rehearsed smile. She quickly stepped between me and Jude, blocking him from view, and grabbed the microphone off its stand.

“Security!” Cara spoke into the mic, her voice dripping with artificial sympathy for the crowd to hear. “Could someone please escort this girl off the stage? We love our passionate readers, but please wait your turn in line!”

A few security guards at the foot of the stage immediately started moving toward me.

Cara thought she could paint me as a hysterical delusional fan. She thought my quiet nature off the page meant I was weak.

She thought wrong.

Before the nearest guard could lay a hand on me, I snatched the microphone straight out of Cara’s grip. The sudden screech of feedback bounced off the walls, making the entire crowd wince.

“Keep your hands off me,” I warned the guards over the speakers, my voice steady, sharp, and deadly. They froze.

I turned back to Cara and Jude, scanning the two of them with utter contempt.

“You want to entertain my readers, Cara? Then let’s give them a real show,” I said into the mic, letting my voice carry to every single corner of the packed mall. “You stole my parking spot. Coveted my pen. And now you’re standing on my stage, pretending to be the author of the book I spent three years writing?”

Gasps rippled through the crowd. Phones flew into the air, cameras flashing.

I looked down at Jude, who was scrambling to his feet, his face drained of all color.

“And as for you, Jude,” I continued, a bitter smile touching my lips. “You can keep him, Cara. A fake author and a cheating boyfriend—you two really do deserve each other.”

I didn’t wait for their excuses. I didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me lose my temper. I thrust the microphone hard against Cara’s chest, turned on my heel, and walked off the stage with my head held high.

I made it back to my apartment complex in a blur with my hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. All I wanted was to lock my door, shut out the world, and figure out my next move.

Instead, I turned the corner of my hallway to find my apartment door swinging wide open.

Inside, everything was destroyed. My shelves were overturned, books ripped to shreds, clothes scattered, and framed photos smashed across the floor.

“There she is!” a sharp voice barked from inside.

Before I could process what was happening, three girls, raving fans holding printed posters of Cara’s face, lunged out of my doorway.

“You crazy stalker!” one screamed, hurling a heavy glass vase straight at my head.

I ducked just in time, the glass shattered against the wall behind me.

“You think you can embarrass Light Lily on her big day? You lying snake!” another yelled, shoving me hard against the wall.

Adrenaline surged. I shoved her back with everything I had, breaking free from their grip as they tried to grab my hair. Ignoring the sharp cuts on my arms from the flying debris, I turned on my heel, and sprinted back down the stairs. I hurled myself into my car, slammed the door shut, and locked it just as they pounded wildly on the windows.

I hit the gas, speeding away from the building until the rearview mirror was clear.

I kept driving until I reached a deserted gravel patch near the river. I cut the engine and pulled the keys from the ignition as my chest heaved.

Then, my phone started buzzing.

It didn’t just ring—it went completely haywire. Notifications flooded my screen in an avalanche of hate. DMs, tag mentions, and comments poured in by the thousands every second.

Die, crazy b***h.

Stop clout chasing off Light Lily.

We know where you live, Yuri Carson.

Watch your back.

A notification popped up at the top of the screen: Cara Ross is now live.

My heart slammed against my ribs as I tapped the screen.

Cara was sitting in a softly lit room, looking fragile, tearful, and impeccably put together. Jude sat right next to her with his arm wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry you all had to witness that scene at the mall,” Cara sobbed into the camera while dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Yuri Carson was my best friend... but I had to cut ties with her months ago. When I started gaining traction as an author, she changed. She became obsessed. She was jealous of my life, my writing, and... my man.”

What?

Cara pulled up another device and held it to the camera, showing fabricated screenshots of text conversations. They showed my name, sending vile threats, claiming I would destroy her and steal everything she loved.

“I stayed quiet to protect her,” Cara whimpered, “but today was too much. To everyone doubting me, here is the truth.”

She began screen-sharing a slideshow of photos and videos, all timestamped over the last twelve years. There were photos of Cara writing at a desk with early drafts of Behind the Mask scattered around her. There were uncropped photos revealing that the ‘mystery boyfriend’ she had posted on her socials over the years was actually Jude.

My breath caught. I opened a browser tab, my hands shaking violently as I stalked Cara’s old social media account.

I scrolled back five years. There it was: a photo of a man’s hand resting on Cara’s thigh at a fine-dining restaurant, captioned, ‘The hand placement I love.’. I even gave the photo a heart.

The date stamped on the post hit me like a slap. It was the exact night Jude missed our anniversary, claiming he had slept on the couch in his office after working late.

I went back to Cara’s live and the pictures scrolled further. Photos I had taken of Jude and me over the years were there—except my face had been neatly cropped out or seamlessly replaced with Cara’s.

Jude leaned into the live-stream camera with his face solemn. “Yuri has been harassing us for years,” he said, his voice low and convincing. “Cara is the only woman in my life. She always has been.”

“No... no, no, no,” I whispered to the empty car.

I backed out of the live stream and frantically opened my gallery to upload the real, unedited photos.

Empty.

Every single photo, video, and document was gone. I opened my cloud backup—wiped. I opened my hard drive app—cleared. My eyes widened in horror as the realization crashed over me.

Jude.

Two weeks ago, right before his ‘business trip’, he had casually asked for all my passcodes and master logins under the guise of setting up a secure network for my manuscript. I had handed them over without a second thought because I trusted him.

Before I could even scream, a red banner flashed across my screen: Session Expired. Logged Out.

I tried typing my password into my author page. Incorrect password.

I tried my personal page. Account disabled.

They had taken everything. My books, my identity, my memories, and my voice.

With numb fingers, I created a quick dummy account just to search for their names. The live stream had ended, replaced by a fresh post on my author’s account main feed.

It was a photo of Cara and Jude standing side-by-side, beaming at the camera. In one hand, Cara held a physical copy of Behind the Mask. Her other hand was raised, highlighting the sparkling engagement ring on her finger.

The caption read:

“I said YES to revealing who Light Lily really is, and to the man I love.”