Nora's POV
I woke up to a police officer shaking my shoulder.
"Miss, you can't sleep here."
My eyes cracked open. Gray sky. The smell of wet grass. My entire body ached like I'd been hit by a truck. For one blissful second, I didn't remember. Then everything came crashing back.
The engagement party. Marcus. Vivian. My father's face in that car window.
I was lying on a park bench in Central Park, soaking wet, still wearing my ruined white dress.
"I'm sorry," I croaked, sitting up. My voice sounded like sandpaper. "I'll go."
The officer looked at me—really looked at me—and his expression softened. "You okay, miss? You need me to call someone?"
I almost laughed. Call someone? I had no one.
"I'm fine," I lied, standing on shaky legs. My feet screamed in protest. I'd walked for hours last night in heels before I finally collapsed on this bench. "Thank you."
He didn't look convinced, but he let me go.
I limped out of the park as the sun rose over Manhattan. People in business suits rushed past me on their way to work, not even glancing at the girl in the destroyed dress. Yesterday, I would have been one of them—showered, dressed in designer clothes, heading to my fake job at my father's company where I shuffled papers and smiled at meetings.
Now I was invisible.
My phone was almost dead. I had maybe five percent battery left. I pulled up my banking app one more time, praying last night had been some kind of nightmare.
Account Balance: $0.00
My chest tightened. Okay. Okay, this was real. But I still had my apartment, right? My father couldn't sell it overnight. That would take weeks, maybe months.
I flagged down a taxi with the last of my dignity. "Madison Avenue and 72nd Street."
The driver looked at me in his rearview mirror, taking in my wet dress and tangled hair, but he drove anyway.
When we pulled up to my building, I handed him twenty dollars—one fifth of everything I owned—and climbed out.
The doorman, Paul, had worked here for three years. He'd smiled at me every single day, carried my shopping bags, asked about my mother who died when I was twelve.
Now he stepped in front of the door, blocking my path.
"I'm sorry, Miss Chen. I can't let you in."
My stomach dropped. "What? Paul, this is my apartment. I live here."
He wouldn't meet my eyes. "Not anymore. Mr. Chen—your father—he sold the unit last night. Emergency sale. The new owners took possession this morning." He shifted uncomfortably. "Your belongings are in a storage unit in Brooklyn. I have the address."
He handed me a slip of paper. I stared at it, the numbers and letters blurring.
"This has to be a mistake," I whispered.
"I'm sorry," Paul said again. And he actually looked sorry, which somehow made it worse. "For what it's worth, I think this is wrong. What they did to you."
At least one person in this city had a conscience.
I walked away before he could see me cry.
The storage unit address was in Brooklyn. I didn't have money for another taxi. So I walked. I walked across Manhattan in my destroyed dress and broken heels, and every person who passed me looked at me like I was garbage.
Maybe I was.
By the time I reached the storage facility, my feet were bleeding. The woman at the front desk took one look at me and frowned.
"I need to access my unit," I said. "Nora Chen."
She typed into her computer. "Unit 237. That'll be forty-five dollars for this month's rent."
"I don't have forty-five dollars," I said. "Can I pay next week? I just need to get some clothes—"
"No payment, no access." She said it like she'd said it a thousand times before. Like I wasn't a person, just another problem.
Everything I owned was locked behind a metal door, and I couldn't get to it.
I stumbled back outside and sat on the curb. My phone buzzed. Two percent battery left.
I opened my messages, hoping someone—anyone—had texted to check if I was okay.
Instead, I found thirty-seven messages from numbers I didn't recognize.
"You're pathetic."
"Marcus dodged a bullet."
"Crazy bitch got what she deserved."
"No wonder he left you for your sister."
My hands shook as I scrolled. How did strangers have my number?
Then I saw the social media notifications. Hundreds of them.
Someone had posted photos from last night. Me dropping the champagne glass, my face twisted in shock. Me standing frozen while Marcus proposed to Vivian. Me running out of the hotel, mascara running down my face.
The captions were brutal.
"Unstable heiress melts down at own engagement party."
"Nora Chen's jealous rage on display."
"Sources say she's been obsessed with her sister for years."
Lies. All lies.
But the comments were worse. Thousands of people who didn't know me, tearing me apart. Calling me crazy. Pathetic. A spoiled brat getting what I deserved.
Someone had created a poll: "Who's hotter—Nora or Vivian?" Vivian was winning by a landslide.
My phone died.
I sat there on that curb in Brooklyn, holding my dead phone, wearing a ruined dress, with bleeding feet and nowhere to go. I had eighty dollars left. No home. No family. No friends.
I'd hit rock bottom.
But then I remembered something my mother told me before she died. I was twelve, sitting beside her hospital bed, and she'd taken my hand with her thin, weak fingers.
"Nora, baby," she'd whispered. "The Chen family will try to make you into something you're not. Your father, his new wife, all of them. They'll want you to be small and quiet and obedient." She'd squeezed my hand. "Don't let them. You're stronger than they know. You have my blood, and my family—we survive. Promise me you'll survive."
I'd promised.
I stood up, ignoring the pain in my feet. I had a nursing degree from Columbia University. I'd graduated top of my class four years ago, before my father forced me to quit and work at his company. I knew how to check vitals, give medications, read charts. I could do this job in my sleep.
I just needed someone to hire me.
I walked to the nearest hospital—Brooklyn General. It took an hour. By the time I reached the emergency room entrance, I was limping badly.
The nurse at the front desk looked up. Her name tag said "Rita." She was maybe fifty, with kind eyes and tired smile lines.
"Honey, are you okay? Do you need help?"
I almost broke down. She was the first person all day who'd asked that like she actually cared about the answer.
"I need a job," I said. My voice came out stronger than I felt. "I'm a registered nurse. I have my degree from Columbia. I can start today—right now—whatever shift you need. Please."
Rita's eyes traveled from my wet dress to my bleeding feet to my face, which probably looked as desperate as I felt.
"You're that girl from the news," she said slowly. "The engagement party."
My heart sank. Of course. Of course she recognized me.
"I didn't do what they're saying," I whispered. "I'm not crazy. I'm not jealous. I just—I need a chance. Please."
Rita studied me for a long moment. Then she picked up the phone.
"Linda? It's Rita in ER. Remember how you said you're desperate for night shift nurses? Yeah. I think I found someone." She paused. "She's standing in front of me right now. Can you come down?"
Five minutes later, I was sitting in an office with Linda Reeves, Director of Nursing. She was no-nonsense, with gray hair and sharp eyes that missed nothing.
"Why the night shift?" Linda asked. "Most nurses avoid it like the plague."
The truth came out before I could stop it. "Because I need to disappear. I need a job where no one from my old life will ever see me. Where I can be invisible and just work and earn money to survive."
Linda's expression didn't change, but something shifted in her eyes. "Night shift is hard. Twelve hours, midnight to noon. The pay is less because we can't find enough people willing to work those hours. You'll see things that will haunt you. You'll be exhausted all the time. Your social life will die." She leaned forward. "But if you show up, work hard, and don't cause drama, I don't care what happened at your engagement party. I care if you can do the job."
"I can do the job," I said.
"You start tonight. Midnight. Don't be late." She slid a paper across the desk. "Fill out these forms. You'll need to change clothes before your shift. We have scrubs in the supply room."
I stared at the paper, unable to believe this was real.
"Thank you," I breathed. "Thank you so much."
Linda stood. "Don't thank me yet. You haven't survived your first night shift. Most people quit after one week."
I wouldn't quit. I couldn't afford to.
I spent the rest of the day in the hospital cafeteria, filling out forms and sipping water because it was free. I used the bathroom to wash my face and arms. I threw away the white dress in the trash—it felt symbolic somehow—and changed into the donated scrubs Linda gave me.
At 11:45 PM, I stood outside the hospital, staring up at the lit windows.
My phone was dead. My feet hurt. I had fifty-three dollars left. I'd have to find somewhere to sleep during the day—maybe a shelter, maybe another park bench.
But I had a job. I had a chance.
I walked through those doors ready to work harder than I'd ever worked in my privileged, fake life.
What I didn't know was that inside that hospital, on the night shift, there was a man who was about to change everything.
A man with scarred hands and cold eyes who wrote poetry at three in the morning.
A man who was about to see me in ways no one ever had.
But that night, as I reported for my first shift, I was just Nora Chen—the girl who lost everything and was trying desperately not to drown.