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Her friends wanted her back. Her family wanted her home.
Yet no one could convince her—until that morning.
CNB showed up at her door.
The house was ransacked in minutes. Drawers pulled out, cushions ripped open, questions fired at her before she could even understand what was happening. She was taken to the station, stunned and breathless, her mind blank as officers asked questions she had no answers to.
Her heart pounded. Her future blurred.
When she was finally given a chance to make a call, her hands shook. The only number she could remember was her sister’s.
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was accused of meddling with drugs. Her husband was wanted too. Hope drained from her in waves. If she were charged, her future would be ruined—her diploma, her final year, her FYP that was just around the corner. Everything she had worked toward felt suddenly fragile, ready to shatter.
Out on bail, she was told to return for a court hearing in a month.
She didn’t know what to do with that information.
So she pretended everything was fine. She continued attending classes, sitting through lectures as if her life wasn’t hanging by a thread. No one knew that at any moment, it could all be taken away.
The fear needed an escape.
She turned to drinking. To partying. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone—it didn’t matter. Her future already felt tainted, bleak. With the possibility of a heavy charge looming over her, she stopped caring about consequences. She went to every club, every pub, chasing a kind of freedom she had never allowed herself before. If there was no future waiting for her, she might as well live as though there wasn’t one.
One night, drunk on hopelessness, she poured everything out to a stranger. Her hearing was the next morning. What did she have to lose?
He was Caucasian, in Singapore on a business trip. She assumed he wouldn’t care. That he might take advantage of her story—or of her—and disappear. Instead, he listened. Quietly. Carefully. He even took notes.
The next morning, he called and asked her to meet him at the library. Confused, she went. She barely remembered his face, only that he was already seated at one of the computers when she arrived. He raised a hand to call her over, calm and focused.
“What’s up?” she asked, forcing a smile—as if it wasn’t the day she had to face the court.
“You said you’re still schooling,” he began, his words tumbling out quickly. “And that you had no knowledge of any of this. I need your academic records, your attendance, lecturers who can vouch for you.”
He kept going, asking for names, dates, details. As she answered, he typed, searched, cross-checked. Still, she couldn’t understand why he was doing any of this. Why was he helping her?
Then he stopped.
“Alright. I’ll engage a lawyer for you,” he said simply. “If they remand you, tell them you have legal representation. Don’t worry about the cost. I believe you’ll get out of this. You’re clearly innocent—do not admit to anything blindly.”
Her mind reeled.
Why?
Who was this man?
And why was he so determined to help?
These questions echoed through her head as she sat through the hearing, barely aware of time passing—until she realized she was back in the waiting cell, about to be transported to the women’s prison.
Would she really be cleared of this?
Would that man keep his word?
For the first time in a long while, hope flickered—fragile, uncertain, and terrifying to believe in.
//--- Please leave a comment if you want to read the next chapter. :)
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