The Forbidden Throb Chapter 175

Emma's POV:

I took a slow breath, forcing myself to sit with the discomfort of her gaze.

This wasn't about logic or reason. This was about something deeper, something that had been festering for years in the dark corners of her heart. A wound that had calcified into something hard and bitter.

I opened my mouth to respond, but before I could speak, Lily leaned forward slightly.

"Do you know what it's like, Emma?" Her voice was quiet now, almost conversational. "To live in a place where everyone knows you as 'that girl who looks like Emma Johnson'? Where the only reason anyone notices you is because you remind them of someone else?"

My stomach twisted.

"On those few blocks in Old Port," she continued, "everyone knew who you were. Grace's granddaughter. The girl with the pretty dresses and the good grades who went off to Boston University. And me?"

She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I was just 'the girl who lives upstairs. The one who looks a bit like Emma.'"

"Lily—"

She cut me off, her voice rising slightly, "Like I was some kind of... knockoff version. A cheaper copy."

Her hands were shaking now, wrapped around her own untouched coffee cup.

"Do you have any idea how much I hated hearing that?" she whispered. "How much I wanted to scream that I wasn't *like* you, that I was my own person, that I had value beyond being your fucking doppelgänger?"

The profanity landed like a slap. I'd never heard Lily swear before—she'd always been so careful with her words, so polished in her speech.

But now, watching her face contort with years of suppressed rage, I realized I'd never really known her at all.

"You were too bright," Lily said, her voice breaking. "And I—" She stopped, swallowing hard. "I was invisible. The only time anyone saw me was when I reminded them of you."

My chest tightened, a dull ache spreading through my ribs.

I knew—logically, rationally—that none of this was my fault.

But knowing that didn't make the weight any lighter.

"I started watching you," Lily said, her voice steadier now. Clinical, almost. "Observing. At first, I told myself it was just curiosity—trying to figure out what made you so special. What you had that I didn't."

She tilted her head, studying me with an intensity that made my skin crawl.

"I noticed everything. The way you braided your hair. The Madewell canvas bag you carried everywhere. The specific shade of trench coat you wore in the fall."

My breath caught.

"I bought the same bag," she continued matter-of-factly. "Saved up for three months to afford it. Learned how to do that braid by watching YouTube tutorials until my arms ached. I even—" She laughed, sharp and bitter. "I even switched from Spanish to French as my language elective because I heard you were taking it."

"Lily, you didn't have to—"

"I know I didn't *have* to," she snapped. "But I wanted to see if it would work. If I could... become you, somehow. If I studied what you studied, wore what you wore, walked where you walked—maybe I could have what you had. "

The confession hung in the air between us, raw and painful.

"And then," Lily's voice dropped to barely above a whisper, "I heard you'd been accepted to BU's journalism program. The same program I'd been dreaming about since freshman year of high school."

She looked down at her hands, her expression unreadable.

"My family wanted me to study accounting. Stable, practical, guaranteed job prospects. But I didn't want that. I wanted..." She trailed off, then met my eyes again. "I wanted what you had. The freedom to chase a dream. The luxury of choosing passion over security."

"So I worked my ass off," she continued, her voice hardening. "Spent two years building a portfolio, writing sample articles, volunteering at the school paper. I gave up weekends, gave up sleep, gave up everything to make myself good enough for BU."

Her smile was bitter.

"And I got in. Against all odds, against my family's wishes, I got in. I remember the day I received the acceptance letter—I actually cried. Because I'd done it. I'd made it to the same place you were."

She paused, and something dark flickered across her face.

"I thought maybe, finally, we'd be equals. Same school, same program, same opportunities. Maybe the playing field would be level for once."

"But it wasn't," Lily's laugh was hollow. " Because you had connections I didn't have. Professors who remembered your work. Internship opportunities that came to you instead of you having to beg for them. And then—" Her voice cracked. "And then you had the Prescott family."

My chest tightened.

"Do you know what it's like," Lily asked, her eyes glistening, "to work yourself to the bone, to sacrifice everything, only to watch someone else glide past you because they were born into the right family? Because they had the right last name, the right connections, the right *luck*?"

"I tried so hard, Emma." Her voice broke completely. "I tried so fucking hard to be as good as you. To be better than you. But it didn't matter."

The weight of her words settled over me like a heavy blanket.

"Like that family arrangement," she said, her tone turning sharp again. "The one that meant you were always going to marry into the Prescott family, one way or another. You won the lottery before you even knew what the prize was."

"And me?" Lily's voice rose. "I've been drowning in student loans, working three part-time jobs, watching every penny."

"The only thing my mother cared about," Lily said, her voice flat, "was whether I could find a rich boyfriend. Preferably from one of Boston's old families. Someone who could 'take care of us.' Someone who could pull us out of poverty with a marriage proposal."

She met my eyes, and I saw something like shame flicker across her face.

"She used to say, 'Look at Emma. She's got that Prescott boy waiting for her. Why can't you find someone like that?' As if—" Her voice cracked. "As if four years of academic excellence meant nothing compared to landing a wealthy husband."

The parallel to my own mother's attitudes was so stark it made me dizzy.

"So I tried," Lily whispered. " I went to the right parties, wore the right clothes, smiled at the right people. I made myself available, approachable, *appealing*. And you know what I got?"

She didn't wait for me to answer.

"Nothing. Because girls like me—girls from converted attics in Portland—we don't get invited to the real parties."

Her hands were trembling now, white-knuckled around her coffee cup.

"And then I'd see you," she said, her voice barely audible. "You, who never seemed to want any of it. Who broke up with Nicholas Prescott like it was nothing. Who acted like being engaged to one of Boston's most eligible bachelors was some kind of *burden*."

She looked up at me, and the pain in her eyes was so raw it hurt to witness.

"Do you have any idea how that felt?" she asked.

"Stop." The word came out sharper than I intended, cutting through her sentence like a knife.

Lily blinked, startled into silence.

I took a breath, feeling something shift inside me—a line being drawn, a boundary finally being set.

"I've heard enough," I said quietly, but there was steel in my voice now. "I've listened to your story, Lily. I've tried to understand your pain. But I'm done hearing about how hard your life has been because of *me*."

Her eyes widened, but I didn't stop.

"The person who's made your life difficult," I said, my voice steady despite the trembling in my hands, "has always been you. Not me. Not my grandmother. Not the circumstances of our childhoods. *You*."

"That's not—"

"You trapped yourself," I continued, the words coming faster now. "You built a cage out of comparison and jealousy, and then you blamed me for the bars."

Lily's face had gone pale.

"You had choices," I said, my throat tight. "You could have pursued your own interests instead of copying mine. You could have valued your own achievements instead of resenting mine. You could have built your own identity instead of trying to become me."

I leaned forward slightly, making sure she heard every word.

"I'm sorry for your pain," I said. "But I won't carry the blame for it anymore."

I said, my voice firming, "Your struggles don't erase mine. And they don't give you permission to tear me down to make yourself feel better."

I stood up, gathering my bag with hands that trembled slightly. The conversation had drained me, left me feeling hollow and heavy all at once. I needed to leave.

I was halfway out of my chair when Lily's voice stopped me cold.