Chapter 143: The Original Freya

Claire sent Freya a package containing interview transcripts used to build the original Freya profile. She had obtained permission from counsel because the documents concerned Freya herself and were no longer needed as sealed evidence.

Freya hesitated before opening them.

The interviews had been conducted years before the marriage through ordinary consumer research, school records, and later behavioral data gathered without proper consent. Adrian's team had combined them into a caricature.

Yet buried beneath the labels were pieces of a real young woman.

The original Freya had loved sketching buildings.

She had once wanted to design small apartments for low-income families.

She saved money obsessively while dating Clement because she feared being judged for having less.

After discovering his betrayal, her notes became increasingly cynical about love.

Then her parents died.

Her spending accelerated after marrying Louis.

Freya suddenly understood the luxury bags differently.

They were not merely greed.

Buying expensive things had become proof that she could never again be the poor girl someone mocked.

That did not make every choice healthy, but it made the woman more human than Claire's novel had allowed.

Freya cried unexpectedly.

Louis found her sitting on the floor beside the transcripts.

She explained.

"I used to call her brainless," Freya said. "Even when I first woke up, I judged her."

Louis sat beside her.

"I judged her too."

Their marriage before Freya's awakening had been polite but empty. Louis provided money because he believed that was his duty. He never tried very hard to understand why his wife spent it.

Freya looked at him. "Would you have eventually divorced her?"

Louis answered honestly. "Probably."

The truth hurt in a strange way even though Freya was not exactly that woman.

She gathered the transcripts.

The next day she visited a storage facility where a few unsold boxes remained. Among old clothes she found a portfolio of interior-design sketches.

They belonged to the original Freya.

Some were genuinely good.

Freya took them home.

She did not know whether preserving them honored another person or an earlier version of herself. The distinction mattered less than it once had.

She framed one drawing of a tiny sunlit apartment.

Louis hung it in their living room.

Beneath the sketch, Freya placed no label.

No explanation.

It was simply part of their home.

For the first time, Freya stopped thinking of the original woman as someone whose life she had stolen.

She began thinking of her as someone whose unfinished life she had inherited.

Freya later asked her rights manager to digitize the design portfolio professionally, but she kept the originals private. She had no desire to turn the original Freya's abandoned dreams into a marketing story. Those sketches deserved to exist without being monetized, analyzed, or explained to strangers.

Freya later asked her rights manager to digitize the design portfolio professionally, but she kept the originals private. She had no desire to turn the original Freya's abandoned dreams into a marketing story. Those sketches deserved to exist without being monetized, analyzed, or explained to strangers.

Freya later asked her rights manager to digitize the design portfolio professionally, but she kept the originals private. She had no desire to turn the original Freya's abandoned dreams into a marketing story. Those sketches deserved to exist without being monetized, analyzed, or explained to strangers.

Freya later asked her rights manager to digitize the design portfolio professionally, but she kept the originals private. She had no desire to turn the original Freya's abandoned dreams into a marketing story. Those sketches deserved to exist without being monetized, analyzed, or explained to strangers.

Freya later asked her rights manager to digitize the design portfolio professionally, but she kept the originals private. She had no desire to turn the original Freya's abandoned dreams into a marketing story. Those sketches deserved to exist without being monetized, analyzed, or explained to strangers.