I've been engaged to my boyfriend, Evan Shaw, for five years. He's a military commander, which is probably why he has delayed our wedding 56 times so far.

The first delay has occurred because one of his female soldiers, Chloe Brooks, has gotten injured. Evan needs to rush back to the military camp due to the incident, which causes the wedding to be delayed.

The second delay has occurred because Chloe has received a promotion. After sending me to the church's entrance, Evan quickly leaves with the celebratory gifts.

…

The 56th delay has occurred halfway throughout the ceremony. Apparently, Chloe has called Evans on the phone and crying about her break-up. Of course, Evan gets ready to ditch me at the altar without hesitation.

I've begged him to not leave me, only for him to remove my hand coldly.

"We can always delay the wedding. The thing is, Chloe wants to jump off a building right now because she's gotten her heart broken. How could you ever compare the importance of your wedding to the life of a nation's pride?"

Evan has told me before that if I want to become a military wife, I need to have a higher endurance limit than others. I need to get used to the fact that he prioritizes others before me.

But I've never even had a proper wedding of my own. How can I be considered a military wife just yet?

So, I submit an application that makes me a covert operative that needs to be transferred back into the government's ranks.

But after I've left, Evan breaks down in tears. With the wedding ring in hand, he tries to make it up to me by promising to complete the unfinished wedding ceremony with me.

"I'm sorry, but Chloe's life matters more right now. I have to go!"

I had been through this exact scene more times than I could count, yet the moment Evan Shaw lowered his head and apologized to me, my heart still ached.

This was the 56th wedding ceremony I was holding with Evan. Every time we reached this moment, some obstacle inevitably tore us apart.

The first time, Chloe Brooks, one of the female soldiers under his command, got hurt in an accident, and he left, even though it tore him up to do it.

The second time, Chloe got promoted. Evan was so overjoyed that he cried, abandoned me at the altar, and rushed off to see her.

The third time, the wedding date I chose happened to fall on her mother's death anniversary. Evan flew into a rage, accused me of having no compassion, and walked out on me again.

…

I had lived through that same humiliation 55 times.

And today, everything seemed to be going perfectly for once.

That was until Evan's phone rang at the worst possible moment, right there on the stage. A woman's soft, tearful voice came through the speaker, and Evan's calm expression shattered into pure panic.

I knew he was going to leave again.

Still, I couldn't stop myself from speaking, my voice thick with despair. "Evan, just give me ten more minutes. Once we swap rings, you can leave right away. You know perfectly well she isn't actually dying!"

I had never begged him for anything, but this time, I abandoned every ounce of my pride and clung tightly to his sleeve.

He looked up, and this time, he didn't bother hiding the impatience in his eyes.

"Are you done? I've told you before that if you're going to be a military wife, you need to understand sacrifice and see the bigger picture. I'm serving the people here!

"Besides, Chloe is standing on a rooftop right now, waiting for me to get there. If you waste even one minute of my time and something happens to her, can you live with that responsibility?"

He tossed my bridal bouquet aside and strode out of the chapel.

The guests below had seen this play out too many times to count, yet they couldn't help but complain.

"Lillian White just can't take a hint, can she? Isn't she embarrassed? He obviously doesn't want to marry her. She's so pathetic!"

"How many weddings has it been now? She may still want to get married, but I'm tired of showing up. If it weren't out of respect for Commander Shaw, I would've gone up there and teach her a lesson myself."

Every word from the crowd pierced my chest.

I stared at Evan's figure as it blurred through my tears, and the emotions I had been forcing down finally broke loose.

"Evan Shaw! If you walk out today, then we're over for good!" I shouted through my tears.

That finally made Evan stop. He turned, his brow furrowed in irritation.

"It's not the first time. Do you really have to make such a scene?" he asked, impatience lacing his voice. "Fine. I'll make it up to you with another wedding next month. I promise I won't leave then, but this is an actual emergency!"

As soon as he finished speaking, he turned away again. Even with my eyes red and swollen from crying, he couldn't be bothered to spare me a second glance.

The laughter continued, and my parents' expressions grew darker by the second.

In the past, whenever this happened, I would've collapsed into a sobbing mess on the floor, waiting for someone to comfort me.

I would wait for Evan to return so that I could grab his hand and ask him repeatedly if he loved me. I would demand he prove in front of everyone that I was the woman he wanted to marry. I would then humble myself and beg him to set another wedding date.

But this time, I didn't even have the strength to run after him.

When Evan and I first started dating, I told him I hated waiting.

Because of that, he would arrive half an hour early to every date and wait for me instead. Once, he even stood in the pouring rain for half an hour just to make sure I never had to wait a single second.

Now, he had pushed back the most important day of our lives for five years.

There was a simple explanation for this—he just didn't love me anymore.

I made my way onto the stage alone. The excitement that should've come with a wedding was gone, replaced by utter exhaustion.

Facing the mocking looks below, I spoke calmly.

"The wedding is over. This will be our last."

By the time I finished dealing with the guests and returned home, it was already the middle of the night.

Evan still hadn't come back.

I scrolled through one Facebook post after another, all of them mocking me.

"She's honestly pathetic. Every time, she says this is the last wedding, then a month later, she's begging us to come to the next one."

"Her expression almost made me laugh out loud. She even threatened to end things for good and acted like she didn't care. If she really had the guts to leave, she would've done it ages ago."

"Isn't her situation so sad? She's being strung along, yet she has to go on stage and perform like some clown for our amusement. Honestly, it's a miracle she hasn't taken her own life. Looks like she's got a mind of steel. "

I scrolled through each post without expression.

I had seen thousands of these insults over the last five years. Now, they barely left a scratch.

Then I saw Chloe's post.

"Five years, and you've never once left me alone."

In the photo, she was sitting in a man's arms. She winked playfully at the camera with a bright, happy smile.

I had once asked Evan about their relationship. Back then, he had flown into a rage, jabbing a finger in my face as he shouted, "How can your mind be so disgusting? We're comrades. We've been through life and death together. That's a bond forged in blood! How dare you make it sound so disgraceful!"

After hearing that same answer countless times, I stopped bothering to ask.

I washed my face, wiped away my tears, and pulled out a huge suitcase to pack my belongings.

From the corner, I picked up a pair of sheepskin boots. They were the most expensive shoes I owned, bought by Evan with his very first paycheck.

Later on, he bought me many more pairs, but the quality kept getting worse. Some of them started coming apart in less than a month.

That was why I had always treasured this pair.

On the table sat a ceramic mug. Evan had made it himself as an apology gift the first time he postponed our wedding.

Back then, his eyes had only been on me, and he had been full of guilt.

"Lily, I'd give up all my time to be with you, but I'm a soldier. Please give me one more chance, okay? Don't make me choose between the country I love most and you."

Seeing that iron-willed man break down had softened my heart.

But all the times I gave in back then had only made him and Chloe more brazen now.

When he abandoned me this time, I still couldn't bring myself to break the mug, because I was truly afraid that if I did, there would be no going back.

Before I could finish packing, Evan pushed open the bedroom door, drunk and unsteady.

I didn't bring him a glass of water, and I didn't even ask why he had gotten wasted when Chloe had supposedly been about to jump off a building.

The answer would've been either silence or some nonsensical lie.

I let out a long breath and said solemnly, "Evan, let's end this. I won't bother you again."

I thought Evan was too drunk to respond, but he answered, "Who else would take you if you left me? You gave up furthering your studies to marry me. You've spent all these years at home cooking and doing laundry. Where could you possibly go now?

"If I weren't supporting you, you wouldn't last two months on your own before starving. Lily, I'm really tired. Can you stop making a scene?

"Why can't you be a little more considerate, like Chloe? She resembles you when you were younger. She's full of life and full of dreams…"

My chest tightened.

Dreams, huh?

When Evan and I first entered the military together, my record was a hundred times more impressive than his.

However, he had said he wanted to marry me and build a happy family. He told me that the stronger I became, the more pressure he felt.

He confessed that seeing me on that awards podium time after time made him jealous. He only wanted me to stay by his side as a wife and a mother.

Seeing him in so much pain, I softened.

But after I gave up everything for Evan, he kept praising Chloe for her excellence.

He told me she was a thousand times better than I was, that a person like me didn't deserve a man like him.

I had spent countless nights crying myself to sleep, thinking back to the way Evan had begged me to give up my career and come home to him.

Now, my future was gone, and so was the man who had loved me.

He looked at my half-packed suitcase and shook his head with a laugh. "Lily, we're both adults. Stop acting like a petty little girl, okay? We both know you can't leave me."

My throat felt like sandpaper, and my eyes stung.

Even though I had accepted the fact that Evan no longer loved me, I still couldn't stop my heart from aching.

I stood before him, crying so hard that my shoulders trembled. He acted as if he hadn't seen a thing and called Chloe instead, reminding her to bundle up after being out in the cold.

I looked at the pile of things in my suitcase and felt that none of them was worth taking with me.

I sat numbly on the couch until dawn. Then, I made a call.

"This is Lillian White. I'm requesting an assignment."

The person on the other end asked for confirmation several times.

I stood up, looked toward the bedroom where Evan was still on the phone with Chloe, and answered firmly, "I regret it. I'd like to take on the classified mission. Wipe my records. I want to disappear completely."

I didn't take the hefty suitcase I had already packed. Instead, I left the home I had lived in for five years with nothing but my phone.

After that, I found a hotel to stay in. I invited my friends and parents to meals, treating each gathering as the last time I would ever see them.

During that time, Evan never once reached out to me. It was as if he didn't care whether I was dead or alive.

The night before I left, I sat at a dinner table with a few close friends and my parents, chatting over the meal. They were still trying to talk me out of it.

"Your best years are already gone. Leaving Evan now won't do you any good. You've endured it for five years, so you might as well endure it for the rest of your life."

I didn't respond, but when I looked at the graying hair on Mom's head, I actually hesitated for a moment.

I knew that if Evan gave me even the slightest opening to stay, I would probably soften.

To escape the suffocating atmosphere, I used the restroom as an excuse and made one last call to Evan.

But before the call could go through, I ran straight into Evan, who had his arm around Chloe as they took seats at the table next to ours.

His comrades cheered and teased him.

"Hey, where's your clingy little wife? No secret stalking today? I can't believe she let you bring Chloe out alone."

"Usually, she's begging you to take her everywhere, isn't she? If any woman so much as appeared near you, she would raise hell."

Evan gently helped Chloe into her seat, but at the mention of me, his face filled with impatience.

"She's playing hard to get, waiting for me to go crawling back. She's even saying she wants to return to the military. It's just another one of her childish little games.

"If it weren't for the fact that everyone knows we're engaged, and if I weren't worried that calling off the wedding would hurt my reputation, I would've kicked her to the curb a long time ago. It'd save me from having her hovering around like an eyesore every day."

One of his comrades grinned as he pressed, "If you dump her, then who are you going to marry, Evan? Are we going to start calling Chloe your wife soon?"

Evan and Chloe both blushed. Neither of them admitted it, but sometimes silence was as good as an answer.

I took it all in. My chest tightened painfully, and the glass in my hand slipped to the floor, shattering into pieces.

In an instant, everyone turned to look at me. My reddened eyes met Evan's disgusted gaze once again.

"Can you stop following me? Just give me a little personal space! Honestly, just looking at you makes me feel like I'm suffocating!" he snapped. "There are people here, so I won't make things ugly for you. Don't push me to get physical!"

When Chloe saw me, terror filled her face, and she trembled pitifully as tears streamed down her face.

"Lillian, please don't be mad. This is all my fault. If you want to blame someone, blame me. I was the one who asked Evan to come out today. I'm the one who messed up.

"I'll punish myself… I know you hate me, but please don't hit me. I'm scared…" she sobbed, lightly thumping her own chest with her fist.

Evan immediately pulled Chloe behind him, ready to confront me.

But I merely picked up the shards of glass from the floor, threw them into the trash, and said indifferently, "Whatever you do has nothing to do with me anymore. We've already broken up, so you don't owe me an explanation."

The moment I said the words, it felt like I was ripping off a five-year-old scab. All the agony I had suppressed for the past five years came rushing back at once.

Evan went still for a second before storming up to me in a rage.

"You're doing this on purpose in front of all these people to embarrass me, aren't you? I've already agreed to marry you. What more do you want?

"Go home right now and stop making a fool of yourself! My superior is on his way. If you dare cause a scene, you're dead!" he hissed through gritted teeth.

At the same time, I noticed the man Evan had mentioned walking in our direction.

Evan nervously shoved me aside, hurriedly pulled out a chair, and respectfully invited the man to sit. "Secretary Hayes, I wasn't expecting you to join us in person."

Evan eagerly introduced himself. He even pulled Chloe up beside him to introduce her, hoping to use the moment to promote her.

But to his surprise, the man walked straight past him and stopped in front of me.

"Ms. White, your flight has been booked. We can leave now."

Evan went rigid, his eyes fixing blankly on the plane ticket in my hand.