"Lottie, when you get back, you be good to Eugene, okay? That boy came from nothing—everything he has, he built on his own."

"Oh, and tell him thank you for the money he sent me, but I can't take it."

My hands stopped mid-packing.

"When did he send you money?"

"Just now! He didn't tell you?"

"Just now when?"

Mom took out her phone and placed it in my hand.

"See for yourself."

I opened her phone. The transfer had come through at seven that morning.

Two thousand yuan, plus a message:

Mrs. Winfield, I'm stuck at work with overtime so I can't make it back with Lottie to see you this trip. Please keep this money—I mean it. This October, I'll come home with her for sure, and I'll finally get to call you Mom.

I thought about how I hadn't answered a single one of Eugene's messages since last night.

My hand just… went soft. All the resolve draining right out of my fingers.

Eugene always knew. Every thread of feeling I had, every tender weak spot—he knew exactly where to press.

I forced myself to stay calm.

I handed the phone back to Mom and smiled.

"You're right not to take it. Things might not even work out—who knows."

"Oh, stop that nonsense!"

Mom laughed and cupped my cheek.

"Your father was just saying yesterday—where are you going to find another boy as genuine as Eugene? You'd better appreciate what you've got."

"I know, I know."

I cut her off before she could keep going.

"By the way, Mom, don't tell Eugene I'm heading back. I want to surprise him."

Mom let out a soft laugh.

"Alright. Your secret's safe with me."

At three in the afternoon, I arrived at the apartment Eugene and I rented together.

He wasn't home.

I set my suitcase down inside the door and looked around. Everything looked normal. Nothing out of place.

The first thing I checked was the security cameras.

The footage cut to black three days ago—the night I left.

I went to the kitchen. It looked the same as when I'd left.

But a supermarket receipt was sitting in the trash can. Yesterday's date. Dish soap, paper towels, the usual household stuff.

Then, at the bottom of the list—three boxes of condoms.

The brand Eugene had begged me to try over and over, the flavored ones I'd never agreed to.

I clenched the receipt and went straight to the bedroom. Pulled open the nightstand drawer.

Our usual condoms were still there.

Of the three new boxes, only one was left.

I opened the closet.

Right at the front, Eugene's pajamas sat neatly folded.

Eugene never folded his clothes—especially not his pajamas. I was always the one trailing behind him, picking up after him. But those pajamas weren't folded by me.

I yanked them out of the closet.

A long strand of chestnut hair, clinging to the fabric.

My hands were shaking as I pulled out my phone.

I found Eugene's X account, tapped through to the profile of the girl who'd been replying to him.

Stared at her chestnut hair in photo after photo.

The color. The same.

The length. The same.

I ripped the pillows off the bed.

Under mine,

tucked away, overlooked, never cleaned up: more strands of chestnut hair.

I stumbled into the bathroom.

Near the drain—chestnut hair again.

My stomach lurched.

I grabbed the toilet and retched, one raw heave after another.

I collapsed onto the tile, legs gone, back against the wall.

My fingers found the girl's profile and kept scrolling—picture after picture after picture—and I couldn't stop.

Three years ago she'd posted a photo—two hands laced together, fingers interlocked.

The caption read:

*Tonight, I bloom for you.*

I recognized those hands instantly—the ones twisting the sheets into knots. Eugene's hands.

Three years ago.

I scrolled like someone possessed, faster and faster, until finally—four years back, in a group photo from Eugene's company—I found her.

She was his coworker.

Yet in all these years, I'd never once seen her at any of Eugene's work dinners.

All this time, she'd willingly kept herself hidden for him.

I forced down the nausea clawing up my throat

and sent Eugene a message:

*I'm home. I know everything.*

An hour later, footsteps shuffled outside the door, and with them a woman's voice, thick with tears.

"Gene, it's my fault. Let me in. I'll explain everything to her."

"No!"

Eugene kept his voice low, deliberately so, but the force still bled through—commanding and shielding at once.

The man on the other side of that door was not the one I knew.

With me he was gentle, easygoing. But now—decisive, hard-edged, yet still somehow soft with her.

I stood before I realized I was moving, my feet carrying me toward the door.

I needed to see him. The Eugene out there. And the girl with the chestnut hair.

I gripped the door handle. They were still arguing on the other side.

I yanked it open.

The door swung wide.

The girl with the chestnut hair was curled into Eugene's chest, crying. His hand stroked her hair over and over, his eyes full of nothing but ache for her.

Watching his fingers rest in that chestnut hair—

in a flash, the strands under the pillow, the strands in the bathroom, all of them seemed to stretch out and wind tight around me.

They saw me.

Eugene dropped his arms from around her so fast it looked violent.

The girl wiped her eyes and took a step forward.

"I'm so sorry, Lottie. Please—this was all my fault…"

I couldn't hold back. My arm swung up and the slap cracked full across her face.

When my hand kept going toward Eugene, he charged in from behind, shoved me hard, and pinned the girl behind him—shielding her like a startled rabbit he refused to let anyone touch.

"Lottie, what are you doing?!"

Resentment and raw anger surged behind his eyes.

But mine had already dropped to her left hand.

On her ring finger sat a diamond engagement ring. Massive. Unmistakable.

The exact same design Eugene had put on my finger three months ago when he proposed.

My nails bit into my palms.

I spun around, walked fast to the bedroom, and wrenched open the left drawer of the vanity.

The ring box was empty.

I ran back out, seized the girl's wrist,

and pried the ring off her finger by force.

Under the dim hallway light, the engraving on the inside of the band didn't say *Lottie*.

It was this year's limited edition.

When Eugene and I went to buy it, it had been the last one in stock.

I held the ring in front of Eugene's face.

"Is this mine? Or did you buy two from the start?!"

"I'm the one who begged Gene to get it for me!"

The girl stepped in front of him before he could answer.

"Lottie, I'm sorry—it's all my fault. I know I don't deserve to be with Gene. I just… I only wanted to stay close to him, quietly, even if it was only for a little while…"

I looked past the top of her head and locked eyes with Eugene.

"So you bought two. You bought two from the very beginning?!"

No wonder the sales associate wanted us to sign that exclusive true-love agreement and he wouldn't do it.

No wonder he claimed he'd forgotten his ID the day we bought the ring—and paid with his father's instead.

No wonder that same associate took one look at him and said, *Oh, you're back.*

He'd taken her to buy it first.

He'd already signed the agreement with her.

These past few days, when she came to the apartment and saw the identical ring in the drawer, she must have been furious.

So Eugene threw mine away.

Maybe he'd been making her the same promise, day after day—that he'd marry her soon.

Maybe just this morning, he'd done for her mother exactly what he did for mine.

Something thick and wet seemed to fill my chest, pressing down, smothering, an ache so heavy I couldn't draw a full breath.

"Lottie, let me explain—"

"Please, Lottie, please!"

Before Eugene could finish, the girl dropped to her knees at my feet with a hard thud.

"I'm sorry. I swear I'll cut things off with Eugene right now!"

"But please, I'm begging you, can you give me back the ring?"

I looked back at the ring in my hand, glanced at her once, and smiled—cold, thin—then stretched my arm out the window.

"Don't—"

She shot to her feet and threw herself at me. I was standing right at the top of the stairs—she slammed into me full force and we went down together, tangled, tumbling the whole way.

The violent collision tore her dress open at the shoulder.

I saw the scar on her shoulder—a distinctive petal shape—and my entire body went rigid.

The first year Eugene and I were together,

he'd told me about his father.

His father had cheated when he was young and brought a woman home.

That woman had a little girl with her, and the little girl had a petal-shaped scar on her shoulder.

Because of that woman, his mother killed herself.

After his mother died, his father threw the woman and the child out. He'd heard the woman's life fell apart after that.

I jerked my head toward Eugene.

"Eugene, she—"