I didn't wait for Julian to finish. I yanked the door open and bolted out like I was fleeing for my life.

In the car, watching the scenery slide backward past the window, the blank fog in my head slowly filled with old memories.

When Julian and I first got together, he and Chloe couldn't stand each other.

They bickered the second they were in the same room, and I was always stuck in the middle, soothing one and then rushing off to calm the other.

Then somewhere along the way, the two of them got quiet around each other.

When Julian and I went out, he'd often suggest bringing Chloe along.

"She's home all alone with nothing to do. Let's invite her."

We'd eat out, and Julian would order Chloe's favorite dishes.

We'd watch a movie, and Chloe would act all coquettish as she squeezed into the seat between us.

He'd even swap out her ice water for warm ginger tea in a thermos when she had her period.

And I just smiled through all of it, never noticing a thing.

I'd actually thought, how nice, those two have finally made peace.

Now I was waking from the dream.

They'd made peace, all right. I was the one left out in the cold.

Back at the university, I sat alone by the lake and thought the whole night through.

I didn't believe it.

I couldn't believe that the little sister who'd trailed after me my whole life, swearing she'd protect me, would do something to hurt me.

She must have some reason she couldn't say out loud.

The next day I called Chloe and asked to meet.

The same coffee shop.

The same cup of coffee.

This time Chloe didn't hold anything back. She drained her coffee in long gulps and slid me a sideways look.

"Vivian, I won't dance around it. Julian started cheating with me ages ago. He says when he was chasing you, he thought you were the best woman in the world. Then he caught you, and realized you were nothing special after all."

My heart clenched hard.

Five years ago, Julian had chased me so loudly the whole city talked about it.

He set off fireworks in the heart of downtown.

He confessed to me on the giant screen above the square.

He had a whole sky of roses rain down for me.

I'd said, "Julian, I'm dull, I don't know the first thing about romance, and I'm older than you. You like me now, but it's just the thrill of something new. Once —"

I never finished. Julian kissed me before I could.

Then, in front of every camera and reporter there, he dropped to one knee and asked me to marry him.

I was so overcome the tears spilled over, and I threw my arms around him on the spot.

For five years after the wedding, he was good to me.

He never once forgot an anniversary gift, and even living half his life on business trips, he brought home a little surprise every time.

I was never good with people. I stayed on at the university after I graduated, and thanks to his care and protection I poured myself into research and became the youngest associate professor on campus.

I thought we were made for each other, two people who brought out each other's best.

I thought my marriage was flawless.

But now the bare, brutal truth had smashed my beautiful dream to pieces.

Across from me, Chloe was waving a little keychain around, gloating.

"Julian brought this back for me last month. Officer Judy, from Zootopia."

"He's got the matching one. Nick the fox."

A loud ringing went off in my skull, and my whole mind went blank.

He'd brought me a little gift just like that too.

Mine was a Flash keychain, the sloth.

He'd said I was just like Flash in the movie, slow but sweet.

I'd curled up in his arms, smiling, never once realizing the keychains were a couple's set.

They were the couple.

I was the outsider.

I gripped the keychain so hard my knuckles went white.

"Why?"

It took everything I had just to get the word out.

I wanted to know the answer, and I was terrified to hear the truth.

Chloe only let out a mocking little laugh.

"I'm not like you. You're dull, no sense for romance. Me, I like a thrill."

"And there's no bigger thrill than sleeping with your sister's husband, is there, Vivian?"

The last sliver of hope shattered. My throat swelled, raw and aching, and I couldn't get a single word out.

"I always said he was no good. Otherwise, why would he come running the second I crooked my finger?"

"Or maybe life with you was just so suffocating that he was sick of you long ago."

My heart felt like it was being eaten alive, an unbearable, splitting pain.

But Chloe just grinned, as if she couldn't see the agony on my face at all.

Then, slowly, she pulled out an ultrasound printout and laid it in front of me.

"Intrauterine pregnancy. Six weeks. Heartbeat normal."

My eyes stayed fixed on that ultrasound for a long time.

Chloe had never even dated anyone. How could she be pregnant?

Had someone forced himself on her, or was it something I didn't want to imagine?

"It's Julian's."

Chloe's voice was flat.

My breath caught.

My heart seemed to skip a beat too.

"What's wrong, Vivian? Aren't you happy?"

Chloe's voice carried over.

She pointed smugly at the gray smudge on the printout. "You're going to be an aunt."

I drew a deep breath, and everything in front of me went white.

I'd never imagined my life could hold a scene like this.

The two people I loved most in the world, the two who mattered most, had betrayed me together.

In that moment, panic flooded me.

I didn't know how to face the sister I'd grown up with, or the man I'd spent five years loving, or the great storm of a marriage we'd built.

A violent ringing rose in my ears, and a heat spread from my chest out through my whole body.

I shot to my feet, grabbed the coffee cup beside me, and in a fit of rage, hurled it contents straight at Chloe.

Chloe shrieked and stumbled back, landing hard on the floor.

She clutched her belly, brows knotted, pain twisting across her face.

At the same moment the coffee shop door banged open, and a familiar figure rushed in.

It was Julian.

He reached Chloe, shoved me aside as I scrambled to help her up, and slapped me across the face with everything he had.

The force of it sent me sprawling. My temple cracked against the corner of the table and swelled red in an instant, and my vision washed white.

"Chloe, Chloe, are you okay?"

Chloe's brows pinched weakly, and her voice broke into tears. "Julian, save me. Save our baby."

Julian swept her up into his arms at once.

From start to finish, he never once really looked at me.

I pushed myself up, the pain throbbing through me.

Watching the man I loved fuss over another woman like that, my heart felt like it had been seized in a giant fist and squeezed until it ached.

"Vivian. You knew Chloe was pregnant, so you knocked her down on purpose. Didn't you?"

Julian's tone was hard and cold.

As if the woman in front of him wasn't his wife, but his enemy.

I'd meant to explain. Now every word jammed in my chest, suffocating.

"How could you be so vicious?"

"Chloe's fine this time, so we'll let it go. But if anything happens to her, I will never let you off!"

In five years of marriage, Julian had never once scolded me like this.

He used to smile and ruffle my hair.

"You know something? You're the purest, kindest girl I've ever met."

"Vivian, I'll love you forever."

Something warm slid down from the corner of my eye.

I wiped it away and lifted my chin, stubborn.

"Think whatever you want."

Then I bolted out of the coffee shop.

The sky was black with clouds, and thunder rolled overhead.

The rain came down in sheets.

I heard Julian's footsteps behind me.

I spun around, only to see him carry Chloe into his car.

The door shut, and they sped away.

It left me standing there, hollowed out, sobbing in the downpour.

I ran through the rain toward home, slipped, and went down into the mud.

The rain hammered against me. I struggled a few times, then sank back into it, like the last of my strength had drained away.

If I could, I thought, just let me die right here.

By the small hours of the morning, I'd spiked a fever.

Half conscious, I instinctively called Julian.

I tried over and over. No answer.

Then his phone shut off completely.

And just like that, my head cleared.

I dragged my limp, useless body to the hospital alone.

After they gave me a shot to bring the fever down, I saw Julian and Chloe outside one of the rooms in the ward.

Julian was murmuring to Chloe, gently coaxing her to sleep.

He patted her back the way you'd soothe a child.

When he turned and saw me, he crept out on tiptoe.

"What are you doing here?"

He touched my swollen, bruised cheek, and his voice softened.

"I lost my temper. Don't take it to heart."

Then he pulled me into his arms, tender, as if nothing had happened at all.

"Chloe's fine, and the baby's safe. Don't worry."

I shook my head stubbornly and pulled free of him.

"Julian."

My voice was hoarse.

"Could you just not be with her? She's my own sister."

Getting those words out took everything I had, and cost me every scrap of pride.

I loved this man. So much.

In five years of marriage, clumsy as I was, I'd rarely said anything close to a word of love.

But today, facing him again, I was ready to set it all down, ready to ask him whether he'd love me the way he used to, whether he'd come back to me.

I looked up at him, my eyes brimming.

Julian went still for a moment.

Then he laughed out loud.

"How could that be, Vivian?"

"After everything, you still don't get it? I've fallen for Chloe. I mean it, the same way I once meant it with you."

"I can't live without her."

I felt like I'd come down with a terrible fever.

The instant Julian said those words, my chest seized, airless.

My throat swelled, raw and bitter.

"Vivian, here's my promise to you. No matter how far things go with Chloe, you'll always be my only wife. That part never changes."

"All right?"

There was even a thread of tenderness in his voice.

But I felt like I'd just heard the most absurd thing in the world, too stunned to speak.

He really did love Chloe. He really couldn't bear to leave her.

He wanted both of us, me and Chloe.

God. How could a man this shameless exist?

It took me a long moment to surface. I opened my mouth clumsily.

"What are you even saying, Julian."

"Don't you think this is insane? Completely ridiculous?"

Julian smiled and patted my shoulder, utterly unbothered.

"Go home and think it over."

"I'm staying here with Chloe tonight."

Then he went back into the room.

He sat down at the edge of her bed and took her hand, his eyes full of worry and tenderness.

Something struck my heart, once, then again.

He used to be exactly like this with me.

The second year of our marriage, I got sick.

Unconscious, I had him gripping my hand, crying, begging me not to leave him.

He set down all his work and watched over me day and night.

The day I was discharged, Julian had wasted away to half himself.

For the life of me, I couldn't understand how the Julian who'd loved me like that could turn around and love my sister.

The next morning, Julian came out of the room carrying Chloe.

He saw me sitting on the bench in the hallway and asked, "Vivian, did you sit here all night?"

I couldn't find a trace of concern in his voice. Only the startled fear of a man worried I'd cling and refuse to let go.

My throat tightened all at once.

Then I pushed down the unease inside me, shook my head, and held out a few documents to him.

"The hospital needs a family member to sign these. Chloe's admission forms."

Seeing how calm I was, Julian assumed I'd come around.

He smiled, relieved, freed up one hand, clumsily flipped through the forms, and scrawled his name in crooked strokes.

Then he picked Chloe back up and strode off.

I followed behind them, my heart as still as dead water.

What Julian didn't know was that, along with those hospital forms, he'd just signed a set of divorce papers.

I was slow. I was a fool. But I still had my pride.

I couldn't accept a Julian who split his heart in two, and I couldn't accept a marriage with that kind of poison in it.

I wanted the divorce. I wanted to vanish from his life completely.

After Julian took Chloe home, he didn't show up again.

I packed a few things, and before I left for good, I knocked on the door of Chloe's place.

I wanted to see how the two of them were together. Was it like the way we used to be?

Julian answered the door in matching his-and-hers loungewear.

Chloe was behind him, hanging off him affectionately, draped over him.

"Vivian, what are you doing here?"

His face fell, as if my showing up was the most inconvenient thing in the world.

"I'm staying here for now so I can look after Chloe. Once the pregnancy's stable, I'll come back and make it up to you."

I'd already made up my mind to go, and still, seeing this in front of me, I stood rooted there, gutless, as if the ground had dropped out from under me.

I made myself smile.

"You don't have to make up to me anymore."

"I'm leaving."

Julian blinked, baffled.

"Leaving? Leaving for where?"

Then, just as quickly, the impatience set in. "Vivian, you're a grown woman. Could you stop acting out over every little thing?"

"Quit it. Be good now."

I parted my lips, but before I could get a word out, Chloe called from inside, "Julian, you promised we'd make a candlelit dinner together. Hurry up."

Julian turned at once and slid an arm around her waist.

Then he lifted his hand and shut the door, closing me out.

I smiled, and in that instant everything came clear.

I turned around too.

Julian. We won't be meeting again.