"We can't start throwing money around just because things are a little better now, right?"

"What if things get hard again someday? How would you adjust?"

"Honey." Luna wrapped her arms around me. "I still like you best when you keep things simple."

Every ounce of anticipation I'd had shattered into nothing.

Her words hit me like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. I just stood there, frozen, too stunned to even react, watching as Luna smashed my only bottle of cologne without a shred of hesitation.

"What's the point of something so flashy and useless?"

Right.

Flashy and useless.

What was the point?

And yet Jayden was dressed head to toe in flashy and useless things, looking like he belonged to another world entirely, polished like some trust-fund prince.

The joke was that every dollar spent on making Jayden look that way had come from my blood and sweat over the years.

How was that fair?

The tears came before I could stop them. I wiped them away hard, staring at Luna's name lighting up my phone again and again, and finally hit answer.

"Honey?"

"You finally picked up!"

"Thank God!"

Luna's voice came through frantic.

"I've been looking everywhere for you! Where did you go? Whatever's going on, can we please talk about it face to face?"

"Sebastian, we've been together fifteen years!"

"Not fifteen days! You can't just disappear like this—"

"Luna."

I swallowed past the ache in my throat. My voice came out steady.

"Let's meet."

I told her.

"At the old house uptown. Let's meet there."

Silence on the other end.

A few seconds passed.

"Okay."

"Honey, I'm heading there right now." Luna's voice turned bright, almost relieved. "I'll pick up those soup dumplings you love on the way!"

Before I could refuse, she'd already hung up.

I turned and met my friend's worried eyes.

"I'm fine."

I managed a smile.

"Don't worry."

It had been nearly five years since Luna and I moved out of that house. I hadn't been back once.

I stood in front of the door, its paint chipped and faded, and remembered how we'd moved here from that basement apartment and decorated the place together, piece by piece.

Luna had said back then:

"Honey, this is our first real home. That means something!"

"Someday, when we're old, if you want, we'll come back here and retire!"

"Every year, let's come back and stay for a few days, okay?"

Back then, my heart had been full. I'd felt like my life was worth something.

Now, just a few years later, everything had changed.

I pushed the door open.

Luna was already on her feet, rising from the couch.

"Honey!"

She held up the soup dumplings like a child showing off a gold star, offering them to me.

"Still warm."

I used to always say I loved those soup dumplings. Loved that Luna would get up before dawn and stand in line to buy them for me.

Later, whenever I brought them up, all I got from Luna was indifference.

"Sebastian."

"Time is money. You think I have the luxury of standing in some endless line to buy you dumplings?"

Now the soup dumplings were right in front of me again, and somehow, they didn't look all that appetizing anymore.

"Luna."

I ignored her eagerness, walked past her, and sat down on the couch. The old frame groaned under my weight. Nothing like Jayden's furniture.

"Do you remember this couch?"

I looked at her.

"You and I went to the flea market together. Took us two days of hunting to find it."

"And because we couldn't afford to pay for delivery," I said, as if recounting the most ordinary thing in the world, "I borrowed a hand cart. You held onto the armrest, walking beside me in hundred-degree heat, and it took us two and a half hours to get it home."

"Back then, you said this couch could never be replaced, no matter how much money we had."

"You said it was proof that we loved each other."

Luna's gaze flickered. She couldn't look at me.

I picked up the remote from the coffee table, turning it over in my hands. A strip of tape wound around its middle—Luna had dropped it one night after too much wine, cracked the battery cover clean off. I couldn't bring myself to replace it, so I'd just wrapped it in tape.

My thumb traced the edge of that tape now.

"But the truth is, everything's changed. Hasn't it?"

"No!" Luna rushed toward me. "That's not true!"

Her eyes were already rimming red, the same way they always did whenever she got worked up. Some things never changed.

"What happened with Jayden was an accident!"

"I don't love him!"

"I swear!"

She dropped to her knees in front of me and reached for my hands. I shifted away. I watched the hurt flash across her eyes before she spoke again.

"That night at dinner, I'd had too much to drink. I don't even know how Jayden ended up at the hotel. When I woke up, I was terrified. I'm not lying to you!"

Tears spilled down her cheeks.

"I was afraid that if you found out, you'd leave me. That you'd be furious. I didn't know how to face you, so I just—"

"How long."

"What?"

"How long." My voice stayed flat. "You and Jayden. How long has it been going on."

Luna went silent. She held my gaze for a long time, her lips parting and closing, before the words finally scraped out.

"Three and a half years."

I thought about how she used to say she'd come back to stay for a few days every year.

How, eventually, she never had the time.

She'd had the time. She'd just been spending it on someone else.

A dull ache spread through my chest. Then Luna was talking again.

"I wanted to end it. But Jayden kept clinging to me. He told me about his family, how they had nothing, how his parents favored his younger brother. I just... I felt sorry for him..."

Her voice grew smaller and smaller until even she didn't have the conviction to finish the sentence.

"There's something else."

"I'm pregnant."

The words hit like a clap of thunder, deafening and close.

My fists clenched so tight my knuckles ached. Even though I'd already known the full truth before coming here, hearing it from her own mouth sent ice flooding through every vein.

While I'd been looking forward to our wedding with everything I had—Luna had already given someone else the title that should have been mine. I was the outsider. And now I sat listening to her say:

"You're getting older, and IVF is hard on the body..."

Getting older.

Hard on the body.

What a joke.

"So," Luna looked at me, "I want to keep this baby. It's for your sake too."

For my sake.

My nails dug into my palms hard enough to break skin. I didn't feel it. Luna kept going.

"Just forgive me! I'll agree to anything!"

"Anything?"

I swallowed the rage boiling inside me and met her eyes.

"Anything!"

I smiled. I rose from the couch, walked to the front door, and pulled it open. The person standing on the other side stared back at me, and my smile widened.

"So. Did you catch all of that?"

"Tell me—who's the other woman?"

I looked straight at Jayden, then pulled out my phone, angling it toward the video call still connected on the screen.

"Morgan. This footage goes out uncut. Send it to every outlet, word for word."

"I don't care how much it costs. I want maximum coverage."

Then—

A hand seized my wrist and wrenched me backward. I stumbled, turned, and met Luna's eyes. They burned with fury.

I smiled.

"Luna."

"When you do something wrong—"

"You don't get to walk away clean."

"So tell me. Are you satisfied with how this turned out?"