The night before our honeymoon, Miles Henson canceled the tickets to the Arctic without warning and switched our trip to Egypt.

The text notification came through while I was still in the department store picking out cold-weather gear.

Before I could even ask him about it, Miles called first, his voice carrying its usual chill.

"Julia says she likes the sun. The Arctic's too cold. It doesn't suit her."

I looked down at the winter clothes I'd just paid for and fell silent.

Julia Roman. My cousin. And Miles's first love.

"Gabby, Julia saved my life. If it weren't for her, I might not even be here."

"Be reasonable about this. I'll take you to the Arctic another time."

It was rare for him to soften his voice and coax me like that, but all I felt inside was bitterness.

A single cold pill Julia had once handed him, and Miles had carried that debt of gratitude for three years.

The honeymoon I'd begged him for over three whole months, and one word from her that she didn't like it was enough to change the whole destination.

All at once it just felt pointless, and I answered quietly. Fine.

Then I turned and put the winter clothes back on the rack.

"Miss, you don't want these anymore?"

I smiled and nodded.

"No. I don't."

Miles included. I didn't want him anymore either.

——

The moment I stepped out of the store, a light rain began to fall.

The gray, damp weather actually made me let out a breath without meaning to.

And the instant I noticed that, I froze where I stood.

There was a time when I loved the sun too.

But five years ago, for the sake of Miles's biology research data, I spent six full months in the desert photographing lizards.

Those six months burned my skin so badly that I could never bear sunlight again.

Miles, always so composed and self-contained, looked at my peeling, blistered skin and his eyes reddened for the first time. He stroked my hair, aching with tenderness.

"Gabby, I swear I'll never do you wrong. Not in this lifetime."

In five years of dating, it was the first time Miles had ever expressed love that fierce to me.

The joy in my heart only swelled, so much that even the doctor's regretful look, when he told me I could never step into the sun normally again, was something I simply refused to see.

Foolish as I was back then, I took all that pain across my body as proof of our love.

But now, looking at myself bundled up head to toe under a hundred-and-four-degree sun, I suddenly thought I really was a joke.

Miles. He'd probably forgotten a long time ago.

That was why he'd let Julia set our honeymoon destination as Egypt.

A place where the sun was so brutal I couldn't so much as show my face.

The thought of it made me feel rather pitiful, too.

Ten years of love, a marathon, and it couldn't outweigh one word from Julia that she didn't like it.

The rain came down harder. I hadn't brought an umbrella, and I stood at the store entrance waiting for a rideshare.

Half an hour passed and still no driver accepted the ride. My contacts stayed frozen on Miles's call screen for a long time, and yet I never pressed it.

It wasn't that I was being dramatic. It was just that after all these years, nearly every call I'd ever made to Miles had gone unanswered.

His phone was on silent year-round. Only the people he'd flagged as favorites got an alert.

And the only favorite he'd ever set was Julia.

There was a time I cried, a time I made a scene, but he only frowned. "Gabby, you know my work is unusual. It's not convenient for me to take calls."

"If something comes up, just message me on iMessage. I'll reply when I see it."

And so all my grievance was buried under his offhand words.

On our anniversary, I fainted from acute gastroenteritis, the pain unbearable, and on instinct I called him. But it was the same cold voicemail as always.

It wasn't until a kind stranger took me to the hospital, and I woke up, that I saw he'd finally replied.

"Didn't I tell you not to call me?"

"If it's important, leave a message."

So I finally learned. I learned not to call him anymore, learned to eat, sleep, and go to the hospital on my own.

Even our wedding photos got missed because he didn't reply in time, and in the end they had to be AI-composited.

A car horn pulled me back to myself. I looked up and saw a familiar license plate not far off.

It was Miles.

And… Julia, riding in the passenger seat.

"Gabby, I knew you'd be here! Miles kept insisting you weren't, and if I hadn't made him come, you'd be soaked by now…"

Julia rolled down the window, waving at me excitedly, and gave Miles a playful punch on the arm.

"Aren't you going to get my cousin? You want a beating, don't you?"

In the driver's seat, Miles let out a soft laugh and ruffled Julia's hair with a doting hand. But when he turned to look at me, he couldn't help frowning.

"The rain's too heavy. Come over yourself."

"What is wrong with you? What if my cousin gets soaked?!"

"She's dressed warmly enough. She'll be fine."

I stood quietly at the entrance, watching the two of them laugh and tease each other inside the car.

A young woman sheltering from the rain beside me suddenly spoke, a trace of envy in her voice.

"Your sister really cares about you, sending her boyfriend out in the rain to pick you up."

My chest clenched hard, and the shame of it nearly made me want to bolt.

But my feet stayed rooted where they were.

"She is good to me. But the man in the driver's seat is my husband. We got married not long ago."

Ignoring the woman's stunned face beside me, I turned and stepped out into the rain.

The whole way there, Julia chattered on about all the amusing things she'd run into on her travels.

As a travel blogger with a modest following online, Julia always had a knack for digging up off-the-beaten-path destinations.

At first she loved dragging me along, but I couldn't get away from work, and after I turned her down a few times, she stopped pushing.

Then, a week later, I saw Miles show up in her social media posts.

That was the first time Miles and I ever fought.

"Can you please not have such a filthy mind? Julia is your cousin. You think there could actually be something between me and her?"

"Gabriella, stop making a scene. This wears me out…"

The impatience on his face cut deep, and it made every question I'd asked feel ridiculous.

I didn't understand it. Miles and I had dated for years and never once traveled anywhere together.

Every time, I'd get excited, take time off in advance, plan it all out, only for one of his last-minute projects to cancel everything.

I complained about it, but I understood his work too.

Yet somehow, only Julia was the exception…

"Gabby, why aren't you saying anything?" Julia's coy, pouting voice reached me, and only then did I notice the car had stopped in front of a luxury boutique.

"Gabriella, what are you sulking about now? Julia's talking to you. Can't you hear her?" I hadn't even caught up with what was happening before Miles's displeased scolding came crashing down on me.

"Miles, don't be like that. Gabby probably just spaced out and didn't hear."

"Gabby, Miles said my clothes got wet, so he's taking me in to buy something. Let's go together?"

Julia dabbed at a few water spots on her collar, a hint of shyness in her tone.

"Never mind her. She's got that spoiled-princess temper, thinks the whole world has to cater to her." Miles shot me a look of disgust.

"If it weren't for coming to get her, your clothes wouldn't have gotten wet. Go change first, before you catch a cold." Miles took a tissue and carefully wiped the mist of rain from Julia's hair, his eyes full of concern.

“All right then…… Sis, if you change your mind, come to the store yourself. Miles and I will be waiting inside.”

After they left, the engine went silent too.

I sat in the back seat in my heavy, soaked clothes, sticky all over, watching the two of them walk off hand in hand.

The air conditioning faded fast. The 104-degree heat and the damp weather turned the car more and more stifling, and before long I was drenched through again.

I tried the door, only to find they'd locked me in.

After a moment, I texted Miles.

“When are you two coming back?”

Ten minutes. No reply.

I sent another. Still nothing.

Half an hour later, I chose to call the police.

When the officer smashed the window, Miles came walking out under an umbrella with Julia.

I was soaked in sweat, my body limp as I climbed out of the car, and a female officer steadied me, her eyes full of worry.

“Gabriella, have you lost your mind?” Before I could even find my footing, Miles's cold voice came from behind me.

“Sis, if you wanted to go shopping too, you could've just texted Miles. Why smash his car? The Research Institute assigned him that car……”

It took me a long while to clear my eyes. I lifted my head and looked at Miles, who stood off to the side with Julia held tight against him.

Then, all at once, I laughed. “So I never texted?”

Miles's face stiffened, and his hand tightened around his phone without thinking.

He'd seen it. He just hadn't wanted to answer.

The female officer couldn't stand it either. Her brow knit tight. “In heat like this, being locked in an airtight car can kill a person!”

“As her family, do you really not know something this basic?”

Julia's expression changed, and she glanced at Miles without meaning to.

Sure enough, a rare trace of guilt showed in Miles's eyes.

He took a few steps toward me on instinct, reaching to wipe the sweat from my temple, but I dodged him.

“Gabby, I didn't see the messages in time……”

I didn't answer. I only thanked the officers quietly, then got into the patrol car.

By the time I came back from the station, it was already eight at night. The apartment was still pitch dark.

Miles had probably gone back to the Research Institute again.

In the ten years I'd been with him, apart from the occasional visit home to see my parents, he spent nearly all his time in the lab.

After my shower, I was about to toss my wet clothes into the washing machine when I found a pair of black lace panties.

Not mine.

My skin was sensitive. I hadn't been able to wear anything but pure cotton for years.

And just then, a familiar voice came from outside the bathroom.

“Miles, I think I left my panties here last time. Have you seen them?”

“If you left them, you left them. I'll buy you new ones……”

“You're awful! You're not planning to keep them for yourself, are you?”

“Am I that much of a pervert?”

“You were way more of one in bed before……”

I gripped the clothes in my hands hard, my eyes locked on the bathroom door.

My heart felt like it had been smashed apart by an iron hammer, the pain so sharp I could barely breathe.

“Cough, stop it. We broke up a long time ago. Gabriella is my wife now.”

Miles's words sent a sudden flare of hope through me.

Did he, maybe, still care about me?

But Julia's tone dropped cold. “Didn't you get close to Gabriella just to win me back?”

“Professor Henson, don't tell me you've actually fallen for her?”

My face went white, and in an instant I remembered the day Miles confessed to me.

Miles and I went to the same university. I majored in English, while he was the campus's famous prodigy in biology.