On the day we were supposed to get our marriage license, Zachary Stephens never showed up.

I opened the music app and saw the couple video he'd posted with my best friend just a minute ago.

Him in a suit, her in a wedding gown, kissing on a wide-open lawn. They looked like the perfect pair.

My hand trembled as I tapped the like button.

A second later, Zachary's call came through.

“I was just helping her shoot a bridal ad. Don't read into it.”

Don't read into it. Again.

But this was the 108th couple video the two of them had filmed together.

“Mm. You two make quite the pair.”

Zachary fell silent for a moment, then said, all innocence,:

“Baby, what's that supposed to mean? The videos are all fake.”

“Your best friend and I have never gotten along. You know that, don't you?”

“I only helped her out for your sake.”

My voice caught. “But today was the day we agreed to get our license. I waited for you a long time……”

He clicked his tongue and cut me off, careless about it.:

“We can get the license any day. Why are you being so petty, getting jealous over a friend?”

“Be good. We'll talk when I get back.”

The call ended, and it was like throwing a punch into a pillow.

But I'd heard it clearly. My best friend was right there beside him, cooing his name.

I took a deep breath.

A marriage license can be gotten any day.

But Zachary, the person I marry doesn't have to be you.

……

I dragged my numb body home.

Zachary still wasn't back.

I sat down in the entryway and pulled up Susan Barnes's profile.

The couple videos of Zachary and her. I'd watched them more times than I could count.

In them, they laughed and teased and played, sweet and in love.

The sound of their laughter echoed through this empty, silent house.

Like a curse wound tight around me, impossible to shake off.

All at once I felt like I hardly knew this version of Zachary anymore.

He had never, to anyone, in any setting, acknowledged that we were together. All because he said he didn't like being too public, said he wanted to build his career first.

There wasn't a single photo of the two of us in the house. All because he said he didn't like having his picture taken, hated being on camera.

I still remember when we first got together. I bought a camera, wanting to capture our everyday life.

But the moment the lens turned toward him, his brow furrowed.

He swung his hand in anger, and the camera hit the floor. The lens shattered. The camera was ruined.

We didn't speak to each other for a long time after that, and from then on, we never took another photo together.

I loved him.

I memorized everything he liked and hated.

I respected every one of his wishes.

And what I got in return was him “flaunting love for all to see” with someone else,

him taking “sweet couple photos” with someone else.

And that someone else was my own best friend……

The sound of the door opening, and my heart seemed to stop for an instant.

Zachary was back.

“Amelia Henson? Why are you sitting here?”

His tone was gentle as water, as if nothing had happened at all.

I didn't answer.

He went on, patient with his questions. “Hungry? I brought dinner home for you.”

He gave the paper bag in his hand a little shake. The restaurant's logo was printed across it.

A place I'd mentioned so many times, one I'd always loved.

But we'd never gone together.

Because Zachary always said he was too busy, always said we'd go some other time.

Something flashed through my mind, and I asked him, my voice shaking, “This restaurant. Who did you go with?”

He froze for a beat. The guilt in his eyes flickered and was gone.

“Susan said she wanted to shoot some footage……”

I tugged the corner of my mouth into a bitter smile, the tingling reaching even my fingertips.

The same thing, again.

Going on dates like a real couple, under the excuse of filming video footage.

No time to take me to the restaurant—but plenty of time to take someone else.

"I'm not hungry. You eat it."

Zachary's voice dropped, casual, almost bored. "Amelia, what is this little fit about? Because I helped Susan film some videos instead of going to get the marriage license with you?"

I lifted my eyes to him, disbelieving, the words I wanted to say lodging in my throat as tears slid down from the corners.

His accusations came in an endless stream.

"You were the one who introduced me to Susan in the first place. You were the one who didn't want to watch her boyfriend and her best friend at each other's throats. You told us to get along."

"Now you've got exactly what you wanted, and you're jealous all over again?"

"Have I spoiled you so much that you've turned this petty?"

"You know perfectly well the bridal shoot is just an ad. The kiss is camera angles."

"Amelia, what more do you want from me?"

Right. What more do I want?

Isn't it all because of me?

Why am I always so unreasonable?

I kept my head down the whole time, tears dripping, drop by drop, onto the floor.

Breathing was getting hard.

It felt like a piece of candy lodged in my throat—couldn't swallow it, couldn't spit it out, until in the end it would just choke me to death.

The paper bag hit the floor with a slap.

Zachary and I stayed silent for what felt like a century.

In the end he grabbed his coat and left.

He didn't come home all night.

And I didn't sleep all night.

When the sky was just beginning to pale, I pulled up Susan's page again without thinking.

She'd posted a new video: the two of them sitting side by side on a balcony, talking.

It was sped up—the two of them talking, it seemed, from dark of night straight through to dawn.

These past few years, Zachary and I had fewer and fewer words for each other, our cold spells more and more frequent.

I'd thought it was work, the small daily grind, that had turned us into this.

But there was a time, not so long ago, when we'd had so much to say. So much it felt like a whole lifetime wouldn't be enough.

I stared at the screen, blank, my heart like a great hollow had opened in it.

All those words he never said to me—he'd ended up saying them to someone else after all.

I sat with it a long while before I called my mother.

"Mom… I miss you so much."

She caught the wrongness right away. "Amelia, what's the matter? Did you and Zachary fight?"

My nose stung. I forced the words out. "I want to come home."

She sighed. "I never agreed to you being with him in the first place."

"Back then you insisted on going with him no matter what I said. Threw away a perfectly good life as an heiress just to go be his secretary. You were a girl who couldn't even cook, and for him…"

I'd loved him too fiercely back then, ignored my mother, certain our feelings would stay just as they were forever.

"Amelia," she said, letting the past go, "if you're tired, come home. Mom is always behind you."

My voice broke. "Okay."

I packed a few things and set off for the company to hand in my resignation.

Zachary had built everything from nothing, without his family's help.

To be with him, I'd even cut ties with my mother, severed us as mother and daughter.

Thinking back on it now, I'd been wrong beyond all reason.

Susan had only been a small-time influencer then, barely known.

When she and Zachary first met, the two of them couldn't get through a few words without picking a fight.

Susan blamed Zachary for stealing me away from her.

Zachary couldn't stand how she was always pushing us to break up.

Then a photo of the two of them happened to go viral.

A handsome man, a beautiful woman—the internet lost its mind shipping them.

Susan gained a million followers overnight, and Zachary's company rode the fame straight to a successful IPO.

At first I didn't think much of it. Not until Zachary, for the sake of filming videos with Susan, brushed me aside time and time again—until everyone believed they were a real couple.

Until I became the rat in the corner, staring up at their happy little life.

I'd cried. I'd screamed.

But Zachary always brushed me off with the same words: It's all for the company, isn't it? All so you can live a good life.

All for me.

An invisible weight pressed down over my head like an iron lid, smothering me until I couldn't breathe.

But to me, it was nothing but an excuse.

For the videos, Zachary took her to Tahiti, the place he'd promised me a thousand times and never once delivered on.

For the videos, he chartered more than a dozen helicopters to celebrate her birthday, forgetting that the same day was our fourth anniversary, the night I waited up for him in vain.

There was so much more. Even now, looking back, it still left me aching, bitter.

By the time I got to the office, Zachary was already inside.

I tucked my resignation letter beneath a stack of documents. He didn't look closely. He just signed.

I was about to leave when he called me back.

He took a velvet box from the drawer.

He opened it. Inside lay a glittering sapphire necklace.

His voice turned unusually gentle. “Do you like it? I bought it especially for you.”

Something in my chest trembled.

It had been so long since he'd given me a gift.

Let alone lowered his head to apologize first.

Before I could figure out what to say, his phone buzzed.

A message from Susan.

【So how'd it go, Zachary? Did Amelia like the necklace? My taste in gifts isn't bad, right?】

The air froze.

I tugged weakly at the corner of my mouth. So even the gift he gave me had been picked out by someone else.

I pushed the box back toward him. “No need. You can take it.”

Once, I would have flared up at him again. But today my heart was strangely calm.

Susan had been part of my relationship with Zachary for too long. Too deeply.

Even in the smallest corners of it.

The body wash at home suddenly changed scent, and Zachary said Susan had recommended it, that it smelled wonderful.

New sheets and a duvet cover appeared in the closet, and again Zachary said Susan had recommended the fabric and the pattern, that it was soft and beautiful.

At some point I stopped knowing when, my thoughts and feelings had come to mean less to him than a single offhand remark from Susan.

Zachary frowned, silent for a moment.

Before he could speak, another message from Susan came through.

【Or should I buy you two some little toys? Didn't you say Amelia loves……】

The voice message hadn't finished playing before Zachary cut it off.

My whole body went rigid. I couldn't believe what I'd just heard.

My lips went numb. “Zachary, you tell her even about what we do in bed?”

He visibly panicked. “Amelia, don't misunderstand. I can explain.”

Susan's voice message had carried clear mockery, clear teasing.

A cold laugh escaped me. What had I become to them?

“I don't want to hear your explanation. And I'm not something you two can joke about however you please.”

But Zachary frowned. “Is it really that serious, Amelia? Susan's your friend too, not some stranger. What's the harm in mentioning it? Do you really have to be this petty?”

My eyes stung. I curled my fingers.

“Even now, you still think I'm just throwing a tantrum,” I stared at him and said, word by word, “Zachary, let's break up.”

“What did you say?”

His face went ashen, a dark, brooding air rolling off him. “Amelia, you dare say that again?”

“I said, let's break up.”

Zachary tilted his head back against the couch and pinched the bridge of his nose, exhausted.