But I just couldn’t figure it out—how could a relationship we’d had for so long fall apart over one month of long distance?

I had to ask him face-to-face.

I barely slept that night. As soon as I woke up, I rushed to the station.

Even though we were in different cities, Oscar wasn’t that far away. The high-speed train got me there in under three hours.

I took a cab straight to his apartment.

I knocked on his door.

When he opened it and saw me standing there, his expression turned awkward and stiff. “What are you doing here?”

“I just want to know…”

“Want to know what?” he cut me off impatiently. “I told you, we’ve already broken up.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but a sugary, coquettish female voice floated out from inside: “Oscar, who is it? It’s so early.”

A tall, beautiful stranger stepped out from the bedroom. She slid her arm through his, looking me up and down.

I stared at her, then at the faint red marks on Oscar’s neck and shoulder. Nausea rolled through me.

“How come you’re awake?” Oscar’s eyes softened when he looked at her. He reached up to ruffle her hair. “Didn’t you say you were sleeping in till noon today?”

“I got woken up,” she pouted. “Who is she, your ex-girlfriend?”

“Go back and get some rest,” he said gently. “I’ll be right there after I’m done.”

She gave me another look or two before turning and walking back into the bedroom.

“You saw it yourself,” he said flatly. “I have someone I like now. Do me a favor and go home. Don’t make my girlfriend misunderstand.”

“Yesterday you told me you had someone you liked. Today I find her living with you. This pace is a little—”

“We’ve broken up. The pace of my new relationship is none of your business, is it?” Oscar’s gaze on me was icy. “There’s no way back for us. Give it up. If you keep standing here and refuse to leave, I’ll call the police and report you for harassment.”

I stared at him in disbelief. He hadn’t been this kind of person before. At least, I’d always believed he wasn’t.

He finished speaking and shut the door without a moment’s hesitation. Just like that, our four-year relationship ended in his cold, ruthless words, a sloppy, ugly finale.

I honestly don’t know how I made it back home.

My tears finally burst, like a dam breaking. Everything I’d been holding in over the last two days came pouring out.

I cried until my body gave out and I passed out from exhaustion. When I woke again, it was already four or five in the morning the next day.

After using the bathroom, I went to wash my hands at the sink and accidentally glanced at the mirror. The woman staring back at me looked haggard, dark circles under her eyes, her face completely drained of color.

A bitter smile tugged at my lips. Even I couldn’t stand the sight of myself like this.

But I really couldn’t control my emotions.

We had loved each other so much once.

We were in the same department in college, grew close from working together all the time, and slowly, we started to like each other.

Even after graduation, before the long-distance part started, he still treated me really well.

We rented a small place together. No matter how tight money was right after graduation, he never skimped on gifts or a sense of ceremony for holidays and special occasions.

When I was stressed out about finding a job, he always managed to support me emotionally.

Because I didn’t like eating breakfast, on the days he was still unemployed, he would get up early and come up with different ways to make breakfast for me.

Late at night, when everything was quiet, he liked to hold me in his arms, eyes shining, and tell me he was going to marry me.

We had even agreed that this Christmas, we would visit each other’s parents.

How am I supposed to accept that someone like that can just say he fell in love with someone else, and that’s that?

“I don’t know why he suddenly turned into this,” I told Felicity.

She knew I’d been in a bad mood since the breakup, so she took the initiative to invite me out for dinner.

After listening to the whole story from beginning to end, she spent a full hour cursing out Oscar and his ancestors eighteen generations back.

She rolled her eyes dramatically. “People don’t suddenly rot in one month. Either he was rotten from the start, or he’s been changing bit by bit all along. Your filter on him was just too damn strong, so you didn’t notice.”

“And you even went over there to try to get back together with him,” she added, hating the fact that I wouldn’t toughen up. “You little love-brain idiot, if you actually get back with him, I’m cutting you off.”

She said there had to have been signs, but I really couldn’t figure out where things had gone wrong.

“If you can’t figure it out, then stop trying. There’s no need to torture yourself over some piece-of-shit guy.”

“But we’ve been together for almost five years.”

“You should be grateful you found out now that he’s trash. You’ve still got so many more five-year stretches in your life,” Felicity said. “Thank God you didn’t waste even more time on him.”

I let out a sigh.

“You,” she went on, “you’re already stressed about work, and now your relationship blew up too. It’s perfectly normal to feel depressed.”

To save more money and ease the pressure on both me and Oscar, I really had been throwing myself into work. I was practically always working overtime at home on weekends.

“You need to go out and have some fun, really relax for once.”

Only when she said that did it hit me: after our graduation trip, I hadn’t gone anywhere for fun at all.

“Reel in that workaholic streak of yours, take a few days off. I’ll take you out and show you a good time.”

“But my job…”

“Stop.” Felicity made a shushing gesture. “You’re barely holding yourself together right now, and you’re still worried about work? Listen to me. Take some time off and rest. Who knows, maybe you’ll come back a whole new person.”

In the end, I listened to her and asked for a week off.

Because I almost never took leave, my department head was genuinely surprised when he heard my request. “Vera, did something happen at home?”

I didn’t spell it out, just vaguely let him assume there was something going on.

He didn’t press further and approved my leave without hesitation. “Then take the time to rest properly. Take care of whatever you need to at home before you come back.”

“You really do need a break,” he added. “Among the younger people in our company, you’re the one who works the hardest.”

Felicity and I planned the trip together, and not long after, we set out for our first stop.