The day I cut my business trip short.

I was planning to slip back into our marital home, set the place up, and give Victor Sanchez a birthday surprise.

But when I pushed the door open, all I saw was a mess strewn across the floor.

Victor had already started his birthday celebration with his junior from the lab.

My beige sheets had been swapped out for the blue bunny print Kathleen Fox loved best.

Even the vanity was lined with cosmetics that weren't mine.

Half a month away on business, and nearly every trace of my life here had been wiped clean.

Worse still, even the entry code had been changed.

I knocked until the door opened, and met Victor's startled eyes.

"Why are you back so early."

I didn't answer. I turned and looked toward the living room.

On the table, the dishes I'd treasured and tucked away in the cabinet, the ones I'd never let myself use, were spread out and piled with the Japanese food Kathleen loved, and a cake.

"So the two of you started the birthday early. Why didn't you call me?"

I reached toward the cake, and Kathleen instantly knitted her brow.

"I'm so sorry, Marie Henson. I have a thing about germs. Could you use a different dish?"

But the cabinet was bare. There wasn't a single spare plate left.

The next second, Victor picked up the dog bowl off the floor, set a slice of cake in it, and handed it to me.

"There aren't any other bowls in the house right now. Just make do with this for now."

——

I stood there, frozen, not moving, and he let out a sigh.

"This bowl is clean. It's been washed."

"There's nothing I can do. Kathleen has a thing about germs. Those dishes are hers. If you touch them, she'll cry."

His face wasn't joking, and my throat tightened.

"Victor, are you serious?"

He frowned a little.

"What's there to turn your nose up at?"

"I washed it three times. Used the same dish soap you always use, the lemon-scented one. Smell it."

He pushed the bowl up under my nose.

I didn't pull back, and I didn't smell it. I just looked at the faint pale band still circling his ring finger.

Worn for three years. Off for how long now?

Half a month?

I didn't even know. And I didn't want to know anymore.

"Victor, move."

I turned sideways toward the bedroom. He shifted to block me without thinking, and my shoulder shoved past him.

Kathleen suddenly let out a yelp, as if she'd been startled.

"Marie, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you'd be back early, Victor said you wouldn't be until next week…"

I ignored her and went straight for the bedroom door, opening it.

The next second, I froze.

My beige bedding set was gone, replaced by a set of bright blue bunny-print linens.

A few plush rabbits slumped beside the pillows.

On the vanity, everything that belonged to me was gone too.

My heart dropped, and I crossed the room fast to dig through the drawers.

"What are you looking for?"

Victor had followed me in, leaning against the doorframe, frowning at me.

"You're back two minutes and already tearing the place apart. I forgot to tell you, Kathleen's been using your bedroom these past few days."

"She doesn't like people barging into her room. Come out first."

I lifted my head in disbelief. "Her bedroom?"

I almost laughed from sheer anger.

"Victor, have you lost your mind? I bought this place. I'm still paying off the mortgage."

"It's already generous of me to take you in here, and you actually wait until I'm away on business to hand my bedroom over to someone else?"

Three years together, and Victor had drifted from place to place, away on business most of the time.

I'd ached for him, with nowhere to call home, so I let him move into my place.

But now, he'd made himself master of this house, plain as day.

He could even decide whether I stayed or went.

"Marie."

Victor closed his eyes for a moment, forcing down his temper. "Kathleen was going to celebrate my birthday tonight. I don't want to fight with you."

But I wanted to fight with him even less.

Victor, of all people, should have known that my parents died in a car crash because of an argument, and that it had haunted me my whole life.

The thing I feared most was fighting.

"Where are my things?"

I turned and yanked open the drawer, digging through it for a long time. Nothing.

Every single thing that belonged to me was gone.

"What things?"

"My earrings, the pearl pair, and that thin gold chain."

I could let everything else go.

But that one pair of earrings—

they were the only thing my mother had left me.

Victor frowned and tilted his head toward the living room.

"Kathleen said she just wanted to borrow them for a few days. Don't be so petty."

"Give them back."

My voice came out ice-cold.

Victor looked a little taken aback. "Once she's worn them enough, she'll definitely give them back to you—"

"I said now. Give them back to me right now!"

Hearing the urgency in my voice, his expression darkened too.

"Kathleen, where are those pearl earrings?"

Kathleen shrank her neck in like some pitiful little rabbit, her eyes already going red.

"I'm so sorry, Marie."

"I was going to give the earrings back to you when I came home today, but by the time I noticed, they weren't in my ears anymore. I lost them—"

"Lost them where?"

My face fell, my voice sharpening along with it.

"What good is an apology? If you know it's wrong to lose someone else's things, then go find them right now."

Kathleen cast a timid glance toward the window.

"But it's dark out now. I'm scared—"

I kept my eyes locked on her.

"That's all I have left of my mother. I don't care if it's dark out, I don't care if it's hailing or raining knives—you're going out there to find them."

Tears spilled down Kathleen's face. She stamped her foot and made to run outside.

"Kathleen, don't go."

Victor's expression turned cold as he pulled her behind him. "Marie, are you done making a scene?"

"It's just one cheap pair of earrings. Is there any need to be this aggressive?"

I studied the anger on his face and let out a slow, amused smile.

"Victor."

"Did you sleep with her?"

He choked, his face flushing red. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"

"Kathleen's just staying for a few days. A pipe burst at her place and it's being fixed. She's just a young girl, soaked through and miserable. I couldn't stand the thought of her checking into a hotel—"

"So you brought her back to our marital home, let her sleep in our bed, wear my clothes, put on my jewelry, eat out of my bowl. Is that right?"

"And then, because she mentioned a germ phobia,"

"I got driven out of my own home like some miserable stray dog with nowhere to go."

Victor's expression shifted again and again. "Could you not be so snide?"

"Did I ask you to come back early?"

"You just had to come home today, walk in on this, and make a scene. What's the point?"

Listening to him scold me without the slightest hesitation, I went numb.

Tomorrow was Victor's birthday.

To get back early and put together a birthday surprise for him, I'd pushed myself to the brink all week on that business trip, racing to stay ahead.

A workload that should have taken seven days, I'd crammed into five.

Tonight I'd even turned down my coworkers' get-together and the celebration dinner.

I'd flown back overnight.

Only to see this.

Only to see the "surprise" Victor had prepared for me with his own hands.

Sensing my silence, Victor finally noticed the birthday gift box I'd put together myself, sitting beside the suitcase at the door.

"You... you rushed back early to celebrate my birthday?"

It used to be.

But not anymore.

Victor's tone softened a little. "I'm sorry. I lost my temper just now and said things too harshly."

"You've been on edge ever since you got back today. You're my girlfriend, and Kathleen is a guest—more than that, she's my advisor's daughter."

"If you make her cry, my advisor and all the guys in the lab are going to want my head the next time I see them."

Victor came closer, reached out, and wrapped his arms around me from behind.

"Come on, Marie. Stop making a scene."

"Kathleen's only staying a couple more days. Once the pipes at her place are fixed, she'll move out. You'll just have to put up with a hotel for a little while."

There was a time when Victor pulling me into his arms like this would have left me smug, riding the high for ages.

But now his embrace felt like it was covered in thorns.

"Victor." I broke free of his hold. "When it comes right down to it, you still want to throw me out. Throw me out of my own home. Is that it?"

Victor knotted his brows and stared at me for a long moment, then sighed.

"If you don't want to move out, that's fine too."

He raised his hand and pointed toward the study and the storage room. "You can lay out a mat in there. Rough it for a few nights."

People really do laugh when they're past words.

I looked down and let out two short laughs. "So you're the one who changed the door code. Right?"

Victor froze for a second, then nodded.

"The old one was too simple. Kathleen said it wasn't very safe, so I changed it."

"Then why didn't you send me the new code?"

I was the owner of this place, and I didn't even know what the new code was.

Victor paused. "Sorry, I was so busy with my experiments I forgot. I'll send it to you now."

My phone buzzed twice.

Victor put his phone away. "There. Nothing else now, right?"

He pointed at the dog bowl sitting on the floor.

"Eat the cake if you want it, leave it if you don't. Just stop making a fuss."

I didn't say anything. I just turned and started packing my things.

There wasn't much to pack, really. It had all been gathered into one spot already.

As if someone had boxed it up for me ahead of time, leaving only the act of tossing it out the door.

As for the birthday gift box I'd prepared from a thousand miles away.

I never got to give it to him. I dropped it straight into the trash.

I dragged out the storage bin and stuffed clothes in one by one, working fast, the fabric rustling against itself.

The sound caught Victor's attention.

"What are you doing?"

He came over, startled, and pressed his hand down on the lid. "It's the middle of the night. Why are you even pulling out your off-season winter clothes?"

I didn't lift my head. My voice came out cold.

"Let go. I'm moving out."

"Moving out where? This is your home!"

I looked up at him. For an instant there was panic in his eyes, but it was quickly buried under impatience.

"Marie, can't you be a little more mature?"

"I already told you, there's nothing between me and Kathleen. We're just friends. She's my advisor's daughter, and my advisor has helped me out plenty. I can't just let her end up out on the street."

I gave a cold laugh.

"So you can stand to let me, your girlfriend, end up out on the street?"

Victor's frown deepened.

"You've got somewhere to go, don't you? You're a few years older than Kathleen, you travel for work all the time, you're used to hotels. You can adapt. Kathleen can't."

"Kathleen was pampered her whole life. She's a germaphobe. She can't handle living somewhere unfamiliar."

Kathleen padded in from the living room, barefoot.

"Marie, I'm so sorry, I didn't know you were coming back today... Maybe I should just go. I'll stay at a hotel. Please don't fight over me."