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."

Her eyes were rimmed red, and she looked like a startled little rabbit, so pitiful it tugged at the heart.

Victor turned at once, his tone going soft.

"Where do you think you're going? It's freezing out there, and you just got over a cold."

"But..."

"No buts."

He glanced back at me, as if he'd finally found his way out. "I'll just make things clear with her. You go wait in the room, and don't come out."

"Kathleen is my advisor's daughter, and my junior in the program too. Looking after her is the right thing to do."

"Everything I have today, I owe to my advisor."

"Marie, I'm telling you, don't be petty about this."

I refused to give an inch.

"That your advisor did you a favor is your business. It has nothing to do with me."

"Victor, we aren't even married yet. Whoever you want to take in is your affair. Go ahead and bring her to your own place."

"But this is my home. You made it all the way to a doctorate, all that education, and you still don't get something this simple? Don't be generous with what isn't yours."

Just then, Victor's phone rang, and he took the call.

By the time he hung up, his words had changed.

"Fine. Don't bother moving out."

He grabbed his coat, took hold of Kathleen's suitcase, and turned to head out the door.

"I'll go find her another place to stay in a bit."

The two of them turned to leave, one behind the other, but my gaze was fixed on Victor's travel bag.

"So you're going to stay at a hotel with her too?"

"Marie, I already told you, she's my junior in the program. She's just come to my city. There's no way I can leave her to fend for herself."

Kathleen stepped back in to help him gather his clothes into the suitcase, then flashed me a smile.

"Marie, don't worry. I promise I'll take good care of Victor."

"You'll take care of him?"

I let out a cold laugh. "That's what you said last time too, and you ended up taking care of him all the way into the same hotel room, didn't you?"

"Marie!"

There was anger in Victor's voice. "Can you stop stirring up trouble out of nothing?"

"I already told you, that one time was colleagues snapping photos out of context. We were just talking in the same room, that's all. Don't go spreading filthy rumors."

With that, they turned and slammed the door on their way out.

For the two days that followed, Victor never came back.

Before dawn on the third day, Victor sent me a message.

"The lab got an assignment out of nowhere. I'm going out of town on a business trip, a week long. Don't wait up for me."

Any other time, the moment his message came in, I'd have fired back a reply instantly.

But I stared at this text for a long while.

Then I tapped delete.

Before that, I'd already come across Kathleen's social media feed.

The ones going to the same place on this "business trip" were the two of them, traveling together.

Calling it a business trip was generous. It was more of a company-funded vacation, all eating, drinking, and play.

I closed the chat and called an agent right away to put the home up for sale.

I moved fast. In the span of a single day, I scrubbed away every trace of myself from the marital home, clean and complete.

Even when the agent came to view the place,

he praised how the floors gleamed.

You couldn't even tell anyone had ever lived there.

Hearing that, I gave a bitter smile without meaning to.

Just like me. After all these years, I never really made it into his heart either.

"Miss Henson, this place is excellent in every way, the location, the neighborhood, the layout. With a little more time it would sell easily."

"Are you sure you want to rush it like this, sell within a week? I'm afraid the price might..."

"The price doesn't matter."

I said it without a shred of hesitation. "As long as it sells, the faster the better."

As long as I could get out of this city, the sooner the better.

What Victor didn't know was that while he and Kathleen were off on their so-called research trip, I had already filed a work transfer request with my company.

That city a thousand miles away, the one he'd flown off to, would become the place I settled for good.

Cora Chavez, the cleaner, suddenly came over and asked, "Miss Henson, what should I do with these?"

I stared at the photos, caught off guard for a moment.

Every one of them had been dug out of Victor's drawer in the study.

Most were instant photos, black and white, no lamination, the kind that had clearly been sitting around so long the color had oxidized and faded.

They had some years on them, yet Victor had kept them like treasures.

All because the person in every one of those photos was his junior from school, Kathleen.

The cleaner had come across them while tidying up, and now she looked at me, hesitating to speak, something like pity in her eyes.

"Miss Henson, don't take it too hard. Everyone's got a past, right?"

I knew she meant to comfort me. But there was no need.

"Cora, put these and that pile of Victor's personal things by the door into the parcel pickup locker for now."

"When he's back."

"Have the courier hand them all over to him."

On the surface, Victor and Kathleen had gone out of town for a research trip.

But really, they were out eating, drinking, and having the time of their lives.

One day Disney, the next snapping photos at all the scenic spots.

They worked their way through every good thing to eat and every fun thing to do.

Every post Kathleen put up was a full grid of nine pictures.

Kathleen's father, for his part, clearly had it in mind to push the two of them together.

"Victor, you're my star student. Have you ever thought about carrying on my legacy someday?"

"And taking my daughter while you're at it?"

Victor always declined politely, every single time. He'd say the timing wasn't right, that he was busy with his career, that he just wasn't thinking about that for now.

But out of those thousand and one excuses,

not one of them had ever been that he already had a girlfriend.

Once, that would have stung. I would have complained.

But by now, nothing stirred in me at all.

Since the gentleman was willing and the lady was eager, then I, the girlfriend in the way, might as well step aside and let them have it.

Three days later, just as I'd signed the sale contract and was walking out of the complex,

Victor sent me a message.

"Flight lands at 8 tomorrow night. Come pick me up."

I stared at that text for a long time.

Then I picked up my phone and calmly typed out a few words in reply.

"Sorry, it's not convenient."

Every other time, rain or shine, the second I saw a message from him I'd come scrambling over to pick him up, eager as anything.

So much so that he'd come to take it for granted.

He treated me like free labor.

Even that time I was running a fever of 102, I still forced myself out of bed and drove over, and nearly got into a wreck on the way, almost hitting someone.

The car slammed into a wall, and it set me back.

When Victor heard, he barely reacted, just said flatly,

"I'll just grab a cab over. I've still got things to deal with at the office."

And I, dragging my sick body along, was left to clean up the whole mess from the crash.

Later I passed out, and someone called an ambulance and got me to the hospital.

When Victor heard, all he did was bring a fruit basket to see me.

But that fruit was so familiar. I'd seen it on Kathleen's social media feed.

It was the kind she didn't like.

So Victor had just handed it off to me.

Figures. In his eyes I was always the backup.

Always the one who could come or go and it wouldn't matter.

But this time, I was truly tired.

And I didn't want to play along anymore.

Maybe Victor never saw that text about it not being convenient, because the next day, he messaged again to remind me.