3: 3

When I got home, my phone buzzed.

Duncan had sent a screenshot. I opened it.

The conversation was timestamped the day of my buddy's wedding.

【Hahaha, I'm dying. Fifty grand down to five bucks. Amelia, you're brutal.】

【A bet's a bet.】

【You're not scared he'll find out?】

【If he finds out, he finds out. Worst case I make up the difference. But... don't let him know it was your idea. No point in him blaming you.】

I stared at that line for a long time. My lips twitched, wanting to smile, but nothing came out.

So that five dollars was because of him.

So she "didn't want me blaming him," and that was why she'd skipped the explanation altogether.

She'd rather I thought she was cold and heartless than let him carry the smallest bit of it.

I tapped into his social feed.

The latest post, a nine-photo grid.

The one in the middle was a close-up of him and Amelia clinking glasses, with a caption: 【Fake engagement party, hired actors, betting whether a certain someone would dare crash it. She didn't. But once she knew it was fake she got wasted on her own, no idea what she was so happy about.】

Someone had commented below: 【Duncan, you're playing with fire. Not scared the act turns real?】

He'd replied with a tongue-out emoji:

【I just wanted to see if she'd come stop the wedding. And? Not bad. Passing grade.】

I set the phone face-down on the couch.

Got up and headed for the bedroom to start packing.

When I pulled open the nightstand drawer, a property deed sat on top, and under it a stack of design blueprints.

Every style, every color, laid out by me, chosen to match what she liked.

I'd booked the restaurant, bought the cake, tucked the blueprints into the gift box, and planned to watch her face when she opened it.

Would she smile? Would she freeze? Would she throw her arms around me?

At the bottom of the drawer I found an ultrasound.

She was pregnant.

I held the paper, its edges already worn soft from all the times I'd folded and smoothed it.

A home for us, a child. Weren't those worth giving her one more chance?

Late that night, Amelia came home reeking of alcohol.

She stumbled through the bedroom door, saw me sitting on the edge of the bed, crossed the room and dropped to a half-kneel in front of me, forehead pressed to my knee.

"Brad," she slurred, "I'm sorry... I shouldn't have snapped at you today."

Her hand covered the back of mine, her palm burning hot.

"Don't be mad, okay? Tomorrow's our anniversary. I'll take you to that restaurant you've always wanted to try. We'll have a good day."

I looked down at the messy crown of her hair.

Then I took the blueprints and the ultrasound out of the drawer and held them out to her.

"Amelia, I bought that house. The one you said you wanted to live in. Designed every inch of it the way you like."

"And this—" I laid the ultrasound gently on top.

Her eyes dropped to the paper, her pupils shrinking.

"You went through my things?" Her voice went cold in an instant.

"Two months along. Why didn't you tell me?"

She stared at the ultrasound for several seconds, then looked up at me, a mocking smile forming at the corner of her mouth:

"Brad, what are you trying to pull, bringing this out? Force me to marry you? You're using a life and a house to blackmail me?"

"Blackmail you? I spent almost two years on that house. I just found out about this baby—"

"Enough." She cut me off, snatched the ultrasound, and with a sharp rip tore it in two, the pieces scattering across the sheets. Then she grabbed the stack of blueprints and shredded those too.

"I'll get rid of it," she said.

"What did you say?"

"I said I'm getting rid of it." She raised a hand and pressed at the space between her brows, her tone turning irritable.

"Brad, snap out of it. Can you stop being in such a rush to get married? Using a house and a baby to force a wedding, you'd actually do that."

In the second my eyes went red, I suddenly remembered sophomore year, out on the field, her gripping my hand and saying, "Brad, let's get married as soon as we graduate. I'm scared you'll run off."

Now, out of the same mouth, only eight years apart, it had become "in such a rush to get married."

She must have realized she'd gone too far. She softened her tone and pulled me into her arms.

"Tomorrow's our anniversary. Let me spend it with you properly. I already had my assistant book the restaurant, ordered the flowers too. I'll think about the house and the baby. We'll talk about the marriage slowly, all right?"

I let her hold me.

Her chin rested against the top of my head, her breathing slowly evening out, the smell of alcohol drifting up, and a few minutes later she went still.

She'd fallen asleep.

I eased myself out of her arms.

Stood up, picked the torn scraps off the bed one by one, and held them in my palm.

Then I opened the suitcase and started packing my clothes.

For her and me, there was no tomorrow, and no so-called marriage down the line.

4: 4

The next morning I went to the sales office alone to cancel the apartment.

The screen lit up.

A message from Amelia Vance:

【Let's move the anniversary to another day. Duncan finally scored tickets to a concert he's dying to see, so I have to go with him. You've got plenty of free time anyway.】

Plenty of free time anyway...

A few careless words, as if all my waiting and giving in over these eight years had only ever been idle hours I owed her.

Right behind it, a message from Duncan Delgado:

【Forgot to mention. Amelia and I were together before you, actually. We were already a couple before you ever met her. Later she said she wanted a change of taste, so I let you have her for a few years.】

【Also, thought I'd let you know. Those "vitamins" Amelia's been giving you all these years, I'm the one who picked them out for her. That drug slowly takes away your ability to have kids. Long as you've been taking it, you're probably sterile by now. There was never any chance she'd keep that baby. But don't feel too bad. She was never going to let it be born anyway. Something that was never going to happen can't really be said to exist or not, right?】

There was a video too. I opened it.

The frame jolted. Duncan's voice came through, thick with tears:

"Amelia... the doctor says I might not be able to have kids anymore."

Off-screen, Amelia's voice was muffled: "Don't cry. I'm here."

"Are you going to leave me someday because of it?"

"No. Stop overthinking. I promise you, I'll never carry anyone else's child."

The video ended.

I stared at the dead black screen, my fingertips ice-cold.

Eight years. Everything I'd taken for her care and consideration, every cup of warm water and pill she'd set into my hand, had only ever been her making sure I'd never become an accident in her life.

The funny part was, I'd still been hesitating over whether to give her a chance for the baby's sake.

He sent another file. I opened it. Nine thousand-some photos, all of him and Amelia together.

They'd crossed deserts, dived deep seas, held each other in front of sunsets, kissed at the mouth of a volcano, as if they'd lived out every grand and sweeping thing the world had to offer.

And in eight years with Amelia, the two of us together in a photo, I could count on one hand.

She'd said she didn't like being photographed, that a lens on her made her skin crawl.

Turned out that line of hers just didn't work on the other man.

Tears struck the screen, one after another, blurring all those smiling faces into a smear of water.

I switched off the phone and shoved it into my bag.

Sitting at the signing table in the sales office, the fluorescent lights overhead were very bright.

The clerk said softly, "Mr. Simmons, if you're confirming the cancellation, sign here."

I took the pen.

I thought of eight years ago, her pulling me at a run down Cherry Blossom Avenue, breathless, saying, "Hold my hand for a lifetime."

I thought of the first time she kissed me, the tips of her ears gone red.

I thought of her saying, "The first fall after we graduate, I'll marry you."

Those images were like old photos soaked in water, blooming open frame by frame, blurring, fading.

Until all that was left was white.

When the pen touched the paper, my hand shook faintly.

I finished signing and walked slowly across the sales office lobby, one hand braced against the wall, a dull ache sinking through my chest.

Passing the waiting area, out of the corner of my eye I caught it on my phone screen: Duncan had sent another video three hours ago.

I opened it. A concert. The big screen had just cut to the crowd, and Duncan turned his head and kissed the corner of Amelia's mouth.

The whole place screamed.

Off-screen, his voice carried a smile: "We've known each other twenty-some years. What's mine, how could it ever get away."

I switched off the screen and kept walking.

At the corner, I ran straight into two people.

Amelia had her hand on Duncan's arm, saying something to him in a low voice, a bag of documents in her other hand.

She looked up and saw me, and froze. "Brad Simmons? What are you doing here—"

Duncan cut in lightly:

"Amelia came to look at a place with me. Said she wanted to buy me one. Didn't expect to run into you. Small world."

I stopped walking.

The hallway's fluorescent lights beat down white and pale.

I looked at her, and let out a small laugh.

"I came to sign off on the place you didn't want—"

"It's canceled."

"Amelia. We're done."