But today.

I looked at myself, crammed awkwardly onto the subway, rain soaking the cuffs of my pants and my already-ruined shoes, and before I could think twice I was dialing my mom's number.

「Mom.」

「I'll do the blind date.」

By the time I got home.

The rain had stopped.

I pushed open the front door and didn't even have time to react.

【Pop——】

Streamers drifted through the air.

「Surprise!」

I froze.

「Mia!」

「Happy birthday!」

Chloe stood in front of me wearing my cartoon slippers, dressed in my pajamas, her hair swept up in a loose twist held together by the shark clip I'd just gotten delivered yesterday.

My eyes locked onto Chloe's face. She didn't seem to notice at all, just called out toward the kitchen.

「Stewart!」

「Your wife's so shocked she forgot how to breathe!」

「Quick, come give her mouth-to-mouth!」

Stewart's laughter floated out from the kitchen. He walked over carrying a lychee cake, grinning the whole way.

「If I actually gave my wife mouth-to-mouth in front of you, you'd throw a fit.」

「You'd say we were rubbing it in, picking on you for being single.」

Stewart looked at Chloe with that indulgent softness he always reserved for her. Chloe just stuck out her tongue.

「So what.」

「I'm single and proud. Mind your own business.」

Stewart was always like this.

He could joke and play around with Chloe as if no one else existed, the two of them so close they might as well have been glued together, like they were the inseparable couple and I was just some stranger who happened to be standing there.

I was the outsider wedged between them, watching them laugh and roughhouse, watching Chloe giggle as she pinched Stewart's waist, Stewart holding the cake and yelping in mock pain.

「Chloe.」

My voice came out thick, heavy with congestion.

「You're wearing my clothes.」

I looked straight at her.

「Did I say you could?」

The mood iced over in an instant.

Chloe's expression crumpled into something wounded, and she turned to Stewart. His face had already changed.

「I told her she could wear them.」

All the playfulness was gone from Stewart's voice.

「Clothes sit in a closet to be worn,」 he said, looking at me with open disapproval：「Or are yours lined with gold? Nobody else is allowed to touch them?」

「Mia.」

「You've been out of line all day. Chloe didn't hold any of it against you. She even remembered your thirtieth birthday and put all this together.」

「Don't push your luck.」

「Stewart.」

Chloe's eyes rimmed red. She tugged the hem of his shirt, her voice small：「Stop. Don't say any more.」

「Why shouldn't I say it!」

Stewart's voice shot up, the way it always did right before his temper broke loose. This was the pattern: he'd defend Chloe, raise his voice louder and louder until volume alone counted as winning.

But this time, I didn't play along. I just asked him.

「Stewart.」

「Do you remember,」 my throat was raw, my voice barely there：「what you promised me?」

Stewart blinked, caught off guard.

「You said when I turned thirty, we'd get married.」

His expression went rigid.

「Today.」

I looked at him.

「I'm thirty.」

I didn't care whether I liked lychee cake or not. I didn't care about the wounded look on Chloe's face. I walked up to Stewart and blew out the candles that were already lit.

「So,」 I said, word by word：「are you going to marry me?」

The air.

Seemed to freeze solid.

I stared at Stewart's face, watched the tangle of emotions flicker across it, and then heard Chloe let out a sudden snort before doubling over with laughter.

「Mia.」

「So all this fuss today.」

「It was because you're desperate to get married?」

Chloe laughed and shoved Stewart's arm.

「Stewart, just say yes already. You know what they say, a woman at thirty is a force of nature. Better watch out.」

Chloe was pushing Stewart toward me, the cake held out between them, when Stewart suddenly smashed it down. It hit the cold floor and splattered into a shapeless mess.

「Mia.」

「I did promise I'd marry you by the time you turned thirty.」

「I promised. That doesn't mean you get to force my hand.」

Stewart looked at me with undisguised contempt.

「Pressuring me like this」

「only makes me think」 His cold gaze pinned me in place.：「You're pathetic.」

He walked out without a second of hesitation.

The door slammed so hard the walls shook, and my whole body flinched with them.

I looked down at my pant legs, still damp from the rain, now streaked with frosting too. A crushing wave of helplessness swallowed me whole. I sank slowly to the floor and hugged myself as tightly as I could.

Stewart hadn't noticed.

My eyes were swollen.

Even though I'd tried so hard to keep it together.

But the moment I heard the words "late-stage pancreatic cancer," every ounce of composure left me. I'd barely stepped off the subway before I lost control completely, crouched in a corner, sobbing until my whole body shook, telling myself that even so, even after everything, I had to give Stewart and me one more chance.

On the way home, I kept imagining how Stewart would react when he found out Grandma didn't have long.

I imagined whether he'd regret not marrying me sooner once he knew her dying wish.

I'd imagined countless possibilities.

None of them were this.

Five years with Stewart, reduced to a single sentence.

【You're pathetic.】

That one word hit my chest like a stone dropped into still water, sending tidal waves crashing through my body.

The pain was unbearable. I held myself and sobbed until I couldn't breathe, sobbed like a child with no one coming to save her. And then, through blurred eyes, I watched Stewart's Instagram update.

Stewart and Chloe, seated in the revolving restaurant at Twin Towers. A lychee cake between them. Chloe smiling. Stewart gazing at her, face full of indulgence. The caption read:

【Some people will never understand that love can't be forced.】

Chloe liked the post. Her comment：【I'll always be by your side. I'll always understand you.】

Before.

Seeing things like this used to suffocate me. I'd confront Stewart, demand to know what these pointed little posts were really about.

I'd insist Stewart set the record straight.

I'd even cry while interrogating him.

Who mattered more, me or Chloe?

Every single time I made a fuss.

Every single time I voiced a complaint.

Stewart would laugh at me, call me petty, say I couldn't tolerate Chloe, couldn't make room for an orphan girl his family had taken in since childhood.

And Chloe would cry and explain.

「Stewart and I are really just family.」

「We grew up together. If there were ever anything between us, why would he have fallen for you in the first place?」

「Mia, please believe us.」

And Stewart would side with Chloe without hesitation, demanding I apologize, demanding I back down, demanding I swallow every last shred of hurt and just accept it.

Now.

I stared at the texts Chloe had sent me.

【Mia, don't go assuming Stewart's post is some kind of dig at you again.】

【He doesn't mean anything by it~】

And then, at the very end, Chloe wrote:

【Mia, a woman shouldn't be so desperate to get married. It only makes her look cheap.】

【We're both women, so I'm just looking out for you~】

I didn't do what I used to do. I didn't screenshot the messages and send them to Stewart, demanding an explanation.

Instead, I screenshotted Stewart's Instagram post alongside Chloe's pointed little texts and posted them all to my own feed with a single caption:

【Happy to be single.】

Then I grabbed my suitcase, took one last look at the apartment Stewart and I had shared for four years, and pulled the door shut behind me.

I went straight to the airport.

By the time I landed,

Stewart had already called over a hundred times. Countless texts flooded my phone so hard the screen froze for a good ten seconds before I could finally open the app and hear his voice messages. He was screaming.

「Mia!」

「What the hell kind of tantrum are you throwing now?!」

I sat in the back of the cab, still listening.

「What was that post supposed to mean?!」

「'Happy to be single'?! Are you kidding me?!」

「Delete it. Now!」

I listened to Stewart raging as the cab pulled up. I stepped out, looked at the warm light glowing from the house, and saw my dad standing at the entrance to the neighborhood, waiting for me.

「Mia! Can you stop being so selfish——」

I didn't let him finish.

For the first time, I cut off Stewart's voice message mid-sentence. I walked toward my dad, step by step, and my feet felt lighter than they had in years. I heard him call out to me.

「Sweetheart, you must be exhausted.」

I just pressed the record button and sent Stewart one last message.

「Stewart.」

「We're done.」

I blocked Stewart on everything, then went with my parents to see Grandma at the hospital. On the way out, my dad said,

「Do you remember that Sanchez boy? The one who used to follow you around everywhere when you were kids?」

I blinked, caught off guard.

My dad just smiled.

「Go meet him tomorrow. You'll see.」

I sat in the coffee shop, staring at the man across from me. The little kid who used to trail after me calling me "sissy," the snotty-nosed boy who begged me every single day to sit with him and read him stories, was now my blind date.

「Hey, sis.」

Frederick Sanchez sat across from me. He had a folder on the table, and he pulled things out one by one.

「The house.」

「Investments.」

「The car. My savings. Everything I have.」

Frederick was nothing like that little boy anymore. He'd grown into someone composed and self-assured, with an effortless polish to him, yet still genuinely warm.

「Whenever you're ready, we can go get our marriage license.」

Honestly,

I had never imagined getting married to anyone other than Stewart. Never pictured that a wedding could happen this fast. Even after Frederick and I walked out of city hall holding two bright red marriage certificates, it still felt like I was dreaming.

「Sis.」

Frederick said to me,

「The wedding is already being planned. Anything you like, anything you want, just tell me. Everything will be exactly how you want it.」

I still couldn't believe any of it. Then the sky darkened without warning and a downpour came crashing down. Frederick pulled off his jacket and held it over my head without thinking, then sprinted to the car for an umbrella. When he came back, he tilted the entire canopy over me. I watched the rain soak half his body.

And I remembered.

A picnic with Stewart, a sudden storm just like this one. Stewart's jacket always went to Chloe. The umbrella always tilted toward Chloe.

Stewart had told me,

「Chloe was sick a lot as a kid.」

「Her health's always been fragile.」

「Babe, you have to understand.」

I didn't understand.

But I loved Stewart.

So even though I didn't understand,

I told myself to be the bigger person.

Now, I watched Frederick drape a blanket over my lap. The car was warm, the temperature just right. He glanced over at me and asked：「Feel like Cantonese food tonight?」

For a second, I couldn't speak.

Chloe loved spicy food.

My stomach was sensitive.

I'd never been able to handle spice, not since I was a kid.

But Stewart always said I was being dramatic.

「Frederick.」

The question came out before I could stop it.

「Do you think I'm too high-maintenance?」

Inside the car,

warm and still,

Frederick looked at me, really looked at me.

「Getting to be the one who spoils you is my privilege.」

I laughed. I just laughed, and somewhere in the middle of it, that tight, heavy knot I'd been carrying in my chest quietly came undone.

「Okay.」

……

Stewart stared at our chat window. The last message was still from that day, the one where I told him：「Stewart, let's break up.」

Twenty full days had passed.

I still hadn't caved.

I hadn't come begging.

Stewart raked a hand through his hair, visibly irritated, weighing whether to call me and tell me not to push my luck.

Then.

A text notification popped up.

His eyelid twitched. He tapped it on instinct and found a wedding invitation, along with a voice message.

It was from a friend.

「Holy shit!」

「Dude, you really screwed this up!」

「Weren't you giving Mia the silent treatment to teach her a lesson?」

「What happened?!」

「How is Mia marrying someone else?!」

「They already sent the invitation. Is this for real?」

Stewart stared at the invitation. His breathing stopped for a beat, like he'd forgotten how to react. He opened the invitation first, a cheerful love song playing over it, and there in the photo I was wrapped in another man's arms, smiling so sweetly it could rot your teeth. Printed clearly underneath:

Groom：Frederick Sanchez.

Bride.

Stewart's heart seized.

The name left his lips before he could stop it.

「Bride, Mia Payne.」