“Ah! My hand!”

Jude turned around and saw the angry red welts spreading across Ethel's skin. He caught her by the waist, then looked at me.

“Marina, I'm not agreeing to a breakup, and I'm not moving out.”

“Wait for me.”

He scooped Ethel up and carried her off to find a doctor.

His broad back disappeared down the hallway, footsteps quick and urgent.

I clutched the ring, then gestured for Frieda to wheel me over to the trash can.

Two labels. Recyclable. Non-recyclable.

I tossed it into the second one without a moment's hesitation.

“You don't even have a fever, though……”

Frieda pressed the back of her hand to my forehead, staring at me like I'd grown a second head.

“Marina, did that car knock the sense into you or out of you?”

“Since you were eighteen, it's been 'Jude Lyons or no one.' What flipped the switch?”

I leaned back in the wheelchair and smiled.

“I just realized it doesn't mean anything anymore.”

Last night, when I got home, I said to Jude as he came out of the shower:

“Tomorrow's the weekend. Let's go look at wedding dresses and suits, and we can pick out the reception outfits while we're at it.”

He glanced at his phone.

“Tomorrow doesn't work. I need to meet an old classmate to talk about a collaboration.”

“As for the suit, there'll be photos at the wedding, so just pick whatever you like. I'm fine with anything.”

I looked at his face, wanting to say that a wedding is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and couldn't he be part of this one step.

But the words died on my tongue. He hated having his plans disrupted, so I changed tack.

“Can you at least drop me off on your way? My car's in the shop.”

He agreed without missing a beat.

“Sure.”

This morning I got ready and sat waiting for him in the living room.

His phone buzzed on the table, the caller ID reading Secretary Henson.

I picked it up and answered. Ethel's voice came through, thin and strained.

【Mr. Lyons……I know I'm not supposed to bother you during your time off, but Mr. Fletcher at Yucheng Corp insists on taking me out to brunch. I want to say no, but I'm afraid it'll affect the new project……】

I knew how Jude would handle it, so I replied for him.

【Secretary Henson, Mr. Lyons has plans today. It's not convenient.】

【If you can't handle it, then resign.】

Silence on the other end. Then the call disconnected.

Jude came out of the bedroom and walked over, leaning toward me.

“Who just called me?”

I was tying his tie, same as always.

“Secretary Henson.”

“What did she say?”

“Aaron Fletcher from Yucheng Corp invited her to brunch. I……”

Before I could finish, Jude straightened up.

The tie yanked taut against my finger, and my nail snapped.

His brow furrowed, his expression darkening.

“Fletcher?”

I didn't answer. I looked down at my broken nail, a sharp little sting at the tip of my finger.

Something shifted across Jude's face. He grabbed his phone, typed out a message at speed, and hit send.

Then he dropped a kiss at the corner of my mouth.

“Take a cab over. Get whatever you want, put it on my card.”

“You know what Fletcher's like. She can't deal with him alone.”

And then he was out the door, rushing, gone. He never once noticed the way I was wincing in pain.

I took out the first-aid kit. Disinfectant. Nail clippers to trim away the broken part. A bandage wrapped around the finger.

The mood for a wedding dress fitting was gone. I texted Frieda and asked her to go shopping instead.

I didn't feel like calling a cab, so I unlocked a bike share and pedaled slowly.

Bad luck comes in pairs. A car running a yellow light hit me.

Before I even knew what happened, the driver and the car were both gone.

The bike's kickstand sliced a bloody line down my shin, and I hit the ground shaking from the pain.

A girl got out of her car, called the police for me, and dialed 911.

While we waited, her phone kept ringing. The street was loud, so she put it on speaker, and I caught most of it.

She hadn't shown up on time. She'd held up work. Her boss and the client were both furious.

I felt terrible and told her to go ahead and leave.

She just smiled at me.

“It's fine. I can deal with it. Right now, you're what matters.”

She stayed the whole time, kept me calm, and only left after the paramedics arrived.

In the five minutes after I called Jude, everything came flooding back at once.

Three months ago, I'd been dying to have seasonal crab. Jude said he didn't like food with shells. He told me to go with Frieda, and he'd pick up the tab.

Yet today, he'd gone out for crab with Ethel.

He couldn't stand having his plans disrupted, so I'd gone to my wedding dress fitting alone.

But he'd promised to take me. Then one phone call from Ethel, and he left me standing there.

And the charger.

Once, I'd only tried using it, and he gave me the silent treatment for a week.

Now Ethel was plugging her little fan into it.

I kept thinking about that girl's eyes when she said, “Right now, you're what matters.”

When the police came, she volunteered her contact information and said she was willing to be a witness.

Before she left, she took off her jacket and draped it over my legs.

I lay in the ambulance with my wound throbbing while the paramedics took my blood pressure, stopped the bleeding, asked about my medical history. Every single one of them was gentle.

For ten years, I'd been waiting for Jude to break one of his rules for me.

Waiting for him to make an exception just once. To pick up my call in the middle of something. To rearrange his schedule for me. To put me, firmly and unmistakably, at the very top of his priorities.

I'd obeyed his rules, accommodated his moods, loved him carefully for ten years.

And right now, the only person willing to put me first, to ache over whether I was hurting, to choose me above everything else—was a stranger I'd never met before.

That was when I understood. He didn't love me.

And I shouldn't keep begging to be loved.

Lying in my hospital bed, I drafted a message in the family group chat with both our parents, deleted and retyped it over and over, and finally hit send.

I'd barely closed my eyes before the wound got infected and my fever spiked to nearly 104.

Frieda stayed by my side, running back and forth, and my temperature didn't come down until the middle of the night.

Looking at how worn she already was from a project at work, I hired a caretaker and told her to go home and rest.

Early the next morning, the sound of muffled crying woke me.

I opened my eyes, groggy, my whole body aching and weak.

Through blurred vision I could see Glenda Lawrence standing in the doorway of my room, wiping her tears. She was staring at Jude, her face a mix of disappointment and fury, the look of a mother who wanted to shake sense into her son.

“Jude, how can you be this clueless?”

“Marina's hurt this badly, and you still had the nerve to go take care of your secretary?!”

“Tell me the truth. Did you actually do something to betray her?”

“She's been with you for ten years. I know her temperament inside and out. If she weren't truly done with you, she would never have brought up breaking up at a time like this!”

Jude frowned.

“Mom, you don't know the situation. Yesterday, I couldn't just leave Ethel there……”

Glenda was trembling with anger, her voice rising sharply.

“But you could leave Marina? Jude, you're exactly like your father!”

The words landed. Glenda turned, caught my gaze, and immediately gathered a smile as she walked quickly into the room.

When she saw the bandages on my leg, her eyes went red again.

“Marina, I'm the one who should be sorry. I didn't raise that boy right, and you're the one who suffered for it.”

“We can't keep the betrothal money you returned. Could you give Jude one more chance?”

I was still processing her words when my phone screen lit up. A voice message from my dad.

The room was too quiet to play it out loud with Glenda sitting right there, so I converted it to text.

Every line was pure warmth and steady resolve.

Last night, the moment I'd posted the breakup announcement in the family group chat, he'd wired every cent of the betrothal money back to the Lyons family.

He said he would always respect whatever I decided. That he would always be my strongest support. That no matter what happened, home would always be there for me to come back to.

Something warm spread through my chest. I looked up at Glenda, and my voice was firm.

“Mrs. Lawrence, you have nothing to apologize for.”

“I just wasn't meant to marry into your family.”

“If my mom were still here, she'd have made the same decision my dad did.”

At the mention of my mother, Glenda went still for a moment.

They'd been friends since they were girls.

Work had scattered them across the country for years, but by some twist of fate they'd both ended up married in the same city, picking their friendship right back up.

My freshman year of high school, Jude's father had an affair.

Glenda came to my mother in tears and asked her to help catch him in the act.

There was a struggle. In the chaos, Jude's father stabbed my mother. Her kidney ruptured.

She survived the surgery, but she was never the same.

She died the year before I graduated college.

Glenda had carried the guilt ever since. She treated me like her own daughter.

When she found out Jude and I were together, she took my side every single time, right or wrong.

Finally, she let out a long sigh, her eyes heavy with exhaustion.

“Marina, I won't push you.”

“But the betrothal money—you have to keep it. Consider it a dowry from me.”

“I just hope your mother doesn't blame me.”

She pressed the bank card into my hand.

“Get some rest.”

She turned and walked out of the room, shooting Jude a hard glare on her way past him.

The second Glenda was gone, Jude came in. He saw the bank card in my hand, assumed I'd given in, and let out a deep sigh.

“What happened yesterday was my fault. I won't ignore your calls again.”

“Once you're discharged, we'll get the wedding photos taken and lock down the venue.”

“Your dad and my mom are getting older. They can't handle this kind of drama.”

He reached for my hand as he spoke, then his gaze snagged on my bare ring finger.

“Where's the ring? Marina?”

I looked down. A pale white band of skin circled the spot where it used to be.

“I threw it away.”

His hand froze in midair. His lips pressed into a thin line.

“Marina, what do I have to do to make you happy?”

I looked up at him.

“Fire Ethel Henson.”

“No.”

Almost instant.

“Why not?”

“She's less competent than every single person you've fired before her.”

I held his gaze and stated it plainly.

Something flickered across his face. His voice tightened with irritation.

“Marina, you're thirty years old. Can you stop acting like some jealous little girl?”

“We've been together ten years. Lived together for six. Every person we know expects us to get married. And you pick now to blow this up?”

“If you walk away now, how is that any different from being divorced?”

Even though I'd already made up my mind, his words still landed like a fist against something soft inside me.

I couldn't believe the boy who'd blushed to the tips of his ears the day I said yes was the same person standing here now, red-faced with spite.