We Were Simply A Transient Presence In Each Other's Lives

I am Nancy Schultz. Five months into my relationship with Jere Lloyd, I had prepared two surprises for him.

The first was that I had decided to stay in the country for him.

The second was that I was pregnant.

But when I arrived at the parking lot of his company, I saw Jere, my tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend, being cornered in his sports car by Nina Saunders, the most delicate-looking, beautiful woman in our company.

Nina said to him, "I know I was wrong. I regret it. Jere, you said you would only ever love me for the rest of your life. How could you give someone else all the love that was supposed to be mine?"

My heart abruptly clenched.

Before I could react, Jere coldly pushed her hand away.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this really was just a misunderstanding and that I should trust him.

But the next second, Jere said in a cold voice, and his words stopped me from immersing myself in my illusion. "1, 000 drones for a birthday celebration, a fireworks show cost a million dollars, jewelry of a seven-figure price... You really should regret it, Nina. You should have regretted it the moment you started dating two people at once! Because all of those things were supposed to be yours!"

I froze where I stood.

I realized there was no need to tell him about the two surprises after all.

...

For a moment, I thought I was having a hallucination.

Unfortunately, I had just had a physical examination that morning.

And it showed that my body was perfectly healthy, and my hearing was fine too, so I had not misheard him.

He continued, "Nina, do you not like settling just for someone? Do you not like seeing me go crazy over you? Do you not like being a serial dater, juggling several men at once just to show off your charm? Then why are you crying now? I'm telling you that there are plenty of women in this world who would love me wholeheartedly and be devoted to me forever!"

Nina was crying so hard her makeup was streaked with tears. "You mean Nancy, don't you? She is not even close to being as good as me! She cannot compare to me at all! Of course she is devoted to you. She will never meet another man better than you! If you were not trying to make me jealous, why would you pursue her? Why would you make such a huge spectacle of it? You knew she worked for the same airline as me, so you deliberately made your pursuit of her known to everyone! She was just an intern with nothing to her name, yet you told the whole world you fell in love with her at first sight! You did so many grand, dramatic things, turning an ordinary ground crew employee into someone everyone envied. Was that not all just to make me regret leaving you?"

Jere clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Nina's voice softened as she continued to sob. "Okay, you won. I regret it! I really do! Can you please stop trying to hurt me like this? You used to say you would never let me be unhappy for the rest of my life. Can you really bear to see me beg you like this? Jere, let us stop being angry with each other. Let us get back together."

Nina threw herself into his arms and wrapped both arms tightly around his waist.

I stared blankly at Jere from behind the pillar.

His back was rigid.

He was over six feet tall, standing ramrod straight like a wooden stick.

But he did not push her away.

He stood completely still and let her hold him tightly.

"You cannot keep doing this to me," she sobbed. "Do you know what I was thinking when you sent 10, 000 roses to the office for her birthday and everyone was envying her? Jere, how could you hurt me like this?!"

She suddenly clenched her fists and pounded his chest. "You bastard! You bastard! You swore you would love me for the rest of your life! You listened to everything I said growing up. You always did whatever I wanted, but you don't anymore. How could you? Do you remember what you said when you were eight?"

Jere remained motionless and let her beat against his chest.

Nina's makeup was completely ruined.

She, the most beautiful flight attendant at Exavia Airlines year after year, looked absolutely miserable now.

But somehow, that only made her look more pitiful.

She sobbed hysterically as she pounded his chest again and again, as if she were the one who had suffered some terrible injustice and who had been betrayed.

After a long while, Jere finally moved.

He opened his mouth, his voice dry and hoarse. "I sent 11, 615 roses."

I froze.

Nina froze too.

She lifted her tear-streaked face and looked up at him.

She looked awful, but her eyes lit up.

"June 15, 2011." Jere's voice was low, with a trace of exhaustion and an indescribable sense of relief in it, as if he had finally revealed some enormous secret. "That was the day we had our first kiss!"

Nina suddenly cried out and spoke rapidly. "That was the day I had my first kiss with you! In the school nurse's office!"

Then she added with a hint of shyness in her voice. "You kissed me so urgently and hungrily that time, like you wanted to devour me. You even said it was your first kiss, but you were already that good at kissing the very first time..."

Jere did not say anything else.

I did not know if he was reminiscing about it.

In the corner, I suddenly shuddered for no reason.

Then a strong wave of nausea came over me.

Bent over, I braced myself against the wall and kept dry-heaving.

My mind was hazy, and my ears were ringing.

Nina and Jere's voices sounded both close and distant, repeatedly stabbing at my eardrums and pounding inside my head.

She asked again, "What about the drones you sent for her birthday?"

After a pause, Jere's voice came out hoarse and quiet. "It was 1, 533 drones."

"March 3, 2015..." Nina murmured the date, then suddenly smiled. "That was our first time doing it! You used three condoms that day!"

She finally broke into a smile through her tears.

After that, Jere stopped hiding anything. He confessed everything to her naturally, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

She asked, "What about that fireworks show?"

He said, "At the end of the fireworks show, the fireworks formed the words 'I LOVE N.S.'"

Of course the "N.S." stood for Nina Saunders, not me, Nancy Schultz.

What Nina could not get over was the $3 million emerald necklace Jere had given me in front of everyone.

She said the amount of money a man spent on a woman showed how much he loved her.

So now she demanded to know whether he had truly fallen for me and whether his act had become real.

This time, Jere remained silent for even longer.

Finally, he said, "When we went to buy the rough stone, we cracked it open and discovered that the emerald inside was worth $50 million. The most perfectly cut part of it was used to make two necklaces."

He paused before adding, "One was for my mother. And your name was after the serial number on the other one. The emerald necklace I gave Nancy was made from the leftover scraps of that stone."