Chapter 3

A stab of pain ripped through my lower abdomen, radiating through my entire body. My hand went to it on instinct.

Carter knew he was in the wrong, and his voice softened a little.

"Lauren, stop sulking, okay?"

"You can't actually live without me. Why do you keep pretending you can?"

The harder I tried to wrench myself free, the tighter he gripped.

And little by little, his patience wore thin.

"I've been with you for five years. I've only been with Vanessa for three."

"We'll be together forever, so you'll always have two years more than her. Isn't that enough?"

"Even if she gets the wedding and the marriage certificate, you still come out ahead."

The slap cracked through the darkness

He pressed a hand to his cheek, his face turned to the side by the force of the blow, staring at me like he couldn't believe it.

"Lauren! You really are insane!"

"You'll never be as gentle as Vanessa, never as graceful and well-bred!"

Carter hadn't always been so taken with Vanessa. He used to complain to me about her.

"She's so coy all day long, talks like she can't get the words out."

"My girlfriend's the one who's open and bright, loves hard, hates hard, full of fire. I love that about you."

So that was it.

When you stop loving someone, even the things you'd once adored about them become flaws.

"Lauren, you've gone too far! Carter just wanted to coax you into coming back."

"And instead of being grateful, you hit people like a rabid dog. You're lower than an animal!"

Vanessa hurled one insult after another at me.

But to Carter, she wasn't the one who looked insane.

I let out a bitter laugh.

And finally put an end to the last of my wishful thinking.

I turned back and accepted the offer from the company that had been trying to recruit me for months.

Then I booked a flight abroad for two days later.

"Maybe I shouldn't have said that to Lauren just now."

"I was wrong. I should go apologize to her."

Vanessa hadn't even started to move before Carter pulled her into his arms to stop her.

"You were only looking out for me. What's wrong with that?"

"The one in the wrong is that ungrateful woman who throws kindness back in your face!"

When I got into the taxi, Carter was still shooting me a resentful glare.

As if to say all of this was my fault.

The familiar streets rolled past my window.

Carter and I had walked them together for five years.

He'd once carried me on his back over the uneven bricks along the sidewalk.

He'd once plucked a branch from that drooping willow and woven it into a ring for me.

Beneath that flickering streetlamp, we'd promised each other forever.

The driver’s voice suddenly pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Young lady, you've cried your eyes swollen. Your mom and dad would ache to see it."

I finally noticed my whole face reflected in the glass, streaked with tears.

I murmured in acknowledgment and tried to wipe them away with a smile.

But no matter how many times I tried, every smile looked worse than the tears.

When I got home, I stepped up to the door and waited for the facial recognition system to let me in.

But it scanned and scanned and wouldn't open.

I thought my face was too swollen from crying, too distorted for the system to recognize.

Then Carter called out of the blue.

"Forgot to tell you. I deleted your face this morning after I left."

"It only stores two faces, and you always come home with me anyway. So I replaced yours with Vanessa."

"Carter! This is my wedding home!"

He let out a soft laugh.

"But the deed is in Vanessa's name."

I was trying to say something several times, but couldn't get out a single sound.

So the home I'd spent two years carefully choosing.

I'd designed every room myself, braved the summer heat to shop for building materials, and gone without food or sleep to oversee the renovations.

The wedding home I'd poured everything into, had belonged to Vanessa from the very beginning.

I was shaking all over, torn between anger and heartbreak.