I checked the time, lifted the suitcase from beside the closet, and texted back that I'd be there in half an hour.
Before I left, I opened the closet and took a few photos of the wedding gown I'd once dreamed about for so long.
Then I listed it for sale on a resale app without a second thought.
Arthur heard the suitcase wheels as I rolled it toward the door, and he glanced back.
Our eyes met, and he looked away like a sulking child.
Over the next few days, I quietly went about preparing for the wedding.
Neither of us reached out to the other.
But after I announced the wedding news, Arthur, who never posted anything, did something rare. He put up a single ski photo.
It was a shot of him teaching Tessa how to ski.
I supposed my high-handed push toward marriage had made him feel smothered, and the photo was his way of warning me, or hinting at something.
The usually quiet group chat came alive.
One of his buddies tagged him, his tone teasing. "Tsk, Arthur, what's the story here? You drop a photo with no caption and leave the rest of us guessing."
Another chimed in. "Don't tell me you've been hiding something big from us?"
The guesses turned suggestive. Arthur stayed silent.
Tessa stepped in with a laughing clarification,
"It hardly ever snows up here, and I happened to have a free afternoon, so I got Mr. Delgado to come skiing with me. I'm one of his clients—it's strictly work. Don't go stirring things up."
"Come on, Tessa, that's basically admitting things aren't ordinary between you and our Arthur. When has he ever gone out to entertain a client personally?"
A wave of suggestive agreement followed underneath.
Tessa's voice note carried a soft, mock-scolding "Now I'm getting upset," but there wasn't a trace of real annoyance in it.
Arthur finally replied. "Enough, leave her alone." Then, offhand, he explained the photo. "Hadn't been skiing in a while. Was in a good mood and felt like sharing."
In a good mood and felt like sharing…
It hit me only then. Every single thing he'd posted these past two years had something to do with Tessa.
And me—I had never once shown up in his feed.
My fingertips went cold.
Maybe it wasn't that he disliked sharing these moments. Maybe he just minded who he'd be showing off… and that person was me.
After Arthur spoke, the chat changed subjects.
One buddy asked, puzzled, "Hey, Arthur, didn't you never go back to meet Eveline's parents? So how come she's already announced the wedding and says you two are registering next week?"
After a brief silence,
Arthur replied with one word. "Forcing it."
"Forcing the marriage again? That's gotta be the seventh or eighth time in two years. So what's your plan? She's making a pretty big deal of it this time."
"Let her. I've always given in to her on everything. This time, it's about time she learned a lesson. If it's something I don't want to do, throwing a fit won't change it."
His buddy pressed. "So you've made up your mind to leave her hanging?"
Arthur sent back a single "Yeah."
"Pfft." Someone started egging him on. "Then Eveline's really losing some face this time."
A dozen messages flooded in after that, all of them mocking, all of them waiting to watch me make a fool of myself.
Arthur didn't stop them.
Then another of his buddies asked, hesitant, testing the waters,
"Arthur, you and Eveline have been together all these years. By rights you should be married by now. What exactly are you holding out for…"
After that line, he paused, oddly, and floated a teasing guess.
"You've been dragging it out this long… don't tell me you actually have other plans? I mean… a woman like Tessa, gentle and able to stand on her own, it's hard not to be moved by that…"
"Don't talk nonsense." Tessa sent a voice note. "Arthur and I… it's nothing. As for the marriage, he knows what he's doing."
When she said it's nothing, her tone was all innocence and hidden meaning at once.
Arthur didn't explain.
The flirting in the chat only got worse.
Someone chimed in. "Honestly, it's true. Eveline does nothing but pressure him into marriage and never lifts a finger for anything useful. If you ask me, someone as smart and capable and sweet as Tessa is the one who really suits—"
The sentence cut off mid-word. Someone noticed something and scrambled to warn them.
"Crap, wrong group. Eveline's in this one too!"
A long time ago, Arthur had set up a group chat with me and his buddies.
Aside from holidays, hardly anyone ever talked in it.
Turned out they weren't quiet at all. They just had a private group of their own.
The messages were deleted one after another.
I didn't say a word. I set my phone down gently and went to the living room to go over the wedding guest list with my parents.
By the time I came back, the chat had fallen silent again.
I quietly left the group.
Two days later I traveled back, and when I got home, Arthur wasn't there.
A few pieces were missing from the closet, and the suitcase he used for business trips was gone.
He'd probably made up his mind to leave me hanging, taking the trip as an excuse to lie low.
Fine. It spared us a pointless fight.
I quietly put everything in order.
The day I moved out of the place we'd been living in, I left the property-division agreement on the living room table.
Once outside, I got into the car that had been waiting.
I went straight to the marriage registry office.
