Crystal kept her head down, looking almost sheepish, and spoke in a small voice：
“Today's the faculty family appreciation gala……Is it really okay for me to be here?”
But Karl reached over and placed his hand firmly on hers.
“You've helped me so much over the years. To me, you're one of my most important pillars of support. How could you not count as family?”
Crystal's eyes rimmed red, as if she were deeply moved.
I stood frozen in place, my fingernails digging into my palms until they went white.
But in the end, I just looked away and sat down beside them, my face blank.
The moment they saw me, both their expressions changed.
Crystal flung Karl's hand away almost on instinct.
Karl went rigid for a second, then smoothed over like nothing had happened.
He frowned at me：
“I didn't ask you to come. What are you doing here?”
“I didn't feel right leaving Crystal home alone, so I brought her with me.”
“Don't make a scene at something like this.”
I almost laughed. I cut him off.
“Got it. I won't make a scene.”
Karl blinked, visibly caught off guard.
But I couldn't be bothered to look at him anymore. I just stared calmly ahead.
I'd only come today because I didn't like someone else sitting in my seat.
As for who Karl had brought along, I no longer cared.
Karl watched me, genuine bewilderment surfacing in his eyes.
Because the old me would never have reacted this way.
Back then, the first time I learned that Karl and Crystal had almost gotten together after high school, I'd cried in secret.
Around that same time, Crystal had married someone through an arranged match.
Karl had sunk into a dark mood for weeks.
I couldn't help pressing him about it, and he turned on me like I'd struck a nerve, his eyes ice-cold：
“If Crystal and I really had something going on, what would it have to do with you?”
“Would it even be your turn to chase me? To marry me?”
After that, whenever I brought up Crystal, the silent treatment began.
No replies to my messages. No words spoken to me. Sometimes he wouldn't come home for days.
Eventually, I never dared mention her again.
I kept telling myself it was fine.
Everyone was married now. There was no point dwelling on the past.
But every time I saw them standing together, the jealousy clawed its way up no matter how hard I tried to push it down.
So today, my calm was what unsettled Karl.
He just assumed I was holding it together for appearances.
That the moment we got home, I'd fall apart and fight with him the way I always did.
But the truth was, I didn't want to fight anymore.
Once the gala began, the host smiled and invited Karl onstage.
Karl was silent for a few seconds.
Then he reached out, took my hand, and led me up with him.
In a few brief sentences, he summed up five years of everything I'd given.
The audience clapped warmly.
But the entire time he spoke, his gaze never left Crystal in the seats below.
I stood in the center of the spotlight.
I listened to the applause I had once fantasized about countless times.
And realized this moment wasn't nearly as happy as I'd imagined.
On the drive home, Karl did something unusual. He reached for my hand first.
He laced his fingers through mine, his tone softer than I'd heard in a long time：
“Don't overthink it. Crystal really has helped me a lot over the years.”
“She was in a bad place yesterday, so I stayed with her, and it just made sense to bring her today.”
“She just went through a divorce. She's not in a stable place. Once she's doing better, I won't keep looking after her.”
“It's just a big brother looking out for his little sister.”
Big brother.
Little sister.
Karl kept repeating those two words.
Like he was trying to convince me.
Or maybe trying to convince the heart that had already strayed long ago.
I turned my head toward the window and said nothing.
Even now, he still hadn't told me about the couples' travel grants.
When I woke the next morning, the space beside me was already cold.
A note in Karl's handwriting sat on the nightstand.
“Something came up last minute. Back in two days.”
But that night, scrolling through Crystal's Instagram, I saw the ocean in Malaysia.
In the photo, Karl was wearing an ethnic-print shirt I had never seen before.
The man who was always rigid and predictable, who wore nothing but plaid button-downs year-round, stood at the water's edge with a softness in his eyes I didn't recognize.
Crystal was in a bikini, pressed tight against his chest.
The next photo was a convertible draped in flowers.
Birthday balloons trailed from the back.
The caption was just a few short lines：
“What a shame that we were always more than friends but never quite lovers.”
“If I'd been a little braver back then, would the person standing beside you now have been me?”
“I envy her so much, getting to have someone as romantic and tender as you.”
I didn't know when the screen had gone dark.
I just sat there, staring at the black glass, tears falling one by one.
Crystal was wrong.
I was Karl Delgado's wife.
But I had never once had that romantic, tender version of him.
He'd never even remembered my birthday.
He said birthdays were a reminder of a mother's suffering.
His own mother had died giving birth to him, so he didn't like celebrating them.
The first year, I didn't know. I cooked an entire table of food and reminded him it was my birthday.
He just rubbed his temples, exhausted：
“Susannah, can you stop being so childish?”
“I don't do performative gestures.”
Every dish on that table went cold.
But now, every last one of those so-called principles meant nothing when it came to Crystal.
