The air conditioning in the restaurant was running hard.
Somehow the cold from every direction seemed aimed at me alone.
I forced back the tears rising in my eyes, turned, and left.
Half an hour later, Amos called.
"Narelle, there's a whole pile of food left over and nobody's eating it. Where'd you go?"
The hand holding the phone wouldn't stop trembling.
So he only remembered me when there was food left over.
I steadied myself and kept every trace of feeling out of my voice.
"Oh. My stomach's bothering me, so I headed back."
Cecily snatched the phone from Amos, her words coming fast and sharp.
"Narelle, if your stomach hurt, why didn't you say so earlier? Now we've ordered a whole table of food, what a waste!"
"And weren't we supposed to see a movie together? Amos already bought the tickets."
"A movie ticket's a few dozen bucks, you know. He works hard for his money. You really don't know how to be considerate at all."
Every word out of her mouth was about how wasteful I was.
And from start to finish, no one cared whether I was actually unwell.
When you're past words, you really can be angry enough to laugh.
I said flatly, "Box up the leftovers and bring them home. Return the movie tickets."
Amos took the phone back.
"Narelle, what's with the attitude now? Cecily only didn't want it going to waste."
"Listen to how sharp you're being. You've made her cry."
Amos hung up, and I felt like I'd been dropped into ice.
When Cecily was tearing into me, had he not heard a single word of it?
Of course. When someone's biased, their ears only pick up my bad tone.
Just then, my mother's call came through.
"Narelle, the five years are up. Are you still set on staying with Amos?"
I was silent for a moment, then made up my mind.
"No, Mom. I've changed my mind. I'll come home in three days to get married."
My mother had chosen a fiancé for me back then.
She told me to marry first after graduation, then build a career.
At the time I was deep in love with Amos and refused to break up.
When she pushed too hard, I stopped eating and drinking.
In the end I even knelt down before her.
"Mom, Amos is the one for me for the rest of my life. I won't marry anyone but him."
"I don't want Amos being seen as some man who lives off a woman. I believe he can carve out a place for himself on his own."
Seeing how resolute I was, my mother gave in with a sigh.
"Fine. I'll give you five years. For those five years I won't interfere."
"If you're still this certain after five years, I won't touch your relationship again, and I'll even groom him to take over the family conglomerate."
I thought our love was unbreakable.
Five short years would be nothing.
Even today I was still imagining him lowering the veil over me with his own hands.
But now the fantasy had finally shattered.
I looked around the apartment.
On the sofa was the throw pillow that was Cecily's alone.
On the coffee table were the snacks Cecily liked.
In the gaming room, Cecily's and Amos's computers sat side by side.
Even the curtains had been changed to a color Cecily liked.
Traces of Cecily's life were everywhere, and mine had long since been slowly swallowed up.
It was time to go.
I packed a few things and moved to a hotel.
A whole night passed, and Amos didn't call once.
Not even a single text.
But he hadn't always been like this.
Half an hour apart and he used to call on his own to say he missed me.
All day long the texts never stopped.
Now I looked at our pinned chat, sitting there quiet.
The last messages were still from a week ago, and there was nothing but work, nothing about life.
I laughed at myself.
The signs had been there all along. I just hadn't wanted to believe them.
I got myself together and went to the office to resign.
The moment I stepped into the elevator, Amos followed me in.
It was just the two of us.
But for some reason it felt crowded, and even my breathing turned shallow.
He glanced at me with a frown and lowered his voice. "You went too far last night. Cecily was upset, got drunk, and cried the whole night."
"She took the day off, so apologize to her later."
I didn't say anything, just kept my head down, staring at the toes of my shoes.
I noticed for the first time that the shoes and the clothes I'd put on today didn't match at all.
It turned out that forcing two things that different together looked this out of place.
A shame I was only seeing it now.
The fifteenth floor.
Amos walked out first, not sparing me so much as a glance.
I drew in a deep breath and followed.
I'd barely taken a few steps when Lena Barrett, the office gossip, pulled me into the stairwell.
She said, all mysterious, "Narelle, guess who I ran into last night?"
I looked at her, confused.
She leaned close to my ear. "It was Director Rowe and Cecily from sales. I saw it with my own eyes, Director Rowe holding Cecily at a bar."
"They've hidden it so well, haven't they? Director Rowe's usually cold as ice with everyone. I thought all he cared about was work. Never figured he'd be dating Cecily."
"Tell me, if the board found out, which of them would leave the company first?"
