"If you think it's normal, fine. But I won't touch an ice cream that's already been in someone else's mouth."
I drew in a deep breath, my voice shaking.
"Tristan, we're done."
"Cecily, we're through as friends."
The moment I finished, I turned to leave.
Tristan grabbed my shoulder, his voice rising in accusation.
"Can you stop being so childish? Breaking up, cutting people off, every five minutes!"
"Cecily already explained it to you. It's nothing!"
In the middle of the scuffle, a delivery guy shot out of a blind spot,
and Tristan instinctively shoved me aside, pulling Cecily into his arms to shield her.
The momentum threw me hard to the ground, and I stared up at him, dazed.
I'd already made up my mind to let this relationship go, yet in that moment I still felt the pain, sharp and clear.
Cecily jerked away from him and screamed in his face.
"Why did you push Wallis?"
"If anything happens to her, I swear I'll never let you off!"
Her panic was real, not an act, and somehow that only made the bitterness in me cut deeper.
"Hurry up and get Wallis to the hospital!"
Tristan's expression flickered, and he hesitated before he spoke.
"But you've got work waiting for you too…"
I finally lost all patience, wiped my tears away with the back of my hand,
flagged down a taxi, and went to the hospital alone to get checked and treated.
That night, when Tristan got home in the small hours, I was already fast asleep.
The next day, for the first time ever, he got up at the crack of dawn, insisting he'd drive me to work.
"No need. We've broken up."
Tristan laughed, exasperated.
"Just because I shared one ice cream with Cecily? Over something this small, you're breaking up and cutting everyone off?"
"Or is it because I pushed you? That was because Cecily needed protecting more! And look, you're perfectly fine anyway!"
"Wallis, am I being too good to you? Think it over. My patience has a limit!"
I answered coldly.
"I've thought it over. I said, we're done!"
He stared at me for a long moment, then let out a scoff of a laugh.
"I get it. Another one of your games! Playing hard to get, right?"
"Cecily and I have a business trip, five days. Be a good girl, baby, and I'll bring you a gift when I'm back!"
The way he carried on talking to himself left me speechless.
He took my silence as agreement,
frowned, and went on ordering me around.
"So use these days to reflect. Once you've come around, transfer the money to Cecily. Don't be so petty about it. We can always buy another house."
I nearly laughed out loud from sheer anger.
I swallowed the irritation clawing at me and was about to fire back,
when Cecily's custom ringtone went off. He answered, said a few words, then rushed to the door and left.
Over the next few days, I focused on handing off my work.
The funny part was that every single day I got two nearly identical streams of messages.
One was Tristan's texts, sharing every little detail of what he ate, what he saw, and where he went.
The other was Cecily's posts, set to be visible only to me. Their sweet couple's getaway. Where they went, what they ate together, what they did.
Swallowing my disgust, I liked each and every one, then screenshotted them and sent them to Tristan.
After that, I blocked them both.
On the very day I was set to leave, Tristan's mother called, hinting through every word that I had no self-respect, living in their family's house without being married.
My pupils quaked. I quickly screenshotted every rent payment record and sent them to her.
She hung up in humiliation.
So it turned out this so-called cheap house belonged to the Swanson family, and he'd been hiding it from his parents while making me pay half the rent, using it to buy gifts for Cecily.
I couldn't help but mock myself.
Wallis, oh Wallis, you really are a complete fool.
Ten years. He'd have been better off feeding those years to a dog.
Tristan switched to a burner account and called me like a man possessed.
I couldn't be bothered to answer.
I flipped on airplane mode, boarded my flight without a hitch,
and left everything in Northport behind me.
