But in the end, I walked into the study.
...
"Is she mad at you?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry. It's all because of me that you're in so much pain. But I can't walk away. I've loved you for five years. Besides, she has no self-respect—she was barely legal when she—"
"Don't be silly. Nobody's asking you to walk away. I'm the one who's sorry. I can't love you out in the open. Martha... she's been with me for eleven years. I only got the general manager position because she resigned and recommended me. If I broke things off..."
"I know. All I need is for you to love me. And besides, you already made me a promise."
Belinda sent a photo. A proposal ring.
I sank into the chair.
That ring. I'd had it custom-designed three years ago.
When I showed Logan the sketches, beaming with excitement, he'd looked away.
Work's been crazy. We don't have enough saved. I want to give you something better.
He hid behind tenderness, deflecting again and again.
The ring I never stopped waiting for.
It was on someone else's hand.
The last message in the thread was from Logan.
"Missing you. This place is suffocating. I'm coming over now."
The home we'd dreamed of building together had become his prison.
The way we'd clung to each other through our teenage years was now proof of my recklessness.
Eleven years. All of it reduced to a joke.
"Ngh—"
A sudden stab of pain in my stomach forced me to double over.
My stomach had been ruined for years. To put Logan through college and then grad school, I'd clawed my way from grocery store promotions clerk to general manager of the sales department in a single year. The damage I'd done to my body during those years—three years of rest since quitting hadn't been enough to undo it.
From last night until now, three in the afternoon, I hadn't eaten or drunk a thing. A flare-up was inevitable.
Every ingredient in the apartment had gone into last night's birthday dinner. I rode out the worst of the cramping, then dragged myself to the grocery store.
Walking the familiar route, I felt untethered from my own body.
In eleven years, my favorite thing had been grocery shopping with Logan. Bowls, chopsticks, a secondhand bookshelf, a proper couch—piece by piece, we'd filled a hundred-square-foot rental, then a tiny studio, and finally the twelve-hundred-square-foot condo we'd bought outright.
We'd scraped and survived our way into adulthood, and we'd finally built the life we used to whisper about in the dark.
Then it just—stopped.
But that was fine.
From now on, I'd take care of myself.
No matter what.
"Martha? What are you doing here? You look awful, honey."
The woman who stocked the produce section—she'd known me for years—looked almost panicked when she saw me.
"Didn't sleep well."
I forced a thin smile and started to move past her, but she stepped into my path.
"You're heading to the meat section? Today's selection isn't great. Come back tomorrow! Tomorrow will be much better."
Her smile was strained, and her fingers locked around my arm like a vise.
I frowned, confused—and then I heard a voice I knew all too well drifting over from the meat counter.
"I'll make you pepper steak tonight. Once you're full..." His voice dropped. "Then it's my turn."
I turned toward the sound.
Logan's eyes were soft, his head tilted down toward Belinda, who swatted his arm with a coy little laugh.
Their happiness looked rehearsed. Perfected over a thousand repetitions.
So the "urgent work matter" was grocery shopping with Belinda.
I opened my mouth to say something, but it was as if a hand had closed around my throat. My lips parted, then pressed shut. No sound came out.
A moment later, someone in the aisle recognized them.
"Hey, isn't that the gorgeous couple from that proposal yesterday?"
"Wow, grocery shopping with his fiancée—now that's a good man!"
"This is literally my dream life! Your person right beside you, picking out dinner together. Oh my God, I can't—they're perfect!"
"Total power couple!"
"Huh. Funny... I could've sworn the woman who used to shop with him wasn't her."
