At three in the morning, on a street swallowed by swirling snow, Yvonne stood there with her face still streaked with snow-covered tears.
Back then, we held each other and cried. A snowflake on her eyelashes melted into a crystalline tear, falling straight into the depths of my heart.
In that moment, I was convinced that nothing in this world could ever pull us apart. That our love could cross a thousand kilometers and overcome all the hardships of the world.
We would certainly, absolutely, live together happily forever.
Yet the painful irony was that I discovered Yvonne was cheating on me that very same night.
Seeing the questioning look in the taxi driver's eyes, I smiled and said calmly, with a touch of helplessness, "She'd been driving for too long that day. She collapsed and fell asleep as soon as she made sure that I was okay."
"But she forgot to turn off her phone and didn't switch her account in time. Surprisingly, the first pinned message on her bubble chat was a nude photo from my best friend."
The driver sighed. He kindly handed me a couple of tissues, but I had no tears left to cry.
All I remembered from that moment was the feeling of my blood running cold. It was like a massive rock crashing into a still lake, shattering every beautiful illusion into pieces.
As I continued to scroll, I saw their continuous chat throughout numerous years.
The very first message was from the day Harvey returned to the country after his divorce.
At the welcome dinner I had prepared for him, while I was drunk, Yvonne had confessed her feelings to Harvey. She said to him, "What I feel for Nic isn't love. It's a sense of responsibility. You are the one I yearned for but couldn't reach in my youth—my first love."
Meanwhile, the last message was from last night.
Harvey had texted her. [You took all your clothes off and then you said you had to leave. Yvonne, what exactly am I to you?]
[If you're so reluctant to leave him, then let's end this. Nicholas is my best friend. If he hadn't helped me find a place to live and a job when I came back, I'd be homeless. I don't want to hurt him.]
Yvonne was already asleep by then and hadn't replied. She hadn't had time to make her choice and I saw the messages before she could.
That snowflake turned into tears, then into an icicle, piercing my heart.
All those little details I had ignored, all those small things I had forgotten, suddenly connected in that moment.
So, that faint, subtle scent was not my imagination. It was the proof of Yvonne's betrayal.
So, that strange feeling I had wasn't me being paranoid. It was a subconscious premonition.
In an instant, my world collapsed.
I frantically dragged Yvonne out of bed, crying and demanding to know why.
Why did she stay with me if she didn't like me?
Why did she confess her love to me in the snow if you didn't like me?
Why … why did she get together with my best friend when I loved her the most?
Seeing my painful tears, Yvonne turned her head away in a panic.
Then she looked at me helplessly and said, "Nic, it's not that I don't like you. I just … I don't like you that much anymore."
After ten years, our youth was gone and the passion had faded.
The once overwhelming love had turned into a debt that could never be repaid.
I couldn't accept it. I refused to believe it.
We were together for ten years, a full decade. Three thousand, six hundred and fifty days and nights. More than a thousand kilometres apart.
Could such a relationship really just have been about repaying a debt?
