Chloe was pushing Stewart toward me, the cake held out between them, when Stewart suddenly smashed it down. It hit the cold floor and splattered into a shapeless mess.
「Mia.」
「I did promise I'd marry you by the time you turned thirty.」
「I promised. That doesn't mean you get to force my hand.」
Stewart looked at me with undisguised contempt.
「Pressuring me like this」
「only makes me think」 His cold gaze pinned me in place.：「You're pathetic.」
He walked out without a second of hesitation.
The door slammed so hard the walls shook, and my whole body flinched with them.
I looked down at my pant legs, still damp from the rain, now streaked with frosting too. A crushing wave of helplessness swallowed me whole. I sank slowly to the floor and hugged myself as tightly as I could.
Stewart hadn't noticed.
My eyes were swollen.
Even though I'd tried so hard to keep it together.
But the moment I heard the words "late-stage pancreatic cancer," every ounce of composure left me. I'd barely stepped off the subway before I lost control completely, crouched in a corner, sobbing until my whole body shook, telling myself that even so, even after everything, I had to give Stewart and me one more chance.
On the way home, I kept imagining how Stewart would react when he found out Grandma didn't have long.
I imagined whether he'd regret not marrying me sooner once he knew her dying wish.
I'd imagined countless possibilities.
None of them were this.
Five years with Stewart, reduced to a single sentence.
【You're pathetic.】
That one word hit my chest like a stone dropped into still water, sending tidal waves crashing through my body.
The pain was unbearable. I held myself and sobbed until I couldn't breathe, sobbed like a child with no one coming to save her. And then, through blurred eyes, I watched Stewart's Instagram update.
Stewart and Chloe, seated in the revolving restaurant at Twin Towers. A lychee cake between them. Chloe smiling. Stewart gazing at her, face full of indulgence. The caption read:
【Some people will never understand that love can't be forced.】
Chloe liked the post. Her comment：【I'll always be by your side. I'll always understand you.】
Before.
Seeing things like this used to suffocate me. I'd confront Stewart, demand to know what these pointed little posts were really about.
I'd insist Stewart set the record straight.
I'd even cry while interrogating him.
Who mattered more, me or Chloe?
Every single time I made a fuss.
Every single time I voiced a complaint.
Stewart would laugh at me, call me petty, say I couldn't tolerate Chloe, couldn't make room for an orphan girl his family had taken in since childhood.
And Chloe would cry and explain.
「Stewart and I are really just family.」
「We grew up together. If there were ever anything between us, why would he have fallen for you in the first place?」
「Mia, please believe us.」
And Stewart would side with Chloe without hesitation, demanding I apologize, demanding I back down, demanding I swallow every last shred of hurt and just accept it.
Now.
I stared at the texts Chloe had sent me.
【Mia, don't go assuming Stewart's post is some kind of dig at you again.】
【He doesn't mean anything by it~】
And then, at the very end, Chloe wrote:
【Mia, a woman shouldn't be so desperate to get married. It only makes her look cheap.】
【We're both women, so I'm just looking out for you~】
I didn't do what I used to do. I didn't screenshot the messages and send them to Stewart, demanding an explanation.
Instead, I screenshotted Stewart's Instagram post alongside Chloe's pointed little texts and posted them all to my own feed with a single caption:
【Happy to be single.】
Then I grabbed my suitcase, took one last look at the apartment Stewart and I had shared for four years, and pulled the door shut behind me.
