"The family's discussing the wedding date. Big news coming soon."
The comments were nothing but rows of 999.
"Congratulations! Wishing you a lifetime of happiness."
"Irma, I didn't realize you moved this fast—you're getting married already? Still your childhood crush, the dream guy?"
"A perfect match, made for each other!"
Under all of it, Irma had only replied with one playful little sticker.
If anything, it looked like a quiet confirmation.
Spencer glanced at it and sighed.
"I didn't know Irma posted something like that. I'll have her take it down right away."
"Besides, she's a kid. She's got a mischievous streak, always messing around like this."
"Only people who don't know us would read into it."
"Deborah, we've been together six years. Who doesn't know you're my girlfriend?"
"We're about to get married. You know my mom never wanted this in the first place. I had to talk myself hoarse just to win her over."
Then his voice softened.
"Come on. Let's not do this anymore, okay?"
It came out more like a gentle reminder.
Keep pushing and you'll cross a line.
But I kept turning that one phrase over in my head—Spencer's "six years together, who doesn't know you're my girlfriend."
I let out a thin laugh, and my finger tapped open his social media feed.
The last six months of visible posts came to nine in total.
Three were about games.
Three were food and scenery.
The final three were Irma.
Not a single one was about me.
Six years together, and I couldn't even remember the last time Spencer had posted anything about me.
Or maybe he never had.
Even back when we'd first gone official, the post he made was a blurry shot of my back.
I'd been a little hurt at the time and asked why he couldn't post a photo of my face.
Spencer had tapped the tip of my nose. "My girlfriend's this beautiful. I don't want anyone else looking at her."
But now, staring at that post, I really wanted to ask him:
"Then all those people liking Irma's photos, calling her sister-in-law—do they actually know I'm your girlfriend?"
The words reached the edge of my tongue. I didn't say them.
I could already picture it.
The moment I asked.
The exact flicker of irritation, the way his brow would crease.
"Enough, Deborah. I'm running myself into the ground every day, dealing with the company alongside my dad."
"I come home, and you still want to fight over this petty nonsense."
Besides, it wasn't like this hadn't happened before.
Last time, when my parents came up from the countryside to see me and I couldn't get away, I'd asked Spencer to pick them up from the station.
He'd answered me, cold-faced:
"Your parents really have a knack for timing. It's Irma's graduation party today. I already promised her I'd go."
"And anyway, your parents aren't children. Why do they need someone to fetch them?"
In the end I was the one who gave up my perfect attendance, took the day off, and went to the station myself.
And the time before that, when my stomach hurt so badly I couldn't stand it, I'd called Spencer begging him to take me to the hospital.
He didn't reply until after the ambulance had already brought me in, and even then it came lazily:
"I was swimming with Irma. Didn't see your messages."
"Which hospital are you at? I'll head over now."
And then there was today.
Irma and Spencer, eating ice cream off the same spoon.
"Ice cream tastes sweeter when Irma feeds it to me."
His germ phobia was a joke.
"Deborah, my parents weren't happy you didn't show today either. They think you came off pretty ill-mannered."
