Chapter 2

2

I returned to my cramped rental apartment alone. Soon after, my buddy Gavin Pierce called:

"Congrats, man! You finally made it official!"

My throat felt bone-dry. Thinking someone had told him about our engagement, I was about to speak when he continued:

"Why did only your girl post on Instagram? You didn't even show your face. If I hadn't recognized that matching ring set you asked me about earlier, I wouldn't have known it was you. Were you strapped for cash recently because of the wedding prep?"

"Look, I've got an outsourcing project I can hand over to you. Keep all the profits as my early wedding gift to you."

Confused, I cut him off.

I opened Instagram immediately and saw Hazel's latest post.

There were no faces―just a silhouette of two people locked in an intimate embrace against the wall.

The caption read: "Real love is worth capturing."

I stared at the screen, watching the matching couple ring I had painstakingly picked out now sitting on another man's finger.

My chest heaved violently. Nothing cuts deeper than betrayal from the person you loved most.

At this moment, I truly felt like eight years of genuine devotion had been fed to the dogs.

Hazel had always hated me posting anything about her on social media. In our eight years together, we had never taken a single public couple photo. On the day I proposed, I begged her to post about us just once.

She had told me: "Couples who show off break up fast. We should just live our lives quietly."

She even took my ring away afterward, saying:

"This is too precious. It'll look bad if you scratch it before the big day. Let me hold onto it until our wedding."

Back then, I thought she simply treasured our relationship too much to share it with the world.

Looking back now, it was utterly laughable.

I simply wasn't the man she deemed worthy of being captured.

I took a deep breath and explained the truth to Gavin. He spent the next ten minutes cursing her out while trying to console me.

"Hey, that startup idea you talked about before... is it too late for me to join?" I asked.

In the past, to build a stable home for Hazel, I turned down multiple startup invitations from my friends and willingly stayed in the city she worked in. Now, there was no reason to stay.

"Are you kidding? You were the best coder in our entire dorm! If you hadn't given up everything for Hazel back then... Never mind. We're heading to Austin next week to scout office spaces. Come with us to get familiar with things. If we lock it down, our core business will be based there."

After finalizing the details with Gavin, my phone pinged with a notification that the delivery order was completed.

Hazel had tipped me a hundred dollars, along with a note:

"Stop being mad. Order yourself something nice to eat. I'll make it up to you tomorrow."

I didn't withdraw the tip. I deleted the app right away.

I had zero interest in her pity love.