Chapter 3

3

Even though I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears, it still felt like a nightmare.

How could Chloe have slipped between Ian and me without leaving a single trace?

She claimed she had waited seven years for him.

Did Ian know the whole time?

When exactly did they cross the line and start sleeping together?

The endless questions swirled in my head until my skull felt like it was going to split open.

My love for Ian had run through my veins for seven years. It was deeper than ordinary romance.

A pathetic sliver of self-deception even began to whisper in my mind.

What if Ian came clean right now? What if he confessed he was at the bar with Chloe?

What if he told me Chloe was just drunk and making up nonsense, and he only held her because he didn't want to hurt my best friend?

What if the others were just making reckless, drunken jokes?

If he swore to me that there was nothing between them, I would have chosen to believe him.

I could have pretended I never stepped foot into that lounge tonight.

Instead, Ian's calm voice came through the line.

"Sure, babe. I'll leave the office right now and pick her up."

Inside my chest, something shattered into a million pieces.

His lie wiped away the very last shred of my sanity.

The only person I trusted in this entire world was officially gone.

Tears spilled over my cheeks, hot and unstoppable.

I hung up the phone and wandered blindly toward the street.

In that moment, a heavy sense of despair washed over me, and I honestly wished everything would just end.

I don't know how long I walked, but when I finally looked up, I was standing outside the apartment Ian and I shared.

I unlocked the door and stepped inside. The sight of champagne gold decorations hit me right in the face.

I had completely forgotten that tonight was supposed to be the night I proposed to him.

In the center of the living room hung a custom bridal gown that I had ordered six months ago.

I had specifically asked the tailor to embroider our initials, I & N, with golden thread along the hemline.

Before college graduation, Ian repeatedly promised me a magnificent wedding.

He told me I was the only woman he would ever love. He promised to do whatever it took to give me a safe, luxurious life.

From that day on, I dreamed of putting on a white dress and marrying the boy I fell in love with at seventeen.

When we graduated, Ian threw himself into starting his company.

He told me the startup phase was brutally hard and asked me to wait just one more year.

Now, that year was up.

His youthful promises had dissolved like sand slipping through my fingers.

I took the gown off the rack and threw it straight into the trash can.

I grabbed the gourmet dinner I had spent all day cooking and dumped dish after dish on top of the fabric. The pristine white silk was ruined by greasy stains.

Just like our ruined love, it could never be clean again.

I grabbed a pair of scissors and popped every single champagne-colored balloon. The sharp bangs echoed through the silent apartment.

Finally, my eyes landed on the banner on the wall: "Ian Stewart, Will You Marry Nora Bailey?"

My hands shook uncontrollably as I raised the blade.

I sliced the scissors right down the middle, separating his name from mine forever.