Chapter 1

By the time Claire woke up the next day, I had already packed all my belongings.

She slept until late morning and didn’t notice that the wedding time had long since passed. Out of habit, she demanded, “Why didn’t you make breakfast?”

Claire had a weak stomach, yet she loved drinking. I always made her hangover soup myself and prepared stomach-soothing porridge for her the next morning.

She had long since grown used to everything I did, taking it all for granted.

I said coldly, “There’s a delivery number on the table. Order something yourself.”

Claire froze for a moment before realizing what I meant. She irritably ran a hand through her hair. “Is this because of what happened last night?”

“Last night was just a bachelorette party some friends threw for me. Ethan and I have been like family for years. Can you stop being so suspicious all the time?”

Claire had said things like that countless times before.

She and Ethan had grown up together, and they had always been inseparable.

They had fought for each other, skipped school together, and after starting work at the same company, they even introduced dates to each other while bickering and fooling around for more than twenty years.

Naturally, I wasn’t someone who could easily force my way into that bond.

A trace of bitterness rose in my heart as I opened Ethan’s Instagram. “Is this what you call a platonic friendship?”

An entire night had passed, yet Ethan hadn’t deleted the post. He had even pinned it to the top of his profile.

It hung there like a deliberate boast and provocation.

The comments were filled with Claire’s friends egging him on. Some said he and Claire were a better match. Others told him to confess his feelings directly, and a few even urged him to crash our wedding and steal her away.

But Ethan replied with only one sentence: “I hope she finds happiness.”

That short sentence sounded as though he had swallowed a thousand kinds of bitterness and countless grievances.

Yet I was clearly Claire’s official boyfriend.

Claire and I had been together for seven years. I had proposed three times, always believing that if I kept holding on, we would eventually make it to the altar.

Instead, I had become the third person in someone else’s love story.

How ridiculous.

A flicker of avoidance appeared in Claire’s eyes before she said impatiently, “What can one Instagram post prove? Don’t be so petty.”

“Besides, didn’t I already agree to marry you? What more do you want?”

Her lofty tone made it sound as if agreeing to marry me were some kind of favor.

I gave a self-mocking smile, and the last trace of attachment inside me vanished.

Claire walked over and wrapped her arms around my waist, speaking in a slightly submissive tone. “Enough. Ethan is a simple person. He isn’t as dirty-minded as you think. Stop making a scene.”

The same old trick.

Whenever I had been unhappy about her relationship with Ethan, Claire would lower her head just a little and defend him like this.

Every time, I would accept the way out she offered.

But this time, I was tired.

I couldn’t even bring myself to get angry anymore.

I was leaving anyway.