Chapter 4

A rejection that plain, how could I not understand it?

I picked up the juice on the table and drank, keeping my voice light on purpose.

"Whatever you two decide is fine."

"You're the people I trust most. Whatever you arrange can't be wrong."

They glanced at each other, and both of them seemed to let out a breath.

"Carissa, you're my best friend. Your wedding is one of the biggest things in your life. I'll do anything to give you the best."

I looked at Katherine's face, so full of sincerity, and smiled. "Is that so."

If she knew it was one of the biggest things in my life,

then why was I left out of everything?

But once a thing like that is said out loud, it stops meaning anything.

Halfway through, Katherine went to the restroom.

A moment later, Dirk disappeared too.

Something urgent had come up at my company, and I wanted to tell them I was leaving early.

But at the restroom door, I heard Katherine ask, her voice thick with tears.

"Are you really going to marry her?"

I stood behind the wall and watched Katherine cry until her eyes were red and swollen.

"I don't mean anything by it. I've watched the two of you together for so many years, I don't want to break you up."

"It's just that thinking about the wedding, I can't quite hold back how sad I am…"

Dirk was silent for a long time, and in the end he pressed her against the wall, his voice heavy with everything he was holding down.

"Katherine, I have to marry Carissa."

"I still love her. And she throws little tantrums now and then, but she hasn't done anything wrong. I have no reason to call off the engagement."

Katherine's eyes went redder. She looked up at him. "Then what about me?"

"Just now you gave the shrimp you peeled to Carissa. It really hurt."

"Every time I think about you being someone else's husband, I…"

Dirk couldn't hold back anymore, and pulled her in against him.

"Easy."

"Even after I marry Carissa, I promise, things between us will stay exactly the way they've always been."

"But won't it be so hard on you…"

Dirk didn't answer, but his eyes stayed fixed on hers.

I watched it coldly, and suddenly I smiled.

You don't need to make it hard on yourselves.

I'll give you what you want.

They spent a week at the seaside scouting for their honeymoon.

While they were gone, Katherine posted something on her feed that she'd blocked me from seeing. I could only find it on my secondary account.

"This place is so beautiful it feels like a dream. If only I could stay here forever and never have to go back."

The photo was of a couple from behind, out combing the tide flats.

She and Dirk, hand in hand, like a devoted pair.

But the day they came back, she posted again.

"The dream's over. Time to give him back to my best friend."

I pretended I'd seen none of it, and I stopped talking to them.

They noticed nothing off, still thinking I was the same as always, a workaholic who threw herself completely into her job.

Except on the day they returned, I happened to be walking out with my suitcase.

"Off on another business trip?"

Running into me, Dirk showed no surprise.

"How many days this time?"

I didn't want to lie, and I was still weighing how to answer.

Katherine spoke up beside him with a smile. "It won't be long, surely. The wedding's almost here, and to avoid being apart from you, when has Carissa ever taken a long trip?"

That one line pulled me back into memory.

Right. All these years.

I believed distance wore a relationship down.

That even after a fight, you couldn't get to the other person in time to say something soothing, or give them a hug.

So my trips almost never ran past a week.

But this time, the posting was for ten years.

"Don't worry. Your wife's a workaholic, but she'd never let it get in the way of the wedding."

Katherine, smoothing it over.

So Dirk, easy as that, didn't press any further.

For once he looked at me gently.

"Same rule as always. Once you get where you're going, send me a message and your location."

"Don't worry yourself over the wedding."

"On the day, just show up in your gown, on time."

With that, he took Katherine's suitcase and turned to go.

I watched the two of them walk away, a perfect match, and said it silently to myself,

but Dirk, this time I won't be showing up.

I turned, and without looking back, I held my boarding pass and walked through the gate.