Chapter 4

Vera traveled for work a lot. Since I'd joined the company, I'd only run into her twice, and only because our jobs overlapped, so we counted as acquaintances. She knew about me and Tom.

But she'd been out of the office these past few months, and the fact that she'd walked over to ask me this the very day she got back caught me a little off guard.

"No, we're not getting married."

"Why are you suddenly asking me that?"

I answered calmly. I used to daydream about marrying him. Now I didn't want it at all.

"Good thing you didn't, Hazel. Really, lucky you didn't. On my way back today I passed the Magpie Bridge Hotel and saw Tom coming out with a woman."

"I couldn't get a good look at her. He saw me, though, and turned right back into the hotel."

Vera said it, and I listened calmly, but inside I was churning.

Well. So someone had caught them.

"That woman is probably Adeline. Supervisor Mason, from our department. She only started a few months ago. She must have joined right while you were away."

I said it like it didn't touch me at all, but the moment Vera heard it her eyes went wide.

"Adeline?"

"Isn't she from our school?"

Vera was stunned. She, Tom, and I had all come out of the same school, except Vera was a year ahead of me, so we were more like alumni. Even though she was rarely in the office, we got along well enough.

I just hadn't expected Adeline was an alum too.

"Hazel, don't tell me your boyfriend and this Adeline knew each other from way back? You don't even seem surprised they're together."

The gossip in her lit right up, and Vera pressed me, curious. I didn't explain much.

I just said flatly, "He and I are already done."

Yes. Done. On my own.

I never got any response or explanation out of Tom, and I didn't want to wait for one.

Seeing is believing, and now even Vera had seen it with her own eyes.

"Done? Good. That's a good thing." Vera blinked, then nodded.

Too bad Vera didn't know much about Adeline. She only knew she was an alum too, in the same year as Vera, but the two of them had never really crossed paths.

Adeline hadn't been at the company long, yet she'd landed straight into a supervisor role.

Vera even made a point of warning me that Adeline's background couldn't be simple, or she wouldn't have become a supervisor.

Made sense, when I thought about it. I'd been at the company a year, working hard, with results to show, and I wasn't even a team lead. Adeline came in and was a supervisor within a few months.

But right now I had no real curiosity about how she'd made supervisor.

Right now what was in my chest was more tangled than that.

Vera went back to her desk. Tom didn't come in all day, and he didn't answer my messages either.

In the end I sent one over, no longer caring whether he replied.

【Let's break up. From now on we go our separate ways.】

The message went out, and this time it got an instant reply.

All those messages before, stacked up with no answer, and the second I said breakup, he replied in a heartbeat.

【What breakup? Hazel, what are you making a fuss about?】

【I was just accompanying the supervisor on a business trip. Can you not have such a filthy mind?】

【I'll be back tomorrow. Stop this nonsense.】

Message after message, and it looked like he was trying to keep me. It looked more like him making a scene.