Chapter 2

Nolan was sitting right beside me, so of course he saw it too.

He didn't respond.

But he didn't tell anyone to stop, either.

Then someone tagged me.

"Camille, you sure disappeared fast. You didn't even pay your share. Were you expecting someone else to cover you?"

Nolan glanced at the message as though he had only just remembered the bill.

"I was busy taking Vivian home. I forgot."

He picked up his phone casually.

"I'll pay yours."

"No."

I opened the payment app and sent my share.

"I've got it."

Then I left the group chat.

Not one person asked why I had left early.

I had been gone for hours, yet they hadn't remembered I existed until it was time to split the bill.

College had been the same.

At a department event, Nolan would stand onstage giving a speech while Vivian, dressed for the occasion, hosted beside him.

People in the audience would secretly take pictures and say that even their silhouettes looked like a couple.

Meanwhile, I sat in the back row sorting scattered programs for the student committee.

The spotlight never landed on me.

Nolan's friends had met me countless times, but whenever they addressed me, they always hesitated before barely managing to remember my name.

When Nolan and I eventually got together, none of them bothered hiding their surprise.

One of them even said right in front of me,

"I thought if you couldn't have Vivian, you'd stay single forever. Never thought you'd end up with her."

Nolan wrapped an arm around me and glanced down.

"Love isn't about who looks better together."

"Camille and I work. We're going to be together for the rest of our lives."

A lifetime was a long time.

But we work didn't sound like love.

It sounded more like Vivian had left an empty spot, and I happened to fit into it.

Still, Nolan really had treated me well.

He remembered everything I liked and would drive across town to buy my favorite dessert.

He waited outside my office on rainy days.

When I was sick, he stayed beside me all night.

Over the years, I had noticed more than once that he got too close to other women.

But every time, he had a perfectly reasonable explanation.

"The new intern doesn't know the project yet. I was just helping her out."

"I didn't know the client was bringing his female assistant. It was just business."

After Vivian came back from overseas, he told me,

"She just got back and doesn't have many friends here. I'm only helping her get settled."

He always sounded so open about it.

Afterward, he would bring me gifts to cheer me up, as though that should have been enough to make me feel secure.

So time after time, I convinced myself that relationships required trust.

He hadn't cheated.

He hadn't shut me out.

But that night, every tiny detail and every old thorn buried in my memories surged back at once, like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.

After that, everything inside me went cold.

Nolan leaned back against the couch, his expression already relaxed again.

To him, the night was over.

My gaze moved past him to our graduation photo on the cabinet.

In it, we stood outside the chapel with his hand wrapped around mine and the campus lawn behind us.

I stared at it for a long time before asking softly,

"Do you remember what the president said at graduation? That someday, we should come back with the people we loved and get married on the campus lawn?"

"I remember."

He answered immediately.

After the crowd had dispersed that day, he'd taken my hand and walked me from the commencement chapel to the middle of the lawn.

He'd said that when we got married, we would walk that same path again.

From the chapel all the way to our wedding.

I had blushed and said yes.

I looked back at him.

"What if I still want to get married there?"

Nolan froze for a second, then laughed.

"A wedding doesn't have to be tied to some old idea."

"The campus lawn is too ordinary, and the setup would be a pain. Instead of going through all that trouble, we could have a destination wedding overseas someday."

Someday.

Always someday.

He still remembered his promise.

He just no longer intended to keep it.

I lowered my eyes and happened to see Vivian's latest post.

Nine photos.

Every one of them was from tonight's party.

A white veil.

A proposal ring.

A photo-booth picture of her shoulder pressed against Nolan's.

And in the final picture, Nolan was kneeling in front of her.

Vivian looked down at him with red-rimmed eyes, the prop ring on her finger.

Her caption was only one sentence.

"Love crosses every distance. Even if our story still ends in regret, at least tonight, he put a ring on my finger with his own hands."