I Made Us Matching Avatars, But He Protected Another Girl Chapter 10

I Made Us Matching Avatars, But He Protected Another Girl Chapter 10

I shook my head, standing arm in arm with Ryan in front of the mirror.

We made a striking pair.

Even the shop assistant couldn’t help gushing over how good we looked together.

Ryan squeezed my hand and pulled me into his arms.

“I’m going to treat you right, Claire. That’s never going to change, not for the rest of my life.”

I nodded.

A lifetime was a long promise to make. But right now, in this exact moment, there wasn’t a single thing about Ryan I could find fault with.

Once we set the wedding date, congratulations poured in from every direction.

Especially after our engagement photos went up, everyone kept telling me how lucky I was.

Nate kept coming around after that.

For seven or eight nights straight, he simply parked himself outside my parents’ house and refused to budge.

He eventually wore me down. A neighbor complained that his permanent scowl was scaring the local kids,

so I finally went down just to make it stop.

His eyes lit the second he saw me, then dimmed just as quickly.

He held out a slice of strawberry cake, careful, almost timid.

“I remembered this is your favorite bakery. Try it, see if it still tastes the way it used to.”

I didn’t take it.

I just looked down at the frosting, already starting to melt in the afternoon heat.

The truth was, I’d never actually liked strawberry cake.

Nate did. I’d only ever pretended to like it because he did.

Same with the roses. I never cared for them either. He was the one who always painted them, so I’d gone along with it for years.

I let out a slow breath.

Watching how hesitant and careful his eyes looked, I could almost see an old version of myself staring back

at me.

“Claire, I brought you chocolate cake. Want a slice before dinner?”

Ryan appeared right on cue.

He held the cake up, giving it a playful little shake in my direction.

The frosting hadn’t melted at all. He’d driven thirty extra miles out of his way just to bring it to me still cold.

Something in my chest ached and lifted at the same time.

Nate’s face fell, his grip tightening around the cake box, his complexion going a shade paler.

He looked like he’d just realized, all over again, exactly how badly he’d failed.

“I’m sorry, Claire.”

I shook my head and gave him a faint, quiet smile.

“You don’t have to be. You don’t need to go this far, Nate. Nobody should have to reshape themselves for

someone else. It’s too painful a way to live.”

Nate lowered his eyes.

Then, gathering some sudden burst of courage, he looked back up at me, resolute.

“Claire, I sent Lily abroad. I gave her a settlement and cut every tie between us completely. Nothing ever

happened between her and me. Nothing at all.”

“That night I got drunk, I mistook her for you. I put the ring I’d bought for you on her finger by accident. In my

head, I genuinely believed it was you.”

“I deleted that post. I thought it was a photo of us together. My whole plan that night was to finally make

things public and propose to you.”

His eyes reddened as he spoke.

“I don’t even know how it spiraled into this. I’m sorry. I was too arrogant to see it.”

“I’ve never actually been in love before you. I don’t know how to treat someone right. I don’t know how to say the things people are supposed to say.”

I already knew that.

That’s exactly why, in the beginning, none of it had bothered me at all.

I’d always understood that whatever he’d carried with him from his own upbringing had left him without the

tools to express any of it, without the first idea of how to love someone properly.

I could have lived with all of that.

Maybe we were just missing that one last piece of luck.

“Claire, will you give me a chance to love you the right way?”

He asked it carefully, quietly.

I could feel Ryan’s grip on my hand tighten in response.

I met Nate’s hopeful eyes and shook my head, turning him down all the same.

“This is good, Nate. Things are good exactly the way they are.”

“I don’t hate you, and I don’t resent you either. You had your reasons, and you had your responsibilities. At the

end of the day, you never really did anything wrong.”

“From here on, let’s just say we never knew each other. Let’s not stay in touch, and let’s not try to go back to

who we used to be.”

I held his gaze one last time, long and level, then turned and walked back upstairs.

It wasn’t that what we’d had meant nothing to me.

I was simply tired.

I didn’t want to spend one more day living that kind of endless, exhausting life.

My wedding with Ryan was small and quiet.

Aside from close friends and family, we barely invited anyone else at all.

Nate showed up anyway.

No one had invited him. He’d slipped in on his own.

As I exchanged rings with Ryan, I caught sight of him standing off in the crowd.

Tucked into a corner, his eyes rimmed red.

The moment the ceremony ended, he finally lost the fight and broke down crying.

We never saw each other again after that.