I Pretended To Be His Crush For Three Years Chapter 02

I Pretended To Be His Crush For Three Years Chapter 02

Reid was gone.

The closet was empty.

Only one bottle of shampoo left in the bathroom.

And where that sticky note had been on the fridge for three years, there was now a faint yellow stain.

Nora stood in the middle of the living room, listening to her own breathing.

It would be a lie to say she wasn’t sad.

It would be a lie to say it didn’t hurt.

Three years—even stolen years—had grown roots.

Of course it hurt to tear them out.

Her phone rang. Hailey, her assistant.

“Nora, today’s the last day of the exhibition. Do you want to come?”

Nora was quiet for a long time.

She’d planned to go with him.

A few days ago, he’d promised to rush back from work in time for the final day.

She still remembered his voice on the phone: “Ms. Nora, you’re going to give me a proper tour. Let me soak up some culture.”

Then his system came back online.

Told him he’d got it wrong.

The target was Nyssa.

So the first thing he did when he got back was come home and break up with her.

Clean.

Efficient.

Like taking apart a block tower that had been built wrong.

“Nora?” Hailey’s voice pulled her back.

Nora pressed her lips together. “I’ll come.”

She hung up and got ready.

The woman in the mirror was nothing like the girl from years ago—the one in cheap clothes and black-rimmed glasses, face bare, invisible to everyone.

Now she had a name. A following. Galleries wanted to sign her.

No one looked down on her anymore. No one said she wasn’t good enough for Reid.

Nora grabbed her bag and left.

The exhibition was on the third floor of the City Art Museum.

Every painting on the wall had Reid in it.

Not his face—but his presence.

The colors, the light, the warmth she’d never been able to paint before.

He’d given her all of it. He’d given her a new way of seeing the world, and he didn’t even know.

She stopped in front of the centerpiece.

It was a painting of Reid on stage. The first one she’d ever done of him.

In the bottom-right corner, written small: “I’m sorry.”

Every time he was kind to her, she’d mentally add one more tally to the debt she owed the “wrong person.”

Hailey walked up. “Nora, a few more clients want to buy your work. The others are fine, but this one buyer insists on this painting. She said name your price.”

“I told her it’s not for sale—it’s the symbol of you and Reid—”

“Sell it,” Nora said flatly.

Hailey froze.

Nora turned and walked out without looking back.

Outside, she wandered aimlessly down the street, past shop after shop.

She quickened her pace past the sushi place they used to go to.

She looked away from the flower shop where he’d bought her flowers.

Then she stopped in front of a music store.

A white grand piano sat in the window display.

Reid once told her he’d hated the piano as a kid, forced to practice every day.

It wasn’t until he formed a band that he rediscovered music.

He’d been lying in her lap when he said it. Sunlight on his eyelashes like two small butterflies.

She was about to look away when two figures caught her eye.

Reid and Nyssa.

They sat side by side at a piano, playing a duet. Four hands dancing across the keys. Reid on melody, Nyssa on harmony.

Their fingers moved together, chasing and weaving around each other.

Reid glanced sideways at Nyssa, a faint smile on his lips.

That smile—she’d seen it before.

On stage, when he was truly lost in the music.

Not politeness to fans.

Not tenderness to a girlfriend.

It was the smile of a worthy opponent.

Her feet wouldn’t move.

Someone in the store had recognized Reid.

Phones were out.

Whispers started.

“Oh my god, Reid and Nyssa? Two musical families—what a pair.”

“Doesn’t Reid have a girlfriend he’s crazy about?”

“I think they broke up? Look at the chemistry with Nyssa—they’re clearly meant to be.”