My Fiance Married His Childhood Sweetheart Before Our Engagement Party Chapter 07

My Fiance Married His Childhood Sweetheart Before Our Engagement Party Chapter 07

“I passed the interview. I start next Monday.”

When I told Olivia, she was kneeling on the floor, stuffing things into my suitcase.

Beef jerky.

Two boxes of instant noodles.

Wet wipes.

A tin of pour-over coffee she had never been willing to open for herself.

“Silicon Valley is so far.”

“That’s why it’s good.”

She did not answer.

She lowered her head and shoved the corner of a noodle box into a gap in the suitcase with unnecessary force.

After a while, she looked up.

Her eyes were red, but she refused to cry.

“You really don’t feel hurt anymore?”

“Olivia, let me tell you something.”

“Okay.”

“I lived with him for three years. Every morning, I got up at five-thirty

to make breakfast.”

“Oatmeal had to simmer for forty minutes. Eggs had to be soft in the middle. Toast had to be lightly browned on both sides.”

“He never said it tasted good. He never said it tasted bad.”

“He finished, pushed the dishes toward the sink, picked up his bag, and left.”

“The sound of the door closing was sharper than any goodbye.”

“Three years,” I said. “He never washed a single bowl.”

Olivia frowned as she listened.

“I used to think he didn’t know how to do housework. But before I moved in, he lived alone for two years.”

“His kitchen counters were spotless. He sorted recycling better than I did. There wasn’t even a takeout box lying around.”

“He wasn’t incapable of washing dishes.”

“He just didn’t think he needed to wash mine.”

Olivia fell silent.

She stayed crouched beside the suitcase for a long time.

The day before I left, James forwarded Olivia a few more screenshots from the group chat.

She hesitated, then showed them to me.

Someone in the group had posted a photo.

Adrian stood in front of the stove with a frying pan.

Inside was a burned egg, its edges black.

He had sent the photo with one line.

[Didn’t know this thing was so hard.]

Someone replied.

[Evelyn used to make that for you every day, right? Soft eggs. Never burned.]

Adrian did not reply.

He left the group.

Ten minutes later, he rejoined it.

Olivia tilted her head.

“What kind of mental state is leaving and rejoining the same group?”

“Not wanting to hear the truth, but not being able to stop checking whether anyone mentions me.”

She clicked her tongue and scrolled again.

“There’s something else.”

“What?”

“Sophia fought with him.”

She turned the phone toward me.

Sophia had posted a long caption with a pink background and a

selfie.

She looked wronged, with tears at the corner of her eyes.

The post said life was harder than she expected.

Adrian had been getting worse lately.

He lost his temper over nothing.

He did not cook.

He did not clean.

He did not take out the trash.

He even refused to buy the designer bag she wanted.

The post was long, but the core was one sentence.

[I gave up so much for you. Is this how you treat me?]

What had she given up for him?

I had given up a fifty-thousand-dollar salary.

My parents.

Three years of savings.

A better version of myself.

The comments were full of people comforting her.

But one reply stood out.

A mutual friend wrote, [Sophia, that’s rich. Evelyn gave up way more

for him than you ever did.]

Sophia deleted the post immediately.

But the screenshot had already spread.

Deleting things does not help when the internet has memory.

The last thing Olivia showed me was a private chat screenshot.

No one knew who leaked it.

It was between Adrian and an old classmate.

Adrian wrote, [I only found out now that Evelyn paid my mortgage

every month, my car loan too. She bought my mom’s supplements.

The cash gift for my mom last Christmas came from her. How did I

not know any of this?]

His friend replied, [Because she did it without saying anything. And

you never asked.]

Adrian replied with two words.

[Shut up.]