My Fiancé Saved Her Painful Days, But Forgot Mine Chapter 08

My Fiancé Saved Her Painful Days, But Forgot Mine Chapter 08

I stood there for several seconds, unable to process what I had just seen.

The cold, vicious side of Lynn had shattered everything I thought I knew about her.

I could not understand how things had gone this far.

I met her on the first day of freshman year.

She had gotten lost and burst into tears, so I showed her where to go and carried her heavy suitcase.

After that, she followed me everywhere.

I had always been independent and used to handling problems on my own.

Lynn was delicate and clingy.

She would even pout and ask me to open a water bottle for her.

From then on, we were inseparable.

Once, when I had a fever and could not eat, she crossed half the city to bring me my favorite bagels.

Whenever a boyfriend hurt her, she would bury her face against my shoulder and cry until my shirt was soaked through.

We even promised that no matter how many times either of us got married, we would always be each other’s maid of honor.

I started dating Mitch during senior year.

He brought me breakfast every morning and wrote down every little thing I casually mentioned liking in the Notes app on his phone.

I thought I had found real love.

I could not wait to introduce my new boyfriend to my best friend.

The moment we walked into the private dining room, Mitch and Lynn both froze.

Then they spoke at the same time.

“Mitch?”

“What are you doing here?”

“Lynn?”

“You’re the best friend Shelly has told me so much about?”

They spent the whole meal laughing until their sides hurt and trading embarrassing stories from childhood.

I thought it was perfect that the two people closest to me already knew each other.

I could not pinpoint when everything changed.

Maybe it was during group dinners, when Mitch would reach past me and pick the cilantro off Lynn’s plate without even thinking about it.

Maybe it was when Lynn got drunk after a breakup and called Mitch at midnight instead of calling me.

Every intimate little thing they excused by calling each other family slowly ate away at both my friendship and my relationship.

“Shely…”

Mitch’s rough voice pulled me back to the present.

I turned to leave, but he rushed forward and blocked my path.

“Shely, please don’t go.”

“I was wrong.”

“I was so wrong.”

“She’s been lying to me this whole time.”

“She never saw me as a brother.”

“She was only using me.”

He shook his head and stepped toward me.

I moved back, keeping distance between us.

“Whether she used you has nothing to do with me.”

Mitch’s eyes reddened, and his voice cracked.

“How can it have nothing to do with you?”

“We were together for five years.”

“For five years, you were the only person who truly loved me.”

“You were the only one who never looked down on me.”

“Shely, I finally see Lynn for who she is.”

“I’ll cut her off completely.”

“Let’s start over.”

“We can still have the wedding, and I swear I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.”

He fumbled in his coat pocket and pulled out a velvet box.

Inside was our engagement ring.

I had left it on the coffee table the day I moved out.

Mitch opened the box, grabbed the ring, and reached for my hand.

“Put it back on.”

“If you wear it again, we can forget all of this ever happened.”

“I swear I’ll learn to make anything you want.”

“I’ll fill my notes with every little thing about you from now on.”

I stepped aside to avoid him.

The ring slipped from his fingers and rolled straight into a storm drain.

Mitch cried out and dropped to the pavement.

He shoved his hand through the metal grate and reached as far as he could, but the ring was gone.

“The ring… our engagement ring…”

I watched him panic and felt nothing.

“Stop putting on a show, Mitch.”

“You’re crying and begging me to come back, but is that really because you finally understand what you did to me?”

He froze and looked up.

“You just can’t stand realizing that you were nothing but a pathetic lapdog Lynn could throw away whenever she got bored.”

“You got addicted to her soft attention and to the ego boost you got from playing the man she needed.”

“Now she has crushed your pride, and suddenly you remember me, the woman you could always order around and expect to take care of you.”

“You never loved me.”

“You did not really love Lynn either.”

“The only person you ever loved was the version of yourself who got to feel needed.”

His whole body shook as he denied it again and again.

“That’s not true.”

“That’s not how I feel.”

“I love you, Shelly.”

“If I didn’t love you, why would I ever have wanted to marry you?”