Chapter 2

Leah's POV

I stared at the budget Holden had set and felt a thousand tiny needle pricks of pain spreading through my chest.

When we were choosing our wedding rings, I had been considerate of how difficult things were for Holden as he was starting his business. His company was still just getting off the ground, so I deliberately chose a simple, plain band that cost only 3,000 dollars.

He had been so moved that he hugged me and choked up, promising that one day, he would buy me a diamond ring ten or even a hundred times more expensive.

I could clearly feel the depth of his love for me back then. But now, he was willing to spend a million dollars without even blinking, just to create a virtual wedding with his late girlfriend.

The little black dog from Holden's profile picture, Piper, wandered in. Seeming to sense something was wrong, she wandered over and curled up at my feet. I picked her up and held her in my arms, grateful that at least I had this little creature that depended on me wholeheartedly.

That evening, when Holden came home from work, he brought me a strawberry cake.

I took the cake from him, and a faint ripple stirred in my already ice-cold heart, but the accusations caught in my throat remained unspoken.

He didn't notice my silence or the turmoil inside me.

After dinner, he went straight into his study with instructions not to disturb him. At the same time, my computer began chiming with incoming messages. It was Holden's burner account messaging me.

"Here are some of Summer's habits and hobbies. I thought they might be useful for making the AI short film."

This was the first time Holden had ever mentioned the name Summer Kingsmill, but it wasn't the first time I'd seen it. On all his social media accounts, his username was "It's Summertime".

When we first started dating, I had suggested changing our usernames to matching couple names. But he had given me an amused look and said that we were both adults now, and that it would be pretty childish to do something like that.

I had been so embarrassed that my face went bright red, and I never brought it up again.

So this name had been hiding his deepest longing for her all along.

My heart felt painfully hollow as I quickly skimmed through the file he had sent me.

It told of how he and Summer had grown up together, and how whenever they played house as kids, he was always the groom and Summer the bride.

It told of how, in middle school, someone confessed to him, and Summer ignored him for an entire week after she found out.

It told of how they once went hiking together, and when he fell and tumbled down a slope, Summer—small and slender as she was—had supported him all the way down the mountain.

It told of how Summer had suddenly broken up with him after her college entrance exams, moved away with her family, and cut off all contact with him. Devastated, he had burned every photograph the two of them had taken together since childhood.

It told of how, in his freshman year of college, Summer's mother had called him, crying, to say that Summer had a terminal illness and was dying. She had begged him to go visit Summer.

It told of how Summer loved plush toys and lilies, how she secretly enjoyed snacking on chips, and how much she loved strawberry cakes.

The study door remained tightly shut, and though there was only a wall between us, it felt as though there was a world between us.

There in the study, he was lost in memories of her. Outside, I was weeping.

…

When Holden came out of the study at 11:00 pm, he frowned when he saw me still staring at the computer in the living room. "Still awake? Staying up late isn't good for you."

I answered softly, "I've still got some work to finish."

He let out a light, dismissive laugh. "Don't you just edit some videos and post them online? Come on, you can continue tomorrow. Don't ruin your eyes."

I forced a stiff smile. I had sent him so much of my work. If he had opened even one of them, he would have realized that I was the content creator he had hired.

He had never bothered to know what I actually did for a living. Or perhaps, he simply didn't care because his heart was completely occupied by someone else—someone long dead.

When he noticed the strawberry cake sitting untouched on the table, he asked, "Why aren't you eating the strawberry cake I bought you?"

A wave of bitterness washed over me, and anger surged from somewhere deep inside. I violently swept the cake off the table, sending it crashing to the floor.

"I told you I don't like strawberries. Why won't you ever remember?"