Chapter 2

Late that night, a message from Yates came through.

[What I said at dinner was just to get us through the situation.]

[You're still my girlfriend. I'll explain everything when I get home.]

I waited for him in the living room all night.

He never came back.

The next morning, I finally replied to the email I'd put off answering three times.

[I accept the three-year on-site assignment.]

I'd only lent Hannah my boyfriend for one night.

Yates had gone a step further and handed her my place as his real girlfriend, too.

After Ryan began harassing Hannah constantly, Yates decided, without even discussing it with me, that she should move into the home we shared.

By the time I got home from work, her fingerprint had already been added to the door lock.

Her slippers sat by the entryway. Her toiletries had been moved into the master bathroom. Meanwhile, my pajamas, skincare products, and toothbrush had all been packed up and moved to the guest room.

Hannah stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, speaking quietly.

"I can stay in the guest room. This is your and Tessa's room, after all."

Yates shook his head.

"The master bedroom has a lock on the inside and its own bathroom. It's safer."

Then he looked at me.

"Tessa, you adapt easily. A few nights in the guest room won't bother you."

I stared at my belongings piled inside a suitcase and suddenly remembered the first day we'd moved in.

Yates had carried me into the master bedroom and laughed. "From now on, this is our home."

Now all it took was "you adapt easily" for him to push me out of it.

Hannah lowered her eyes to everything that had been removed from the bedroom.

"It's only for a few days."

Then she rolled her suitcase into the master bedroom herself.

She hadn't brought any pajamas, so Yates opened my closet and took out an unopened set of pajamas.

"Just wear these for now."

I recognized them immediately.

They were the fifth-anniversary gift he'd bought for me in advance. I'd only seen the order on his phone. I hadn't even gotten the chance to unwrap them yet.

Hannah clearly knew what they were, too. She held the pajamas in her hands and looked at me for a long time.

"Tessa, I'll buy you another set later."

She didn't put them down.

That night happened to be Yates's and my fifth anniversary.

He'd made the restaurant reservation a month in advance. My favorite strawberry cake was waiting on the table, and he'd promised that tonight would be just for us. No more talking about Hannah.

The candles had barely been lit when his phone rang.

Hannah's tearful voice came through the speaker.

"Yates, he sent me another threatening message."

"I know you're with Tessa."

"But I'm really scared to be here alone."

"Can you come back?"

She knew exactly what day it was, yet she'd still called my boyfriend away the moment our anniversary candles were lit.

Yates stood up immediately.

He cut the first slice of cake and set it in front of me.

"Give me half an hour. I'll make sure she's okay, then I'll come right back."

I waited from early evening until the restaurant closed.

The candles burned themselves out. The frosting melted completely.

I never took a single bite of the cake.

Yates never came back.

It was after midnight when I finally returned home alone.

The master bedroom door wasn't completely shut.

Hannah was sitting on the bed Yates and I had shared for three years, wearing the pajamas that were supposed to have been my fifth-anniversary gift.

Yates stood behind her, gently drying her hair with a towel as if he were afraid even the slightest pressure might hurt her.

"I shouldn't have called you back when I knew it was your anniversary," Hannah murmured.

"You should go back to Tessa."

Yet as soon as she said it, she reached out and took his hand.

"It's just... could you stay tonight?

"Whenever I think about you going back to her, I start feeling like that night after the engagement party was all just a dream."

Yates was silent for a moment before closing his hand around hers.

"That night wasn't an act.

"I slept with you. I'm not going to pretend you're just some girlfriend I borrowed for a role."

Tears spilled down Hannah's face.

"Then what about Tessa?"

Yates didn't answer for a long time.

Finally, he sighed.

"Tessa's stronger than you are.

"She'll understand."

Because I was stronger than Hannah, she could have the master bedroom.

She could have our fifth anniversary.

Apparently, she could even have the boyfriend I'd loved for five years.

Hannah didn't ask him to leave again.

I didn't push the door open, either.

I went back to the guest room and signed the three-year assignment contract that very night.

Then I opened my personal information and removed both Yates and Hannah from my emergency contacts.

The moment they moved me out of the master bedroom, I started moving myself out of our relationship.