Chapter 2

By the time I got home, I was completely drenched.

Madeline had the car keys with her, and there was no public transport in the village at night. It was also pouring, and I waited in the rain for a long time before I finally managed to Uber back.

Madeline came home the next morning. However, when I opened the door for her, I saw that Justin was also right behind her.

I stiffened at once and glared at Justin.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Madeline continued hanging up her coat on the rack and interrupted me impatiently.

"Justin is your brother. Be nicer to him!"

I felt my fingers tingling next to her. I was in a state of shock and disbelief. After all, she had only spent a day with Justin, and she was already taking his side.

Justin's lips curled up in a sneer. He looked at me with a challenging gaze and said, "You're about to marry Maddie. Mom and Dad got worried about her, so they told me to tag along."

He then shoved me aside and began treating the place as his own, doing whatever he wanted.

I felt a sense of helplessness washing over me. I was just about to say something to Madeline when I suddenly noticed that she wasn't wearing the ring on her finger anymore.

"Why did you take the ring off?"

She replied nonchalantly, "I talked a lot with your parents last night, and they were right. We haven't registered our marriage yet, so it's inappropriate for me to wear a ring right now."

The rings were from our first anniversary together. Madeline found someone to make a custom design for us, and she also told me that she would never take it off for as long as she lived.

I felt a lump in my throat. Yet, she never noticed the change in expression on my face. Instead, she looked at Justin behind me and said, "Jasper, I just realized how interesting your brother is. You should be more like him. You're a little too dull compared to him."

Her lightly spoken words fell upon my ears, and I felt my heart sink into my stomach.

Justin rummaged through our things and pulled out a photo of Madeline and me from a drawer.

"You have such a great relationship with Jasper, Maddie," he said with a pout. "I want a photo just like this too."

Madeline walked past me toward him and said, "Sure. We can go now if you want photos like this."

Justin was delighted. He tossed the photo onto the coffee table. Before I even knew what happened, he lunged at Madeline and pulled her into his arms, hugging her tightly.

"I knew that you cared about me! You're the best!"

They continued laughing and chatting along, completely ignoring my presence. I grabbed him by his shirt collar and punched him right in the face.

Madeline got a huge shock and immediately shielded him behind her.

"Jasper! Justin just wanted to take photos! How could you punch him in the face for that? How did I never realize what kind of person you were?"

My heart thumped wildly in my chest. However, when I saw her glaring at me, I felt my heart slowly freeze over.

I had been with her for years, and this was the first time she had ever looked at me like this.

Justin held a hand to his face and tugged on Madeline's sleeve in an aggrieved manner. It was how he always behaved in the past. Whenever he was the one who got into trouble, he would immediately pin the blame on me, and Mom and Dad would forever take his side.

"Madeline. The person you are marrying is me. Not him," I said in a hoarse voice.

However, she paid me no heed and just continued examining Justin's face. She didn't even spare me a glance.

"I'm taking Justin to the hospital. Last night, your parents told me to take care of him."

They then slammed the front door shut in my face.

The apartment went pin-drop silent. The photo of Madeline and me had somehow fallen to the ground, and there was a huge shoe print on it.

I tried wiping it off, but it didn't work. Ultimately, I just threw the photo into the trash.

Ever since the fight earlier, I'd realized that my body temperature was a little off. After all, I'd gotten heavily rained on last night, so I probably caught a cold.

I tried looking for the cold meds at home. Madeline had always been the one putting the meds and supplements away, and I couldn't find them anywhere in the apartment. With no other choice, I called her to ask them where they were, but she never picked up.

Then, my phone began buzzing with tons of messages. It was from the family group—Mom, Dad, Justin, and I were in it.

Justin had sent an attachment to the group. It was a photo of Madeline holding his hand.

"Mom, Dad, Maddie brought me to take some photos today."

He then sent another cropped photo of just their hands holding each other. Mom was delighted and replied at once.

"I knew that Maddie liked you too! Don't let this opportunity slip away!"

Dad immediately sent, "Wait! Jasper's still in this group!"

Then, a split second later, I was kicked out of the group chat.

So, they actually had another group chat with Madeline—one I wasn't in.

I felt the corners of my lips curve up. It had been so many years, and I thought I was already used to it, but I still felt a stuffy feeling in my chest.