Outside the Lines You Drew

I tapped accept.

A line appeared on the screen.

[Assignment term: three years. Destination: Havenmist branch. Please report to your assigned location by this Saturday.]

Today was Wednesday.

There were three days left before both my wedding and my departure.

Simon Carver saw me looking down at my phone, and his frown deepened.

"Maren, I'm talking to you."

I locked my phone and looked up at him.

"Mm. I heard you."

He probably hadn't expected me to be so calm.

The reprimand he had prepared got stuck in his throat instead, and his expression grew even uglier.

Ivy, who had been sitting beside his lap, finally bothered to pull her legs back.

She gathered the black oversized T-shirt that belonged to Simon around herself and looked at me timidly.

"Sim, is this Maren?"

Sim.

In the three years Simon and I had dated, I mostly called him by his full name.

When we first got together, I had suggested we make up private nicknames for each other.

Simon didn't like that.

He said sticky, clingy nicknames gave him goose bumps and made him uncomfortable.

So it wasn't that he was uncomfortable.

It just depended on who was saying it.

Ivy steadied herself against the couch and stood.

"Maren, don't misunderstand. I twisted my ankle, and Sim was only helping me rub it."

I looked at the cotton slippers on her feet. Pink, with little bunny ears.

On the table, the cup of milk had a cute star-shaped figure on it.

The cushion she had been leaning against on the couch was a Disney collaboration.

None of those things belonged to Simon.

And none of them belonged to me.

I found it almost funny.

The first time I entered my fiance's home, it felt as if I had stumbled into a love nest he shared with someone else.

When Ivy saw that I wasn't speaking, the smile on her face started to falter.

"Maren, Sim and I were born the same year, and we grew up together. This is how we've always been. There aren't really any boundaries between us."

I looked at Simon.

He was frowning, completely unable to see anything wrong with Ivy's words.

Yet in the three years we had dated, he had demanded boundaries from me to an almost brutal degree.

I couldn't go to his home.

I couldn't touch his phone.

I couldn't enter his circle of friends.

Even when I accidentally touched the air freshener in his car, he would frown.

"Maren, I don't like other people touching my things."

All the rules and lines he drew for me became meaningless when they reached Ivy.

I smiled and looked at Ivy.

"Ivy, I've heard so much about you."

Simon's face darkened.

"Maren, why are you being so passive-aggressive?"

I looked at him in mild surprise.

I really wasn't being passive-aggressive.

I truly had heard her name many times.

The first time was on my birthday.

I had booked a restaurant half a month in advance.

Simon suddenly said Ivy had watched a horror movie and was too scared to sleep, so he had to go comfort her.

The second time was when I had a high fever and went to the hospital.

I called Simon and asked him to take me.

He said Ivy wanted pastries from the bakery across town, and he had to buy them right away, or the little girl would cry.

The third time was when we went to try on wedding dresses.

He was two hours late.

I sat outside the fitting room in a gown, waiting from hope into humiliation.

When he arrived, there were milk-tea stains on his shirt cuff.

He said Ivy's cat had gone missing and she had cried too hard, so he had spent the whole day helping her search.

I never truly got angry on any of those occasions.

Because I had always thought that the girl who could make someone as cold and boundary-conscious as Simon repeatedly break his own rules must be a much younger, clueless little sister.

I had even thought that after the wedding, if Ivy really relied on him so much, I would be kind to her too.

Simon had so few people close to him.

I didn't want to make things difficult for him.

But it wasn't until I saw her in person today that I realized Ivy was no little sister at all.

She was the same age as Simon.

She was two years older than me.

Ivy bit her lip, her eyes turning red.

"Sim, Maren doesn't seem to like me very much."

She lowered her head and reached for the jacket on the couch.

"Maybe I should leave first, so you don't fight because of me."

Before her hand could reach it, Simon stopped her.

"Why should you leave?

"The person who came uninvited is the one who should go."

My eyes stung. I pulled the corners of my mouth into a dry smile.

"Fine.

"Then I'll go."

With that, I turned, opened the door, and left.

As I waited for the elevator, I thought:

This was the first time I had ever come to Simon Carver's home.

And it would be the last.