Chapter 4 Five Hundred Tickets, and No Future

Marcus first took Jane back to her dorm after dinner. Only then did he drive me to the apartment he had recently rented. It was the place we had planned long ago to move into together after graduation.

"Evie, it's close to my company, and the magazine you want to work for is only two subway stops away. Once we graduate, we'll decorate the place properly."

Marcus held my hand as we stood outside the door, his eyes shining with anticipation for the future.

He looked so sincere, so completely sincere that for one stupid moment, I almost thought everything that had happened earlier had been nothing more than an illusion.

"You were the one who entered the password last time, remember?"

I stepped forward and entered my birthday.

Incorrect password.

I froze for a moment, thinking I must have remembered wrong. Then, I entered the anniversary of the day we got together.

Still incorrect.

Marcus' expression stiffened for an instant, a flicker of panic crossing his eyes. "I must have remembered it wrong… Let me open it."

He reached for the keypad, but I pushed his hand away.

I suddenly remembered a photo Marcus had posted on his social media a few days ago. It was a picture of a delicate little cake, captioned, 'Happy 20th birthday to the kiddo.'

That day had been June 17.

My fingers trembled as I entered 0617. Sure enough,' the door unlocked with a beep.

I stared at the narrow gap as the door swung open, feeling as though all the blood in my body had frozen.

Marcus had no idea how I had guessed the password.

Panic was written all over his face as he hurriedly caught my hand. "Evie, listen to me. I couldn't manage everything on my own when I moved here last month. Jane happened to be free, so she came over to help. The keypad lock broke at the time.

"My hands were dirty when it was fixed, so I asked her to set the password for me. She was fooling around and insisted on using her own birthday. I was so exhausted that I didn't think much of it.

"I've been busy with my internship ever since, so I completely forgot to change it back."

Marcus spoke with such confidence, even managing to sound innocent and wronged.

I looked inside the apartment.

Everything had been decorated exactly according to my taste: the cream-colored sofa, the natural wood coffee table, and even the little swing on the balcony that I had told him so many times I wanted.

Yet, the front-door password was linked to another girl.

I shook off his hand and asked coldly, "Marcus. A girl came into her senior's future marital home and set her own birthday as the password. Do you really think that's just fooling around?"

Marcus frowned deeply as his tone became sharp and impatient. "Yvette, when are you going to stop? I've explained this to you so many times. I only see Jane as a sister. She's only 20, and it's tough for her out here on her own. Should I not look out for her?

"I spend every day studying and working myself to the bone for our future. Yet, here you are, putting on wedding dresses and running around doing whatever you want. Don't you think you're being selfish?"

Selfish? Me?

I had been eating buttered noodles every day just to save enough money for train tickets to come see him. I had stayed up through several nights to finish my assignments so I could squeeze out enough time to visit him on the weekend. Yet in the end, I was the selfish one.

Suddenly, I no longer had the strength to argue.

I walked into the bathroom and looked at the matching toothbrushes arranged neatly beside the sink, one pink and one blue.

A few days ago, Marcus had even deliberately taken a picture and sent it to me. 'Evie, look. Everything's ready. We're just waiting for you to come over and move in.'

But the photo had failed to capture the bottle of makeup remover. It was a brand I'd never used in my life, and it was sitting beside them.

Marcus followed my gaze, and his face instantly went pale. "Um… Jane left that behind when she came over to help with the big cleanup last time…"

I was done listening to another one of his excuses, so I picked up the makeup remover and casually tossed it into the trash can beside me.

"Disgusting," I said quietly, but I wasn't sure if I was referring to the makeup remover or something else entirely.

That night, I simply sat on the sofa like that the entire night instead of taking off my wedding dress.

In the beginning, Marcus kept trying to placate me in a soft, apologetic voice.

But after a long time without receiving even the slightest response, he went into the bedroom and slammed the door shut, apparently intending to protest with his trump card—the silent treatment.

I touched the rusted pull tab around my ring finger. It was the same one Marcus had given me the first time he proposed.

Back then, he had been secretly fiddling with something beneath the desk behind my back while we were still in class.

He refused to confess what he was doing even when the teacher called him out on it and made him stand at the front with a flushed face for half the class.

It wasn't until graduation day that he finally took it out and solemnly slipped it onto my ring finger.

"I'm locking you down early, so you can't run away," he had said at the time.

Fellow students watching nearby started cheering and teasing us, but Marcus' expression was utterly serious.

"Evie, wait for me. Once I graduate and find a good job, I'll definitely give you a real diamond ring."

I had never taken the ring off even once for the past four years.

The pull tab had left a dark mark around my finger that couldn't be washed away, just like the scar Marcus had left in my heart. Without me realizing it, it had already festered.

Alas, it seemed that I might never get that real diamond ring after all.

And… I would never be able to redeem those 500 train tickets again.