Chapter 5 The Things He Forgot

The bedroom door swung open the next morning, and Marcus stepped out fully dressed.

When he saw that I was still sitting on the sofa, he froze for a moment before a flicker of guilt crossed his eyes.

He walked over and habitually reached out to pat my head. "Evie, are you still mad?"

I turned my head away, avoiding his hand.

Marcus' hand remained suspended in midair. He sighed before softening his tone.

"I was out of line yesterday. I've been so busy preparing for my thesis defense these past few days, and I was just exhausted.

"It's my graduation today. You can stay home and rest if you don't feel like going. Wait for me, alright? I ordered delivery from your favorite place—the one with the loaded baked potato soup."

The doorbell rang the next second.

Marcus went to answer the door, assuming that the soup he ordered had arrived, only to be greeted by a deliveryman holding a garment bag instead.

"Sorry, you are…"

I walked straight over and took it from the deliveryman.

Marcus glanced at the bag, and then at the wedding dress I was still wearing, which was still stained and dirty. He gave me a helpless smile. "Next time, don't wear something so complicated. Something ordinary is best."

He didn't know that the "complicated outfit" he was talking about was a wedding dress I had deliberately saved up for by cutting back on food because I had been planning to say yes when he proposed.

Now, I didn't want to tell him.

I simply lowered my head and began undoing the elaborate lacing at the back of the dress.

My fingers were stiff after sitting still all night. The rusted pull tab around my ring finger accidentally caught on the lace. I tugged at it harshly, causing the pull-tab ring I had worn for four years to break with a crisp snap.

The sharp edge of the aluminum sliced into my finger, and blood immediately welled from the wound, dripping onto my wedding dress.

"Ouch…" I gasped in pain.

Marcus immediately turned around upon hearing me yelp. When he saw the blood on my hand, he frowned and hurried over, taking hold of my wrist. "How could you be so careless?"

I watched the beads of blood steadily welling from my fingertip, and was suddenly reminded of my sophomore year.

I had accidentally gotten a tiny cut from a sheet of A4 paper, so shallow it hadn't even drawn visible blood. Marcus had panicked as though I had suffered a serious injury.

He had run to every pharmacy outside campus even though it was in the middle of the night, buying a pile of bandages and a bottle of iodine.

From then on, he had always kept several bandages in his wallet.

"Do you have a bandage?" I asked softly.

Marcus instinctively reached for his wallet, but his hand stopped halfway. "I used them all. Jane scraped her ankle a couple of days ago, so I gave them to her. Just press a tissue against it for now."

My heart went completely cold right then, so much so that I could no longer feel the pain in my finger.

Just then, Marcus' phone rang. The cheerful ringtone could only mean that it was set specifically.

Marcus glanced at me before deliberately slipping out onto the balcony to answer the call. "What's wrong, Jane?"

"Marcus, my thesis got rejected again." Jane's voice on the other end was choked with tears. "My advisor said I have to revise it by this morning… But my computer crashed. Where are you? Can you come over…"

Marcus immediately straightened and glanced at his watch. "Don't cry. I'm coming over right now. Bring your USB drive and wait for me on the first floor of the library."

Once he hung up, he hurriedly blurted, "Evie, Jane needs my help. It could affect whether she graduates, so I have to go. Once I'm done with the graduation ceremony this afternoon, I'll take you out for a nice dinner tonight to make it up to you."

He didn't look again at my bleeding hand. He simply hurried out and slammed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the silent apartment.

I walked to the dining table and opened the food he had ordered.

My eyes fell on the bunch of chives floating on top of the loaded baked potato soup.

That was when I knew that he'd forgotten I hated chives as well.

I threw the untouched pot of soup into the trash, pulled out a sheet of tissue, and casually wrapped it around my finger.

The broken pull-tab ring lay quietly on the floor.

I looked at it for a moment before decisively throwing it into the trash, too.