Chapter 6

Caleb stared at me in disbelief.

Then he gave a cold scoff, every trace of warmth vanishing from his face.

"If you're going to lie, at least make it believable. What major company would be stupid enough to hire her? Stop playing along with this."

His arrogance immediately set everyone off, and several of my friends shot to their feet.

I grabbed their arms and told them to calm down.

Yara, meanwhile, rushed in front of Caleb as though she needed to protect him, her face full of injured innocence.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked for that shrimp. Please don't fight with Caleb because of me."

Then she turned to me.

"Yvette, you don't have to pretend you're moving overseas just to make Caleb chase after you, and you definitely don't need to gather all these people here to embarrass him. I'll leave."

She turned and ran out.

Caleb shot me a glare and immediately went after her.

"All this over one piece of shrimp? Yvette, you're getting more childish by the day. We'll settle this when I get home."

Everyone was furious.

For the rest of dinner, the conversation consisted almost entirely of how fake Yara was and how blind and arrogant Caleb had become.

By the end of the night, the knot in my chest had loosened considerably.

As we were leaving, everyone hugged me one by one and wished me a safe trip.

I went home in a cab, still carrying the warmth of their kindness with me.

When I walked into the living room, Yara was wearing my pajamas. Her hair was damp, and Caleb was standing behind her, drying it with a towel.

The second he saw me, he dropped the towel and stumbled over his explanation.

"You're back? Yara fell after she ran out earlier and got mud all over herself, so I brought her here to take a shower."

Sometimes I genuinely couldn't understand him.

He was clearly crossing every possible line with Yara, yet he still went out of his way to invent excuses for me.

Then he caught the smell of alcohol on me and frowned.

"Yara was that upset because of you, and you still went drinking?"

There had been a time when I would have given anything just to get him to talk to me a little longer.

Now the sound of his voice made me sick.

Yara tugged at his sleeve and put on a concerned expression.

"Caleb, didn't you say you were going to talk things out with Yvette? Don't start fighting with her..."

Having someone there to "calm him down" only seemed to encourage him.

"Yvette, I've already put up with you giving me the silent treatment. Now you're getting your trashy friends to gang up on Yara and trying to pressure me into marriage again? I guess birds of a feather really do flock together."

Then he dragged my mother into it.

"And your mom too. I've sent her message after message, and she hasn't replied to a single one. All because I made you two get out of the car that day? She faked being sick, and somehow she's still the victim?"

To everyone else, Caleb was the untouchable CEO who barely showed emotion.

With me, he never gave an inch.

I truly didn't want to fight with him.

Then he mentioned my mother, and everything I'd been holding back surged up at once. My eyes burned red.

"My mom wasn't faking anything. She isn't replying because she's already..."

"Wasn't faking?"

Caleb actually laughed, his face full of contempt.

"Yvette, do you think I'm three years old?

"What are the odds? She suddenly develops end-stage heart failure, says she wants to see you in a wedding dress, and pressures me into agreeing to marry you. Then one little invitation is enough to trigger another episode? What is she made of, paper?

"Could you and your mother give me some space for once? I can barely breathe around you!"

I stared at him, unable to believe what I was hearing.

Back in college, his deadbeat father had thrown him out with nothing.

My mother had worked in the cafeteria then. She was the one who secretly slipped him extra food and made sure he had hot meals, giving him some small sense of home when he had nowhere else to go.

That was how Caleb and I had met in the first place.

Back then, he'd been grateful to her.

Now there was nothing left in his eyes but disgust.

I finally lost control and argued back.

It started with him marrying Yara and spiraled into everything else I'd swallowed over the years, including the time I'd had surgery for appendicitis, and he'd claimed he was too busy working to come to the hospital, only to go out to dinner with Yara instead.

He snapped right back, accusing me of being dramatic and difficult, saying I wasn't worth so much as a single strand of Yara's hair.

At the height of the argument, he grabbed the nearest thing and hurled it across the room.

It shattered against the floor.

It was one of the matching figurines we'd flown to a famous pottery town to make for our third anniversary.

The crash snapped me back to reality.

So this was what love looked like at the end.

Nothing but wreckage scattered across the floor.

Yara, who had been watching the whole thing from a safe distance, suddenly shifted her eyes and crouched to pick up the broken pieces.

"Please stop fighting. This is all my fault. Ow..."

She sucked in a sharp breath.

Caleb's expression changed instantly. All his anger vanished as he grabbed her hand.

"Are you hurt? Let me bandage it."

Yara shook her head sweetly, then looked over at me and silently mouthed:

[You lost.]

I watched Caleb fuss over her as though she were made of glass.

Then I turned around, went to the bedroom, and started packing.

The more I packed, the more my eyes burned.

Three days ago, I'd thought I was the happiest woman in the world.

I was about to marry the man I loved, and my mother was still beside me.

Now I had nothing.

Then I pulled out the knitted beanie Caleb had given me the year before, and another sharp ache went through my chest.

For seven years, we'd struggled through so much together. We'd survived one hardship after another without ever imagining we'd let go of each other's hands.

Things were finally supposed to get better.

So when had he changed?

A mocking laugh from the doorway pulled me out of my thoughts.

Yara leaned against the frame, watching me with a smirk.

"Yvette, you really love hanging on to that little reminder that he's been cheating on you, don't you?"