The Season after You

Staring at the photo, Mark Stevenson felt a lump in his throat. As it turned out, accompanying Ryan Davis’s son to the amusement park was her so-called urgent matter.

A sharp pain stabbed his chest, and a mixture of humiliation and rage made his entire body tremble. Just as he was about to call Claire Baker to confront her, he noticed the comment section under the post, where mutual friends had started teasing her.

[After all these years, Claire still has a soft spot for Ryan.]

Ryan quickly replied with a lengthy comment. [All these years later, Claire is still the kindest person I know. We agreed to meet at seven, but I overslept, so she stood downstairs waiting for three whole hours with zero complaints. Then, she took us out for some fine dining. I heard she drove down to the restaurant the day before just to get a reservation.]

Someone immediately chimed in. [Is this really the same Claire Baker who canceled an intern’s qualification just because they were five minutes late on a rainy day?]

[He’s the only one who can make her toss out all her rules. The rest of us shouldn’t even dream of it.]

Right after that, her best friend chimed in. [Weren’t you supposed to get married to Mark today? You’ve stood him up seven times. You didn’t ditch him again, did you?]

Ryan replied with a terrified emoji. [Oh no! I completely forgot Claire was supposed to get married today! Leo wanted to ride the Ferris wheel, and Claire insisted on staying with us. I’ll tell her to head back right now.]

Directly underneath his comment, Claire’s reply appeared. [It doesn’t matter when we get married. It’s just a formality anyway. It’s no big deal.]

Someone joked. [Honestly, you might as well just swap the groom out for Ryan instead.]

Claire replied to that comment instantly. [Quit joking. Let’s not get Ryan in trouble.]

Another person chimed in. [Um… Mark isn’t going to see these comments, is he?]

Claire replied. [It doesn’t matter. It’s not easy for Ryan to raise a child on his own, so I should help out. Mark has always been generous and understanding. He’ll get it.]

As Mark stared at the comments on the screen, his fingers, clenched around the phone, turned white.

Over their six years together, even though she was assertive, rigid, and lacking tenderness, she always remembered all of his preferences. He, in turn, admired her independence, sincerity, and straightforwardness.

She used to say, “I might seem cold and don’t know how to express my feelings, but I will fulfill every promise I make to you.”

He had genuinely believed that was the full extent of her love. Yet, in the mere two weeks since Ryan returned, she had broken her promise to get married eight times. Compared to what she felt for Ryan, her so-called love for Mark was nothing but worthless.

While he sat in the city hall waiting for her to show up, she stood outside Ryan’s building, patiently waiting for him to wake up.

While he sat there on an empty stomach, she treated Ryan to fine dining—a meal he had once wanted to take her out for, only for her to dismiss it as too much of a hassle and too expensive.

While he endured the staff’s stares and subtle whispers, she spent the day at the amusement park with Ryan and his son.

At that exact moment, he suddenly found it all pointless.

Someone tapped on the glass window in front of him once again.

“Son, we’re closing up for the day. You’ve been here eight times now. Next time, make sure to double-check the time with your fiancée so you don’t end up waiting all by yourself like a fool.”

Mark lifted his head and let out a self-deprecating smile. “I’m done waiting.”

With that, he walked out of the city hall, pulled out the wedding ring, and tossed it straight into the trash.

Since getting married was just a formality anyway, why marry at all?