Chapter 2

Felicity and I had been together since the night of our high school graduation.

At the party, she drank a lot, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glittering like stars. She grabbed my hand and slurred, "Wanna be my boyfriend? We're going to the same college. We'll be together forever."

Back then, she was the girl everyone noticed, and I'd been nursing a crush on her for three years. So, when my teenage dreams were coming true, I nodded without hesitation.

That night, she was electric, dragging me in front of our classmates. "Guys! Malcolm is my boyfriend now."

The crowd whooped and teased, and my ears burned red all night.

I thought we'd always be that way—she doting on me, and my world revolving around her. It felt like a fairy tale, too perfect to last.

Then college ended, and she went abroad for graduate school. That was when Julian Hogan entered the picture.

Her texts became short, her calls rare. I felt her slipping away, but I didn't want to believe it.

Then a friend sent me photos of Felicity and Julian strolling hand in hand, sharing kisses in the street.

She'd skip classes to be with him and get into fights defending him. Julian, with his brooding charm, would get plastered and lean on her, their fingers intertwined. He'd throw fits when she contacted me and sped on the road to chase her.

I was the punchline, watching from thousands of miles away.

When Felicity came back to the country, Julian trailed her like a lost puppy.

Her parents couldn't stand him, especially since I'd cared for her sick mother during her absence. They were touched and treated me like family.

Forced to dump Julian, Felicity blamed me, ignoring that I was her first love, the one who stayed despite her betrayal.

Even knowing she cheated, I didn't walk away. I loved her so deeply that I kept swallowing my pride and lowering my boundary.

I was pathetic, and she knew it, exploiting it to hurt me again and again, until I hit my breaking point.

When I got home that night, my mom saw the defeat in my eyes. She reached for my hand, but my dad cut in, his face dark with frustration.

"I told you to ditch her, but you let her break you first!" he said harshly.

But I heard the concern beneath it. I shouldn't have let it go this far.

My mom shot him a look to cool it, but he kept going. "Once you're over this, you're going to manage our overseas branch."

I was their only child, meant to take over our family business. My dad had been pushing me to manage our international branches, but I'd always said no, too tangled up with Felicity.

This time, I looked him in the eye and agreed without hesitation.

Their shock was palpable. Maybe they thought it was just talk, or that I'd choose Felicity over them again. Like anyone else, they believed I'd throw everything away for her. But she trampled on that love like it was nothing.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

Later that night, Felicity showed up outside my house, playing the repentant martyr.

Earlier, I'd already seen Julian's latest post. It was a smug shot of her tying his shoelaces, captioned, [Still treating me like a kid after all these years.]

His feed was a shrine to how much Felicity adored him, every post timestamped during our engagement parties, when she bolted on his calls.

There she was now, standing in the pouring rain. It was her go-to move every time.

My mom peered through the window, torn between pity and fear I'd cave. My dad slammed his coffee mug on the table, terrified I'd stay for her.

I gave my mom a small nod and stepped out. The rain battered my umbrella as I held it over Felicity's head. She looked up, not with relief but with smug certainty, as if she knew I'd come.

"I get that you're upset. But Julian could've really hurt himself. I couldn't let him die because of me," she said, her excuse as flimsy as ever.

I used to eat it up, like a fool under her spell. Now those rehearsed lines stirred nothing.

I simply handed her the umbrella, my voice flat. "You really think he'd do it? Funny how he only pulls this crap on our engagement days."