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Chapter 88

Penulis: Tear stained lore
last update Tanggal publikasi: 2026-04-29 14:19:12
Maria:

He did not raise his voice. He did not need to.

The room behind him was still warm and loud and comfortably careless. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed too hard at something Marcus had probably said. My mother was still talking to Daniel’s mother with the kind of intensity usually reserved for political negotiations and floral arrangements. Nothing had changed. And yet somehow everything had.

I looked at him, then at the phone in his hand.

He turned the screen toward me just enough
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  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 88

    Maria: He did not raise his voice. He did not need to. The room behind him was still warm and loud and comfortably careless. Glasses clinked. Someone laughed too hard at something Marcus had probably said. My mother was still talking to Daniel’s mother with the kind of intensity usually reserved for political negotiations and floral arrangements. Nothing had changed. And yet somehow everything had. I looked at him, then at the phone in his hand. He turned the screen toward me just enough. “WALKER HEIR SEEN WITH SUSPECTED EX BOYFRIEND, NOAH. CLOSURE TALK OR REKINDLING?” Another headline sat beneath it. “WALKER HEIR SEEN IN PRIVATE PARK WITH RUMORED EX WHILE ENGAGED TO ROTHFIELD BILLIONAIRE SON.” For one brief, ugly second, all I could think was Evelyn. Of course. Of course she had smiled like that. Of course her surprise had arrived dressed as gossip and timed for maximum damage. I lifted my head and found her across the room. Champagne in one hand. That same pol

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 87

    Maria: I answered Daniel the next morning because at some point ignoring him had started to feel less principled and more juvenile. His messages were still there when I opened my phone. Practical. Clean. Three simple questions about the house, as if we were discussing a renovation and not the architecture of an entire life I had not fully admitted was about to become mine. “Would you like anything changed before you move in?” “Do you need a workspace?” “What would make it feel more like yours?” I stared at them longer than I should have. Morning light spilled across the kitchen counter, warm on the marble. Then I typed the first honest answer that came to mind. “A room with natural light. Shelving. Somewhere quiet enough to think.” I read it once, nearly deleted it, then sent it. His reply came almost immediately. “Done.” I frowned at the screen. Then another message. “Anything else?” I should not have smiled. It was barely eight in the morning and I was standing in my k

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 86

    Maria: Three days after the engagement, I learned two things very quickly. The first was that people became deeply invested in your personal life the second a ring appeared on your finger. The second was that half of them would absolutely use a sick pet as an excuse to ask invasive questions with a straight face. By Wednesday the clinic had become unbearable. A woman brought in a perfectly healthy golden retriever, let me examine him for ten full minutes, then asked if Daniel Rothfield was as attractive in person as he looked in photographs. A man with a cat who very clearly just needed less food spent more time congratulating me than listening to anything I said about his pet’s diet. One woman came in, looked at my hand before she looked at my face, and asked if the wedding would be before summer. By noon I had handed my schedule to Ada and given up entirely. She took the file from me, scanned the afternoon bookings, and looked at me over the top of it. “Congratulations. You’re of

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 85

    Maria: By the time Noah sent the location, I already knew agreeing had been a bad idea. That did not stop me from going. It was the park, which felt pointed in the way only familiar places can when you return to them under the wrong circumstances. The same one we used to end up in when neither of us wanted to go home yet, when everything between us was still easy enough to leave unnamed and still be understood. I got there early, which should have told me something. I was late to almost everything, not disastrously, just enough to be consistent and faintly annoying. Noah used to account for it without complaint. Lily called it a personality defect. My mother called it poor upbringing. I called it manageable. And yet there I was, sitting on a bench we had claimed through nothing but repetition, ten minutes before I needed to be, waiting for a man I had already said goodbye to. That was how I knew this was costing me more than I wanted to admit. The park hadn’t changed. Same path, s

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 84

    Maria: By the time Noah sent the second text, Daniel was already watching me. Not obviously, that was never his style. He didn’t reach or lean or ask too quickly. He just noticed, and somehow that was always worse than anything more obvious would have been. My phone lit up again. Noah: Can we meet? I stared at the screen a second too long, and Daniel set his coffee down. “You’ve gone quiet.” I slipped the phone face down on the table. “Noah texted. He wants to meet.” That got his attention in the smallest possible way. Nothing dramatic, just stillness, the kind that always meant he was thinking too much and saying too little. He nodded once, like I had confirmed something inconvenient, then stood and reached for his coat. “Don’t.” “That wasn’t a suggestion.” “It was advice.” “You have a very strange way of giving it.” “And you have a very consistent habit of ignoring useful things.” He held my chair out for me anyway, calm as ever, and I stood slowly, already irritat

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 83

    Maria: Noah’s name sits on my screen long enough to make everything else in the room feel briefly irrelevant. “You’re marrying Daniel Rothfield?” I read the message once, then again, slower this time, as if the words might rearrange themselves into something easier to answer if I give them enough time. They do not. Same sentence. Same disbelief. No accusation, which somehow feels worse. Morning light filters through the windows, catching on the new ring and throwing tiny lavender reflections across the table. Lily is still talking. Something about coffee. Something about not letting Daniel parade me around the city before I have had enough caffeine to survive it. I hear maybe half of it. The rich, bitter scent of her espresso drifts between us. I am still staring at Noah’s name. Because this, somehow, feels more consequential than the headlines. More than the photographs. More than the ring still sitting on my hand like evidence. The metal feels cool and foreign against my skin,

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 37

    Maria: His name sits on my screen like a question I’m not ready to answer. I don’t pick up immediately. I stare at it, thumb hovering, like I need a few more seconds to gather myself into something presentable. Something that doesn’t sound like I just cried hard enough to give myself a headache.

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 34

    Maria: Isabelle does not do quiet events. I should have known that before we even got here, but the moment the car turns into the driveway, it becomes obvious. Lights everywhere. Not harsh, not loud, just… intentional. The kind that makes everything look softer and more expensive than it probably

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 29

    Maria: Lily is still talking when the car slows to a stop. She has been talking since we left my room. About my dress, about my hair, about how if anyone cries tonight it should be me and not my mother because apparently that would be “on brand.” I let her fill the space because it keeps me from

  • What We Pretended To Be    Chapter 19

    Daniel:I don’t check my phone when I wake up.That part is intentional.There’s a rhythm to my mornings — quiet, ordered, predictable. If I start letting small things interrupt it, everything else follows. I’ve learned that the hard way.So I get up. Shower. Dress. Coffee.Same sequence. Same pace

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