Chapter 1

The moment those words left the speaker, the lively atmosphere around us died instantly. The room fell into a suffocating silence.

Brady Campbell snatched the phone back and hung up immediately. His face had gone deathly pale, the look of a man who had no idea how to explain himself.

Then his phone rang again.

Whoever was calling seemed terrified that something had happened to him and kept dialing without pause.

A chill spread through my entire body as I slowly lifted my head.

"Are you going to answer it yourself, or should I do it for you?"

Sensing the tension, the others hurried to smooth things over.

"This has to be some kind of misunderstanding."

"Come on, everybody knows Brady would do anything for you. Hell, he once took a knife for you."

We had grown up together. Somewhere along the way, we'd become two of the most important people in each other's lives.

When a gang of street thugs was extorting me, he was the one who came to save me. He was stabbed eleven times and came terrifyingly close to being paralyzed. For a while, we weren't even sure he'd wake up again.

When I stood there with tears in my eyes, drowning in guilt, he had simply patted me on the shoulder without a trace of regret.

"You're my best friend. I'll never let anyone hurt you."

The friendship I had once believed was unbreakable, the bond I thought would last until death itself, was now splintering apart before my eyes.

Under everyone's urging, Brady finally answered the call.

But the voice on the other end remained painfully familiar. If anything, it carried a concern she had never once shown me.

"Honey, what happened? Why did you hang up without saying anything? Where are you? I'm coming to get you."

The room went silent. No one tried to defend him anymore.

Sympathetic glances landed on me one after another, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe.

I stumbled out of the private room and bent over against the wall, dry heaving violently.

Then, through my blurred vision, I saw a figure I knew all too well.

Josephine, who had told me she was overseas pursuing her studies, was standing right in front of me. She paused for a moment when she saw me, but her expression barely changed, as though I were nothing more than a stranger.

Brady hurried out after me. He opened his mouth to speak, only to freeze when he saw her standing there.

"When did you get here?" Josephine draped the jacket she'd brought over his shoulders.

The gesture was effortless and natural. It was the kind of familiarity only shared by a couple who had loved each other for years.

"I was worried about you, so I followed your phone's location."

I suddenly laughed. There was nothing in my eyes but mockery.

When I got into that car accident years ago, my phone had automatically sent her my location, too. It told her I was in danger, but she never came.

Instead, she disappeared from my world completely, leaving behind nothing but a hollow promise.

"When I come back from studying abroad, I'll marry you."

And so, through the three years I spent battling depression, she never appeared once.

She only transferred money on schedule, as though money could make up for the empty space she'd left behind.

Only now did I realize the truth. The reason she hadn't been by my side during those three years was that she had been by his.

She disappeared from my life. Yet somehow, she was everywhere in it.

Every year on their anniversary, Brady would leave his son, Owen Campbell, with me for the day. Owen was still young and terrible at keeping secrets. He talked endlessly about his mom and dad.

"Mom is so good to Dad. Whenever Dad says he misses her, she'll fly back overnight just to see him.

"When Dad got sick, Mom stayed beside him the whole time, taking care of him. She even cried when she thought nobody was looking.

"Even when I'm going to school, Mom doesn't want Dad waking up early, so she takes me to kindergarten herself!"

Sometimes, when I looked at Owen's innocent face, I thought I could see traces of Josephine in him.

My throat would tighten as I smiled and told him honestly, "Your dad is lucky. I'm jealous he's always had someone by his side."

Now those words felt unbearably ironic.

The friend who spent his days sitting beside my hospital bed while I fought my way through depression... spent his nights sleeping beside the woman I loved.