Chapter 4

Adrian really did come home, but he brought Vanessa with him.

The confetti I'd prepared for my "proposal" showered down, circling both of them instead. Once again, I became the joke.

Adrian's face darkened, his jaw tight as he brushed the confetti angrily from his shoulders. "Juliana! I must be insane. I knew you weren't right in the head, and I still agreed to come back!"

He turned, taking Vanessa by the hand, ready to leave.

Watching his retreating back, a thought struck me: was it the same ten years ago?

That night when I knelt on one knee and asked him to marry me, did he wear the same cold expression, the same look of annoyance, as he walked away and left me standing there alone?

I ran ahead, arms stretched wide to block his path. "No! You can't leave!"

His eyes filled with irritation. "Move. Haven't you made enough of a scene? Do you want Vanessa to laugh at you forever?"

Sure enough, Vanessa smiled at me, mockery glinting beneath her sweetness.

Shaking, I locked eyes with Adrian, emotions surging so hard I could barely breathe. "I don't care about Vanessa! I just want to know, do you love me or not? If you don't, then why marry me?

"And if you don't love me, Adrian, then why have you worn the bracelet I gave you for ten years?"

I pointed at the strip of warm, wood-brown peeking from his wrist.

When I was nineteen, I'd polished those beads by hand, climbed a thousand temple steps, begged the abbot to bless them. I'd given them to him as a birthday gift.

Adrian froze.

Vanessa let out a soft "Oh?" and tilted her head. "You gave him that bracelet? Adrian, wasn't that the one I brought back from overseas for you?"

The crash inside me was deafening.

I stared at Adrian, horrified. "What did she just say? That's my bracelet. Mine. Isn't it?"

His eyes flickered away, unable to meet mine. He even shifted his right hand behind him, as though to hide it. "Jules… don't make a scene…"

"I'm not making a scene! Let me see. Show me!"

Clutching his wrist, clinging to my last shred of hope, I turned the beads one by one.

Where our names should have been engraved—Adrian Halloway and Juliana Rowe—the letters had been altered. They spelled Vanessa Grant.

In that instant, I felt like the biggest fool alive. All my stubborn love, all my desperate persistence—it had been nothing but my own delusion.

I dropped to the ground, bawling like a child whose candy had been snatched away.

A crack split through Adrian's expression, panic flashing across his face. Instinctively, he took a step toward me. Then his eyes landed on something on the floor, and he stopped cold.

It was the "ring" I'd planned to propose with.

The last clear fragment of my twenty-year-old self was me slipping a soda can pull-tab onto his finger and grinning as I said, "Adrian Halloway, if you wear my ring, you're mine. So, will you marry me?"

Back then, his dark eyes had held nothing but me.

Maybe Adrian remembered it, too. His fingers twitched. His gaze fixed on that simple "ring" and lingered, unmoving.

I don't know when Adrian and Vanessa left, or how long I cried.

Later, sitting at my desk in the wash of moonlight, I finally opened the Pandora's box of a journal.

May 21, 2015. Not only did I propose, but I also married Adrian Halloway! I want the whole world to know! I, Juliana Rowe, am no longer a lovesick fool. I'm Mrs. Halloway!