บททั้งหมดของ Seven Years Together, I'm the Fool: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

"Wow, Micah, your girlfriend's voice is incredible. She's absolutely crazy about you."The operations manager sitting next to Micah Brennan was the first to break the dead silence in the private dining room.Micah's hand jerked so hard that he nearly dropped his phone onto the table. He fumbled for the red button on the screen, but his fingertip was shaking too badly. It took him two tries to end the call."She was just… My girlfriend likes to mess around with pet names."Micah kept his head down, his voice thin and hollow. He wouldn't look anywhere near me."Oh, come on! There's nothing to be shy about. We're all adults here." Jenny Harris from HR said it with a laugh, but her eyes kept darting between Micah and me.I picked up the glass of water beside me and took a small sip. It had gone completely cold, sliding down my throat and settling into my stomach with a familiar dull ache."Yeah. That's nice." I set the glass down and glanced at Micah's white-knuckled grip on the t

The next morning, the mood in the conference room was off. Everyone could feel it.Audrey sat at the head of the table, flipping through the quarterly report. Micah was at the far end, wearing a sharply tailored suit and a gleaming five-figure watch on his wrist. He looked like he owned the place."I've made a few changes to the core project assignments for next quarter." Audrey closed the report and swept her gaze across the room."The clean energy deal that Evan's been running will be handed over to Micah," she declared.The room went quiet.I had been on that deal for three solid months. I had lost count of how many all-nighters I pulled and how many times I drank myself sick at client dinners just to get them to sign.It was days away from closing, and the commission was practically mine. Yet Audrey waved it away with a single sentence."Ms. Sinclair, that's not really how this works." Ben couldn't take it and spoke up, even though it would clearly cost him. "Micah is still

Audrey's eyes locked on those words. The living room was deathly quiet. Her fingers tightened around the report without her realizing it, the paper crinkling under her grip."Stage IV gastric adenocarcinoma…" she murmured under her breath before letting out a sharp laugh."Evan Caldwell, you really will try anything to pressure me into marrying you. This is a new low, even for you."She tossed the report back onto the coffee table, her voice dripping with scorn. In her mind, I would always be the man who would stoop to anything to keep her.She pulled out her phone and dialed my number from muscle memory. All she got was an automated voice telling her the phone had been switched off.The amusement on her face faded a little.She walked to the bedroom door and shoved it open. The closet was half-open. A few of my clothes were missing, but every designer watch and tie she had ever bought me was lined up exactly where it had always been. Even the car keys on top of the drawer

Grant set down his pen and slowly looked up. He took in the woman standing before him, her eyes bloodshot and her hair disheveled, and let out a cold, humorless laugh."That's quite the devoted girlfriend act, Ms. Sinclair. Who's it for?"He stood up and met her eyes without flinching. "Where Evan is has nothing to do with you.""I'm his fiancee." Audrey ground the words out through clenched teeth."Fiancee?" Grant snatched a stack of scrap drafts off his desk and threw them straight at her face. The papers scattered across the floor, and the edge of one caught her cheek, leaving a thin line of blood."You don't get to use that word, Audrey Sinclair."Grant's voice was shaking with barely contained fury. "He spent an entire year eating nothing but cold bread with you, and it wrecked his stomach for good. You remember what you told him back then? You said you'd give him a good life someday."He was nearly shouting now. "And then you gave that good life to some fresh-out-of-coll

Audrey's plan to buy me more time fell apart in the end. After the elite team of oncologists she hired from across the globe reviewed my charts and scans, every single one of them shook their head."Ms. Sinclair, his organs are in full systemic failure." The attending physician stood outside my room, his voice heavy. "Any aggressive intervention at this point would only cause him more suffering. You should start making arrangements. It's only a matter of time."Audrey slid down the cold wall until she was sitting on the floor. She pressed both hands over her face, choking back a sob.She had a fortune worth hundreds of millions, had the kind of power that could make or break careers with a phone call, but none of it could buy me even one more day.Inside the room, my waking hours were shrinking. Most of the time, I was lost in a deep, unresponsive sleep.Audrey didn't leave my bedside for a second. She dabbed warm water over my cracked lips again and again, her touch impossibly ge