On the exact day of our anniversary, Declan wired fifteen thousand dollars to his first love. In the six years we had been together, he had never once transferred a single cent to me. Grief and a suffocating sense of injustice flooded my chest. For the first time in my life, I lost my mind. I screamed. I cried hysterically. Desperate to shut me up, he panicked and delivered a sharp, stinging slap across my face. “Are you done throwing a fit?” I spent the entire night sitting on the freezing hardwood floor, clutching my swollen, throbbing cheek in a dead daze. Outside the window, the streetlights flickered on, then died out. First thing the next morning, I packed my bags and walked out of the tiny apartment we had shared for six years. Three months later, the man who had never once bowed his head to anyone was kneeling at my door, begging for forgiveness. Only to watch me come home with my new husband. 1 A cold, damp chill hung in the air of the apartment. The elaborate anniversary dinner I had spent hours cooking sat on the table, completely untouched. Today was our six year anniversary. He had promised to come home early to celebrate with me. Instead, he made a last minute detour to his first love Lauren’s art studio, making a massive spectacle of wiring her fifteen thousand dollars. He had even opened our fridge, taken the anniversary cake I baked that afternoon, and casually justified it to me. “I know you don’t really have a sweet tooth anyway. Better not let it go to waste. I did you a favor.” Lauren had immediately posted a picture of my cake alongside a screenshot of the bank transfer on her Instagram story. The caption was a blatant flex. [No boyfriend for the holidays, but someone still sent me money and a cake hehe~] It was not that I disliked cake. It was that in our six years of dating, I, his actual girlfriend, had never even received a birthday cake from him. Let alone a random wire transfer of fifteen thousand dollars. The only time I ever asked him for money was when I maxed out my own paycheck buying groceries and household supplies for the both of us. I had to swallow my pride and beg him for help. Ever since then, he rigidly transferred me exactly five hundred dollars a month for “household expenses.” Compared to the fifteen grand he threw at Lauren without a second thought, my allowance was a joke. A sharp, burning cramp seized my empty stomach. I hunched over the dining table, breaking out in a cold sweat from the pain. That was exactly when Declan walked through the front door. He noticed me doubled over, his brows pulling together in a tight frown. He poured a glass of lukewarm water and set it near me. “Didn’t I tell you to eat first if you were hungry? Why wait for me?” I looked up at him. A bitter, numb sensation spread through my chest like poison. He had completely forgotten our plans. He had forgotten today was our anniversary. The only thing he remembered on this special day was to prepare a surprise for Lauren. My phone screen lit up with a direct message from Lauren. A pure provocation. “You do know, right? If Declan hadn’t made that promise to your conservative parents back then, he would be standing next to me right now.” “Harper, he only feels a sense of duty toward you. You have to be smart enough to see that.” I had received plenty of blunt messages like this from her over the past few months. I had always brushed them off. But this time, I could not find a single word to fight back. The fragile string holding my meticulously maintained relationship together suddenly snapped. Lauren was not wrong. Declan and I getting together was the result of a drunken accident. He never actually confessed his feelings to me. The morning after our messy, alcohol fueled mistake, my parents had shown up unannounced. They were old school, traditional folks. They sat him down at the square dining table and demanded he swear an oath. He had to marry me. He had to take responsibility. Deep down, I knew my parents had their own selfish motives. Declan was exceptionally handsome. Through casual conversation, he had revealed his wealthy background and his prestigious career as a surgeon. And me? I was painfully ordinary. The kind of girl who blended entirely into the background of any crowd. I fundamentally believed I was not good enough for Declan, yet I harbored this toxic, desperate hope. I hoped he would eventually fall in love with me. Declan did not let my parents down. He swore right then and there that he would eventually make me his wife and take full responsibility. Six years had passed, and he had kept his word. No matter how many arguments we had, he never once uttered the words, “Let’s break up. We aren’t working out.” But Lauren should never have known about that private promise. There was only one possible explanation. Declan had told her himself. I did not want to overthink it, but my mind was spiraling out of control. Did he also believe that all these years spent with me were just the heavy chains of a drunken mistake? A dense, suffocating pain radiated from my heart. I looked up at him, my eyes red, and asked a very serious question. “Have you ever loved me?” The silence that followed was agonizing. My heart pounded against my ribs. I had instinctively asked if he ever loved me, not if he loved me now. I had already subconsciously accepted the reality that Declan felt nothing for me anymore. A heavy, stifling atmosphere settled over the room. Declan frowned deeper, his voice laced with annoyance. “Can you stop being so dramatic? Fine, I’ll come home earlier next time.” Truth be told, for the past six years, Declan had been a homebody. He was always busy with the hospital, rarely going out. But lately, his schedule had shifted. The GPS history in his car showed that his most frequented destination was Lauren’s art studio. Some things were impossible to ignore, no matter how hard I tried to play dumb. I stood up, willingly tearing open this bloody wound. “I know Lauren. I know you went to see her today. I saw her Instagram.” I was never supposed to know Lauren. It happened one day when I was scouting pieces for a gallery exhibition. She looked at me with her bright, wide eyes, her face lighting up with pleasant surprise. “Oh! You’re the girlfriend Declan has been dating for six years, right? I’m his first love. He talks about you sometimes.” I was entirely average looking. Barely five feet tall with a softer, fuller figure. I was quiet, introverted, and terrible at making conversation. But Lauren was the exact opposite. She was radiant, sunny, and completely unapologetic. She could stand there and openly declare she was his first love without a shred of guilt. She made my insecurities feel like glaring spotlights. Later, scrolling through her social media, I discovered that the rigid, unromantic Declan who never planned surprises for me was actually a hopelessly romantic man in her world. He bought her gifts for every minor holiday. He sent her random cash drops just to make her smile. He took her to trendy restaurants she casually mentioned in passing. They looked perfectly happy. Perfectly in love. Even the way he looked at her in those photos held a soft tenderness he had never once directed at me. My heart felt like someone was taking a dull knife to it. I could not help but wonder. If my parents had not forced his hand back then, would we have broken up years ago? Because Declan had never treated me that well. He had never looked at me with that kind of warmth. Six years. Not once. Declan did not answer my question. His frown deepened into a scowl. “What Instagram post?” He was still playing dumb. I grabbed my phone and shoved the screen in his face. The woman’s gentle, victorious smile was right there. Anyone could feel her overflowing happiness through the pixels. My eyes brimmed with tears. I broke down, demanding an answer. “Why?” Why treat her better than me? Why send her money, plan surprises for her, and even ditch me on our six year anniversary for her? He glanced away from the screen, his tone completely indifferent. “Oh. I didn’t know she posted that.” Seeing my furious silence, he casually pivoted the conversation, brushing it off like dust on his shoulder. “It’s just fifteen grand. I wanted to give it to her, so I did. Do you really need to make such a big deal out of this?” Tears spilled out of my eyes, dropping heavily onto the cold, coagulated food on the table. “You think I shouldn’t make a big deal out of it? Everything you’ve given her these past six years… have you ever given any of that to me?” I swept a dinner plate off the table. It shattered against the floor, slicing through the dead silence of the room. Declan glared at me, his patience entirely evaporated. “Can you stop acting crazy? You’re ruining a perfectly good holiday.” I lowered my head, letting out a self deprecating laugh. “So you did remember what today was.” Honestly, I really hadn’t minded before. My father was a practical engineer, and so was Declan in his own medical way. My mother had raised me on the belief that men were the pillars of the household, and women were meant to be quiet, supportive wives behind the scenes. So during our years living together, I had grown used to giving everything and expecting nothing. I got used to his blunt, unromantic nature. I never cried. I never argued. I never demanded more. I silently took over all the household chores. I cooked every meal. I washed every dish. Even if he never bought me gifts or planned dates for the holidays, I thought it was fine. My dad was the same way. I assumed Declan was simply cut from the same cloth. But then Lauren’s social media proved me entirely wrong. Declan, the man who was supposedly as rigid and unmovable as a mountain, could easily be moved by a woman like Lauren. Just never by me. Outside, a torrential downpour began to pound against the windows. The chill in the apartment thickened. I looked at Declan, realizing for the first time just how fundamentally different we were. I finally woke up to how pathetic, subservient, and exhausted I had become in this relationship. I stood up, ignoring the violent churning in my stomach. I began screaming at him, desperate to drag every hidden resentment out into the light. I wanted to resolve it. I wanted to fix it. But as the words tumbled out, my overwhelming grief took over, and I started sobbing uncontrollably. Declan had probably never seen me like this. He was frantic to make me stop. In his blinding irritation, he swung his hand and slapped me across the face. “Are you done?” Clear. Loud. It hurt like hell, but it woke me up.
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