I was trying on wedding dresses when my best friend Avery asked me: “Ten years with Cole. Why are you marrying someone else all of a sudden?” My fingers went still on the veil. “Because of a high school reunion.” Three days earlier, Cole had texted me before the reunion. *No one knows about us yet. I don’t want those guys making a scene. Let’s go in separately.* I texted back, *Okay.* Then I watched him walk in with Madison on his arm. She’d been our high school cheerleading captain, the kind of blonde so golden she could’ve stepped off the yearbook page. Her smile hadn’t changed at all. All night, everyone gossiped about them. “Cole, you two finally hooked up?” “I always knew they’d end up together.” Faced with all that noise, he didn’t explain. Didn’t deny a thing. He just waved them off with a smile. “Cut it out. Madi gets embarrassed easy.” Every laugh, every wolf whistle echoed through that banquet hall and straight into my chest. I stared at them for a long time. Then I pulled out my phone and deleted the message I’d never sent. *Actually, I’m his girlfriend.* Ten years together, and our relationship had always been underground. His coworkers didn’t know. His basketball buddies didn’t know. His family had never even heard my name. He couldn’t give me a real title. But he had no problem letting someone else think she could have one. In that moment, I suddenly realized that a love where simply standing beside him in public felt like asking too much… probably wasn’t worth holding onto anymore. I sent my family a text. **I’ll do it. I’ll move back to Nashville. I’ll meet this Nathan.** Avery listened. Tears welled in her eyes. She wrapped her arms around me, her voice thick. “Elena, that’s all behind you now. You’re about to be the most beautiful bride.” I looked at myself in the mirror, draped in white silk. She was right. I looked beautiful. Just not for Cole. *** By the time Avery and I said goodbye outside the bridal shop, the sky had gone fully dark. A Chicago winter. The wind off Lake Michigan cut straight through my collar, wet and bone-deep. I pulled my coat tighter and stood at the curb waiting for an Uber, my fingers going numb. The little car icon on my screen barely moved. *Beep.* A horn behind me. A black Range Rover pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down. Cole’s face. “Get in.” His voice was flat. No emotion I could read. I didn’t move. Just stood there looking at him for two seconds. His brow creased. “It’s ten below out here. How long are you planning to stand there?” I glanced down at my ankles, already red from the cold. No point hesitating. I opened the door and climbed in. The second the door shut, I regretted it. The passenger seat was reclined way back, almost lying flat. I’m not tall. Every time I got in his car, the first thing I’d do was pull the seat forward. Over time, his passenger side had molded itself to me. Now the seat was set for someone else. And there was a scent in the car I knew too well. Chanel. Floral. The most expensive one at the department store counter. The same fragrance that had swept past me at the reunion when Madison walked by. Something I thought I’d already numbed myself to twisted in my chest all over again. “Where were you?” He cranked up the heat as he asked. I didn’t answer. I forced the thoughts down and reached for the seat adjustment lever. This time, my fingers closed around a lipstick. YSL. Bold red. Loud as hell. Not my style. I looked at it, then dropped it in the glove compartment. Cole’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “Madison wasn’t feeling well today. I took her to Northwestern Immediate Care.” “Mm.” I fastened my seatbelt. “We were classmates for three years in high school. She just moved back from the West Coast, doesn’t know anyone. It’s normal for me to help out a little.” He was explaining himself. Ten years ago, I might have actually believed him. Too bad we’d been together too long. I knew exactly who Cole was. He couldn’t even be bothered to visit his own brother in a Milwaukee hospital because he hated the smell of disinfectant. When his buddy landed in the ER with alcohol poisoning and called him, he made excuses. He was never the caring type. Anything that didn’t involve him directly, he didn’t spare a second glance. And now he was telling me he wanted to take care of an old classmate. The irony. Ten years with me. How many times had he taken care of me? The corner of my mouth tugged. My voice came out quiet. “What about me?” “What?” I stared at the streetlights sliding past the window. Michigan Avenue. One after another, stretched into ribbons of light. Not a single one was lit for me. “What are we?” No answer. The car went silent. Just the hum of the heater blowing warm air. I waited. One second. Two. Three. Then he hit the gas. Like speed could leave the question behind. But some things you can’t outrun by stepping on a pedal. He pulled up to his apartment building in Lincoln Park. Killed the engine. Everything went quiet. He was silent a few seconds before he spoke. “I know you weren’t happy about the reunion. But there’s no point dragging it out.” “Then why didn’t you deny it that night?” “It wasn’t necessary. And Madi didn’t mind.” I laughed. His jaw tightened. His voice sharpened. “Elena, what the hell is going on with you today? Can we not do the drama thing?” Ten years. I spent ten years molding myself into the perfect, never-complaining cool girl. I didn’t fight. I didn’t check up on him. I didn’t demand a title. And now, after asking two questions, I was the one making a scene. I suddenly felt exhausted. I rolled down the window. Cold air rushed in, snowflakes stinging my face, sharp as a slap. It jolted me completely awake. I turned to look at him. His expression had settled back into that calm, unbothered mask. I knew what he was thinking. That I’d let it go. That I’d do what I always did. Be upset on my own, get over it by morning, make his breakfast like usual, walk his dog like usual. Show up when he needed me, disappear when he didn’t. But this time was different. “Cole.” “Yeah?” “There’s something I need to tell you.”
I opened my mouth. His phone rang. The name on the screen: Madison. Cole grabbed it and answered. I couldn’t make out the words on the other end. Just a woman’s voice, muffled and tearful. Cole’s face went visibly pale. “Okay. Don’t move. I’m on my way.” He hung up without once looking at me. “Madi’s fever got worse. I have to go. You head upstairs.” He was already unbuckling my seatbelt as he said it, already pushing my door open. He didn’t give me a chance to speak. The door slammed shut. The engine roared. The taillights dragged two red arcs through the dark. They shrank smaller and smaller until they turned the corner and vanished. I stood at the foot of the apartment building, watching until the last trace of light disappeared. I’d wanted to exercise my girlfriend rights one last time before I left. To look him in the eye and end things properly. He couldn’t spare me three minutes. I dragged my leaden legs upstairs and collapsed onto the couch. The living room was dark. The only light came from his MacBook, still glowing on the coffee table. I glanced over. The computer was awake. An iMessage window open on the desktop. Madison. Two lines sat there quietly. *Cole, Jake and the guys are all over the comments saying we’re a thing. They want you to take everyone out for drinks.* The message was timestamped half an hour ago. His reply right below it. *No big deal. I’ll book a table at RPM sometime and buy them a round.* I stared at those two lines for a long time. My eyes started to sting. What was I doing half an hour ago? I thought about it. I’d been at the bridal shop, confirming the satin gown. My gaze caught a folder on the desktop. One word: “Madi.” My heart skipped. My hand moved on its own. Double-clicked. A password prompt. My fingers trembled as I typed in Madison’s birthday. It opened. The folder spread across the screen. Album after album. Madison in Iceland. The aurora behind her, green ribbons falling from the sky. She was wrapped in a white parka, smiling like a snow angel. His caption in the corner: *Iceland, December 2016. She said she had to see the Northern Lights at least once in her life.* Madison in Paris. An apron around her waist, standing at an oven, holding a tray of croissants. Golden and flaky. Caption: *Paris, August 2020. She’s taking a baking class. Said she wants to make breakfast for the person she loves someday.* Madison holding an orange cat, pressing her cheek to its forehead, eyes crinkled in a smile. Caption: *May 2021. Her cat, Lucky. He ran away later. She cried for a whole week.* Madison’s finger wrapped in a Band-Aid. Next to it, a fruit knife and an apple, half-cut. Caption: *March 2022. Cut herself slicing fruit. She’s always so clumsy.* Every photo had a watermark from a different social platform. Instagram screenshots. Facebook saves. Some pulled from her VSCO. He’d saved them all. Labeled every one with dates and locations. Some photos had clearly been cropped. The people beside her cut out. Only she remained. I scrolled down. My hands shook harder and harder. My fingers froze on the trackpad. Then I did something I didn’t expect. I opened my own photo album and started scrolling through ten years with Cole. No Iceland. No Paris. The furthest we’d ever gone was a drive to watch the sunrise on the shore of Lake Michigan. I’d woken up at four in the morning to make sandwiches and coffee. He complained the whole drive about waking up too early. When we got there, he slept in the car for two hours. I sat alone on the rocks by the water and watched the entire sunrise. I didn’t even have a single photo of us together. The only one I had was a shot I’d taken in secret, his profile while he slept. In the kitchen trash, the Eggs Benedict I’d made him that morning. He’d taken one bite, said the hollandaise was too heavy. The time my acute gastroenteritis had me doubled over in pain and I called him. He said he was playing ball. Told me to drink more hot water. I looked back at the last photo on the screen. Three days ago. The reunion. A picture of the two of them together. He stood beside her, head tilted toward her, the corner of his mouth lifted. Not a big smile. But there was light in his eyes. A line of text underneath, dated that day. No extra words. Just four. *She’s back.* That’s when I understood. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to love someone. He just didn’t want to love me. Tears hit the keyboard with a dull thud. No warning at all. I buried my face in my hands, fingers digging into my scalp, curling into myself. A laugh clawed out of my throat first, short and ugly. Then the laugh broke into sobs I couldn’t hold back. I wasn’t crying for our ten years. I was crying for the girl who didn’t even have a name in his story. Silence. Just the sound of my own strangled crying. The computer screen was the only light in the room. That folder sat right in the center of his desktop, like he hadn’t even thought to hide it. Or maybe he thought I’d always be obedient. That I’d never touch his things. After all these years, I never looked through his phone. Never read his messages. Never asked where he went or who he was with. I thought that was trust. Respect. The most basic boundary between two people. Now I knew the truth. It wasn’t trust. It was stupidity. I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough for the screen to dim to black again. Long enough for the weight of it to stop mattering. From downstairs came the sound of a car pulling into the underground garage. Cole was back.
The living room lights snapped on. I squinted. “You’re still awake?” Cole glanced at me. I didn’t look up. I just sat there, frozen. He changed his shoes. Stood there a moment in silence. Then walked over. “Madi’s fever hit a hundred and three. She’s in rough shape. Her parents retired to Florida. She’s alone in that high-rise in Lincoln Park. No one to take care of her.” I said nothing. “I want her to stay here for a while,” he went on. “Just until she’s better.” A pause. Then he added, “What do you think?” I knew what this was. He wasn’t asking for my opinion. He was telling me. “I’ll move out tomorrow.” He frowned. “That’s not what I meant.” “Then what did you mean?” I lifted my head and looked at him. “You want me to live with her? Three of us under one roof? As what? Roommates? Or are you just taking care of two women at the same time?” When he saw my red, swollen eyes, he paused for half a second. But he didn’t ask. He pressed on about Madi. “She’s just staying temporarily—” “What’s the difference?” I cut him off. My voice had gone cold. The living room sank into dead silence. After a long moment, he pulled a credit card from his pocket and set it on the coffee table. A black Amex. His supplementary card. “Go stay at a hotel for a few days. A month at most. Just until she’s feeling better.” As he said it, my phone buzzed in my pocket. An email from United Airlines. Booking confirmed. Tomorrow morning. O’Hare to Nashville. I remembered my hands shaking when I’d bought that ticket, my heart pounding. But now, holding my phone, I felt calm. Like a drowning person finally grabbing hold of driftwood. “Okay.” I drew a breath. “I’ll pack my things and move out tomorrow.” Cole looked at me for a few seconds. Then he turned toward the bedroom. “Cole.” He stopped. “I’m getting married.”
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