The Fiancé Who Loved My Best Friend

02

02

He glanced down, but his attention was pulled away at once by Vivian Shaw beside him.

By the time I got home and had everything packed,

Nathan Abbott finally strolled in.

He pushed the door open in high spirits. "Baby! Guess what I brought you!"

The room was dark.

I sat on the dim sofa,

and he froze for a second. Before he could ask, someone behind him gave him a shove.

"What are you standing there for? Give my Debbie her present already."

The lights snapped on, and he took the custom ring out of his coat.

Inside the red velvet box lay a platinum band, the huge, showy diamond catching the light.

He reached for my hand, but I slipped it away without making a thing of it.

I asked him calmly, "Did you read the text I sent you?"

Nathan's face cleared with understanding. "Baby, I didn't ignore your messages on purpose. My phone died the moment I landed."

Vivian laughed too. "Right. You have no idea, Nate nearly died getting you that ring."

Fingers closed around mine, and the ring went onto my hand, loose and not really a fit.

Before I could say a word,

Nathan and Vivian suddenly burst out laughing together.

Their laughter filled the whole apartment, and I stood there like an outsider.

It had always been like this with them.

They had their own little secrets,

and every time I looked curious, itching to know, Nathan would just smile.

"It's nothing. You wouldn't get it anyway."

He never once explained. Not once.

This time I didn't ask. I only let my eyes settle on the suitcase in the corner.

Three years of living together, and there wasn't much I could take. Just that small suitcase in the corner.

Small enough that no one had even noticed it.

Nathan swept a glance over the room, saw the bare table, and frowned. "You didn't cook?"

Vivian draped herself over his shoulder. "Then let's just eat out! I'm sick of Debbie's cooking anyway."

Something flashed on her hand. When I looked closer, I saw it was a delicate diamond ring,

clearly expensive, a band ringed with tiny diamonds around a glittering red stone at the center.

Seeing my eyes land on her ring,

Nathan's face flickered with something awkward. "All right, since that's settled, go ahead and grab us a spot in line. Call us when it's almost our turn."

Back in college, Nathan always had part-time jobs he could never finish.

Every meal, I'd go ahead to hold our place and take a number, again and again, until it just became the default that I went and waited first.

Once he'd handed that off, he pulled Vivian inside to play video games.

Their voices carried on, loud and cheerful, and I was the one who felt out of place.

I'd already decided I was done with him, and still my chest ached, sour and tight.

I picked up the suitcase and walked slowly out of the place I'd lived in for three years, and at the last I took a long look at the two of them laughing inside.

Nathan, this time I'm the one who doesn't want you.

In the elevator, a little girl tugged gently at her mother's sleeve and said, all innocence,

"Mommy! Look, the lady's ring is exactly like mine!"

It was the custom wedding ring I'd forgotten to take off.

But the next second, when I saw clearly what the girl was holding up,

my head went with a loud ringing hum,

because the ring in the child's hand really was exactly like the "custom wedding ring" Nathan had given me.

The young mother smiled, a little helpless.

"That's the lady's wedding ring, a real diamond. Yours is a fifteen-dollar thing off a street stall. There's no way they're the same."

She gave me an apologetic smile and led her child out of the elevator.

As if something moved my hand for me, I slid off the ring and scraped it hard with my nail,

and white paint powder came away on my fingertip, exposing the dull brass underneath.