Halfway through dinner, Blake's phone started buzzing like mad.

It was Bianca calling.

He answered, and within two minutes his face had gone tight. He stood up to leave.

Without thinking, I caught his wrist and lowered my voice. "You can't go right now. Both families are here."

"Bianca's building lost power. She's the only girl in the whole place. She's scared."

Blake shook my hand off, his voice edged with blame. "Can't you be a little more considerate? She needs me right now."

And with that, ignoring the stunned elders around the table, he grabbed his coat and walked straight out of the private room.

The relatives exchanged glances and kept asking where Blake had gone.

My fingers clenched the tablecloth. All I could do was force a calm face and lie. "Something urgent came up at the company. He had to rush over."

The rest of the meal was pure torment, the elders whispering among themselves.

Every word, spoken and unspoken, said the same thing: Blake didn't care about me at all.

My mother sat beside me, her eyes full of ache.

She quietly took my hand and murmured, "Sweetheart, I can see it. He's never once put you first."

"This engagement. You have to think it through."

The box of local specialties I'd prepared specially for Blake sat quietly against the wall.

No one gave it another glance.

Back home, I opened the recruiter's email I'd left sitting for so long.

I clicked to accept the interview for the Northgate offer.

Every obsession that had trapped me in this city needed to end here.

Blake didn't come back until the small hours, reeking of alcohol. The moment he walked in, he was frowning and scolding me.

"You had to stop me today, and Bianca had to sit alone in a dark room, scared out of her mind. Don't you think that's selfish of you?"

"She was already in a bad mood. Couldn't you show me a little more understanding?"

I stood under the light and looked at him, quietly.

Whatever love was left in my heart went out completely.

Another day's work over.

The moment I pushed the door open, my feet froze in the entryway.

There, in the most prominent spot on the top shelf of the shoe cabinet, sat a pair of creamy-white fuzzy slippers.

Size 36. Her size.

Soft, thick, plainly a pricey pair off a department-store display.

Compared to that gray pair I'd worn for years, the toes worn pale.

I'd mentioned wanting a new pair several times, and every time Blake had brushed it off, saying they'd do for a while longer.

I walked to the bathroom.

Most of the counter was taken up by a full set of Bianca's designer skincare.

The order Blake had placed a while back, the one I'd stumbled on.

In three years, he'd never once bought me any skincare on his own.

Back then, I'd naively assumed it was an anniversary gift for me.

The door to the unused guest room stood open, the bed made up with a brand-new, soft bedding set.

The closet was full of Bianca's clothes, even a stuffed toy from her childhood.

The whole place was covered in traces of her.

As if I were the outsider who didn't belong in this home.

Blake happened to walk out of the guest room carrying a glass of warm water, and explained it lightly.

"Bianca's rental had a pipe burst. The walls are all soaked, she can't stay there for now."

"Our place is close to her office, and the spare room's just sitting empty anyway. It's completely normal to let her stay a while. Don't read into it."

"Stay a while?"

My voice shook, my eyes sweeping over everything in the apartment that belonged to Bianca.

"Everything's already set up. You call that staying a while?"

Blake's brow furrowed, his tone thick with impatience, as if I were the one making trouble over nothing.

"They're just a few small things. Do you have to be this petty?"

"A young girl on her own out there, it's hard for her. What's wrong with me looking after her a little more?"

Three years of swallowed grievance came roaring up at once.

I turned, walked into the study, and pulled open the drawer.

A thick stack of bills went out across the coffee table.

Three years of payment records, every one of them clearly marked.

Every expense split down the middle between us.

Back when Bianca only stayed over now and then, the cost of it came out of what we both paid. She had never contributed a single cent.

I pointed at the receipts and asked him, word by word,

"When she came occasionally, we shared the cost. I let it go."

"Now she's moved in for good, and you've bought all of it. This money—how do you plan to settle it?"

Blake glanced at the pile of bills and waved a careless hand.

"Fine, count all of it as mine. What's the big deal."

"I never thought you were this calculating, keeping track of every little expense down to the penny."

"Besides, the deed to this apartment is in my name. Who I let stay here is none of your business."

One weightless sentence, and it ground three years of building a home together into dust.

I looked at this man I had handed my whole heart to, and felt only that he was a stranger, and that I was cold to the core.

So in his eyes, three years of what I gave meant nothing at all.

I didn't argue with him anymore. I walked into the bedroom in silence.

Pulled out the suitcase and packed my clothes, one piece at a time.

I didn't sleep all night.

The next day at the office, in the department meeting.

Blake announced in front of everyone that the year's single most important project would be handled entirely by Bianca.

Every premium client and every good channel would be tilted her way.

What was left for me was the cleanup and the odds and ends.

And all of it was for next week's director review.

He wanted Bianca to walk in with a set of impressive project results and win the panel over.

At the lunch break I went to his office and laid out two requests.

First, clear all of Bianca's personal things out of the apartment as soon as possible. I couldn't share a home with someone else.

Second, distribute the work resources fairly. I had every right to be on the core project.

Blake leaned back in his office chair, his face full of disappointment. "Katherine, how can you be this narrow-minded and selfish?"

"Bianca has no one to lean on, not a single relative in this city. It's only right that I help her more. Do you really have to compete with her over everything?"

Talking to him got me nowhere.

My heart sank all the way down, and I only turned and left without a word.

The morning of the review, Blake was out the door before daybreak.

By the time I had my materials together and went down to the garage, my car was gone.

I texted him, called him, one after another.

It took more than a dozen tries before he finally picked up.

"I took your car to pick up Bianca. She's nervous about her review today, so I'm giving her a ride and running through her defense with her on the way."

"My car's in for service. So what if you make do with yours for once?"

The sheer absurdity of it swept over me.

I gripped the phone, my voice shaking beyond my control. "You know exactly how important today's review is to me."

"I ground through three years, killed myself for the numbers, all for today, for a shot at the director position."

On the other end, Blake's tone was flat, even edged with reproach. "I know."

"But whether Bianca can get her footing in Southport clearly matters more than one review of yours."

When those words landed in my ear, I understood it completely. No amount of arguing would change a thing.

I forced down the surge of bitterness, hung up, and went out to hail a cab.

Morning rush hour was gridlocked, and the wait in the cab line ran a full forty minutes.

I ran the whole way to the review meeting room in my heels, the backs of them rubbed raw until they bled.

By the time I reached the review room, out of breath, the evaluation had already been running for fifteen minutes.

The staffer told me, expression flat.

More than ten minutes late meant automatic disqualification from this review.

Just before the end of the day, the promotion notice popped up in the company group chat:

【New Marketing Director: Bianca Whitman】

The veiled glances of the coworkers around me landed on my face.

Not long after, Blake came over to my desk and lowered his voice. "You got the short end this time. I'll make it up to you with a good project next time around."

I looked up at him. The straw from the latte I'd bought for Bianca was still sticking out of my pocket.

I lowered my head and opened the text on my phone. The Northgate recruiter had sent word that I'd passed the final interview.

I started Monday, sharp, at a salary and title far above what I had now.

In that moment there was no reluctance to leave. Only relief.

After work I went straight home. I pushed the door open, and Bianca's usual perfume still hung in the air.

I walked into the storage room to start packing, and pulled open the top cabinet without thinking.

Most of the space was crammed with fancy gift boxes and all kinds of imported snacks.

All of it from Blake to Bianca.

In a small box in the corner sat everything he'd given me in three years:

Two cheap hair ties worth a few dollars, and one alloy necklace that had lost its color.

I quietly packed up my own things.

Three years living here, and when I left, I couldn't even fill a single suitcase.

Half the motion-sensor lights in the stairwell were broken, and I dragged my suitcase down alone.

The metal corner cracked hard against my shin, and warm blood welled up at once.

I crouched down and wiped it off, quickly.

Not a single tear fell. If anything, I felt lighter all over.

Past one in the morning, Blake came back with Bianca after their movie.

The entryway was bare, every trace of me gone from the apartment.

His first instinct wasn't to look for me. He rushed straight into the second bedroom.

He went through Bianca's things one by one, checking whether anything was missing.

Only after confirming her things were all intact did he think to message me.

A red exclamation mark popped up on his screen.

He called, and a cold automated tone told him he'd been blocked.

WeChat, work chat, email, every way to reach me. I'd cut them all off.

Only then did he sense something was wrong and start contacting the people who could still reach me.