I had stood there like a fool, waiting in the hotel, staring at the cramped little ceremony hall while the people around me whispered and sneered.

I really should have appreciated Kyle's good intentions. It was just that none of them had ever been meant for me.

When Kyle heard me laugh, he took it as a sign that the matter was settled, forgiven and forgotten.

He repeated himself, satisfied. "I'll keep my word this time. Once this business trip is over, I'll throw you a proper engagement ceremony. Then we'll go file the paperwork and make it official, okay?"

My thumb froze mid-scroll.

He paused for a moment, then added, "Oh, and that contract Anya didn't close? Go ahead and take over on that."

I let out a quiet, bitter laugh. So that was why he had suddenly brought up filing the marriage paperwork. He needed me to clean up after Anya.

We had been together for 9 years. I had brought up getting legally married more times than I could count, and every single time, he had shut me down.

At first, he said he was still young and wanted to enjoy life without being tied down by marriage. I believed him.

Later, he said he needed to focus on his career, that youth only lasted so long. I believed that too.

Then, once his career had taken off and everyone around me was already married with children, I figured I had waited long enough. I tried to use the multimillion-dollar contract I had just landed as an opening to bring it up again. He turned me down once more.

His reason that time was, "I've gotten so used to the way things are between us. I'm afraid I won't be able to adjust if we change things now. Let's just keep things the way they are. You're the one I love, and that's never going to change."

We had a huge fight over it, and he stormed out.

I was about to text him an apology when I received a video from Anya instead. It was the two of them on a camping trip together.

After that, I never brought up marriage again.

Before I could even respond to what Kyle had just said, I heard Anya's voice in the background on his end. He muttered something about being busy and hung up.

I clenched my fists. It had never occurred to me that the only reason he had offered to file the paperwork was because of Anya.

He truly did spoil that girl rotten. I could not even begin to compete.

Just then, a new post popped up on my feed.

I did not even need to zoom in. I could tell the blurred figure in the photo was Kyle.

The two of them were strolling through a street food market like a couple. Kyle was looking at Anya like she was the only person in the world.

The caption underneath read, "In the quiet moments of ordinary life, love means you are never alone."

I stared at Kyle's happy smile, and at the fried food he was holding in his hands.

I blinked. He had always hated street food.

I had taken him to a place like that once, thinking it would be a nice way to unwind together. I had waited in line for an hour to buy him something to try. He took one look at it, frowned, and tossed it straight into the trash without a word.

Then he shrugged it off. "Weak stomach. Can't handle it."

Yet I had seen the disgust in his eyes, and it was not directed at the food. I never took him to a place like that again.

Only now did I understand. That look had never been about the food. It had been about me.

Within a minute of the post going up, it already had many comments.

I ignored them, tapped a quick like out of habit, and was about to close the app when a notification popped up tagging me directly.

I opened it and found a comment dripping with hostility.

"Finally, Team Lead Anya is posting for herself and setting the record straight. Unlike some people who can only talk trash behind everyone's back."

"This is exactly the kind of person dragging the whole company down. If you ask me, anyone who can only run their mouth like that should've been fired a long time ago."

"Spineless pushover. If you've got something to say, come out and say it. Let me be clear, I'm talking about you! @SallyEther."

The moment that comment went up, the usual crowd of sycophants eager to ingratiate themselves with Anya piled on.

"She's the one who's always going around telling everyone she's Kyle's girlfriend, that she's practically his fiancée. So where is she now? Too scared to say a word!"

"She's nothing but a coward. Now that everyone's seen her true colors, she probably can't even show her face. She's probably lurking somewhere reading all of this in silence!"

"And she actually has the nerve to compare herself to someone like Anya? A woman her age going up against someone that young? That's just embarrassing."

I stared at the usernames and felt a jolt of recognition. Every single one of these people was on my team.

I had always treated them well. I gave them room to grow on projects, and even when someone made a mistake, I never followed protocol and escalated it. I handled things quietly, corrected their work behind the scenes, and let it go.

Yet the second they saw Anya get promoted on the spot, they flipped. They scrambled to line up behind her and turned on me without a second thought.

The comment count kept climbing. I read through every last one of them, and I felt nothing.

A few years ago, I probably would have fought back and demanded some kind of fairness. But after going through enough situations just like this one, I just did not have it in me anymore.

Besides, this was not the first time.

If I actually confronted them, anyone with half a brain could predict how it would end. I would be the one punished.

The last time something like this had happened, all I had done was disagree with a few colleagues on the direction of a project. I shared my perspective, nothing more. Anya accused me of pulling rank, bullying my coworkers, and took the whole thing straight to Kyle.

Kyle did not even ask for my side. He docked half a month of my pay on the spot and made me clean the office bathrooms for a month.

Thinking about that, I calmly closed the app, ignored every comment, and walked into the office.

The moment I stepped through the door, I was met with stares from every direction.

I pretended not to notice and headed straight for Human Resources to complete my handover. The whole process took less than 10 minutes.

Right on cue, my phone buzzed with a notification. My resignation had been approved.

The coworkers who had gathered near the door to watch could not resist.

"I heard Kyle approved her resignation the second it came through. Sounds like he's been wanting to kick her out for a while now. At least she had the sense to leave on her own."

"That's about the only smart thing she's got left. Did you see Anya's post? Kyle's in love with Anya, not her. And she had the nerve to walk around calling herself his girlfriend every day. Now that Anya's made it official, how could she possibly stay?"

"Exactly. Why else wouldn't she fight back? All she could do was sneak a like on the post."

I did not say a word. I was long past the point of caring. I went back to my desk and started packing up my things.

Everyone in the company knew that Anya and I did not get along. Kyle was supposed to be my boyfriend, yet he openly favored Anya at every turn. Time and again, he took her side and humiliated me in front of the entire office.

Whenever I tried to stand up for myself, they wrote it off as attention-seeking. So they fell over themselves to target me, each one hoping to score points with Anya.

Once I had packed everything, I walked out without looking back.

The moment I stepped outside the building, my phone rang.

"We received word of your resignation. Would you be interested in joining our company?

"Ms. Ether, this is the 10th time I've reached out to you. Our headquarters truly needs someone with your talent."

It took me a moment to place the voice on the other end. Then it clicked.

He was a vice president I had worked with on a previous project. His company was massive, with its headquarters in Millbrook. He had tried to recruit me several times after we wrapped up that project together, but I had turned him down every time.

Back then, I had stayed because of Kyle. I felt sorry for him, carrying the weight of the company on his own. There was already plenty of internal pushback against him, and if I left, his position would only get worse.

So I said no, again and again.

Still, Kyle never appreciated any of it. He did not even think twice about it. He downplayed my contributions at every opportunity and criticized my abilities in front of the whole office.

Yet if I were truly as incompetent as he made me out to be, the company would never have made it this far. Partners would not have been lining up to work with us.

At the end of the day, it was never about my capabilities. He simply did not care. And now, I was done believing him.

The silence stretched on, and the man on the phone asked again.

I steadied myself and answered calmly. "Yes. I accept."

We exchanged a few more words, settled on a start date, and I hung up. Then I hailed a cab and went home.

I pushed open the front door and went straight upstairs to pack. I was moving out. If I was going to end things, there was no point dragging it out.

Packing did not take long.

Looking down at the worn-out clothes and pants so faded they had turned white, it hit me just how lean these years had really been.

When we first moved in together, I had spent every dollar I had to renovate the house so he would have a place worth coming home to. I ate nothing but plain bread for 3 months just to make ends meet.

I had redesigned the entire interior to match his taste. I had spent 2 months studying color psychology so I could pick out custom furniture for him, all so he could walk through the door after work and feel at ease.

I still remembered the way his eyes had lit up when he came home and saw the finished house for the first time.

He made me a promise. "I'm going to live here for the rest of my life. No one touches this house."

His version of "the rest of my life" turned out to be painfully short. It was over before it ever really began.

Anya visited the house once and tossed out a casual remark. "The decor is so dated."

Kyle immediately called a designer to have everything redone.

When I questioned it, he snapped at me for being narrow-minded and not understanding modern aesthetics. He thought Anya obviously knew better than I did.

Then he picked up a hammer and smashed the porch swing I had spent an entire month building for him by hand.

Standing in the wreckage, I should have seen him for who he really was right then. But I had been too naive. I genuinely believed I was the one who was out of touch, that I just could not keep up with the times. So I stood by and let the two of them destroy nearly a year of my work.

Looking back now, I could not believe how foolish I had been.

Once everything was packed, I dragged my suitcase downstairs.

I stood in the empty living room and looked around the house I had lived in for nine years. Then I set the key on the coffee table, pulled my suitcase to the door, and walked out.

I took a cab straight to the apartment I had prepared as a wedding gift for Kyle.

I had handpicked this place myself. I had spent weeks negotiating with the real estate agent to get the price down, and I had carved out time to furnish and decorate it personally, all so Kyle would be happy with it when he finally saw it.

The deed had only just come through. I had been about to transfer it into Kyle's name as a symbol of our marriage. But before I could even get the words out, Anya sent me a video of their engagement ceremony.

The venue was extravagant. The guest list was overflowing, and both sets of parents were there. It was as grand and official as an engagement could get.

Kyle stood in a tailored suit, smiling as he slipped a ring onto Anya's finger.