On Valentine's Day, I threw every last wedding invitation I'd handwritten into the trash.

“Miss, are you sure you meant to toss those?”

The old man who came to collect the garbage at his usual hour stared at the invitations in disbelief.

At that very moment, my boyfriend was confessing his love to the one that got away.

Fireworks bloomed in the distance, tracing the shape of a heart around two names.

Julius Henson. Sarah Harding.

My phone screen lit up, a message flashing and gone.

【Working late tonight. Won't be home.】

I scrolled up. Our last conversation was from two weeks ago.

He'd asked me:

【What flowers do you want for Valentine's?】

I said gardenias. What I got was a bouquet of cotton roses.

The blossoms were bruised and ragged, like leftovers picked over and passed on. The wrapping paper had gone soft with wrinkles.

Julius's text had arrived right on schedule.

【Got there too late. This was all they had left. Make do.】

No sweet words. No holiday confession.

Just: make do.

It hit me then that I'd been making do with him for years.

Meals we never agreed on. Schedules that never lined up.

Even his inability to let go of Sarah Harding.

I didn't want to make do anymore.

——

On the way home from work, I ran into his assistant.

The assistant mentioned the company had given everyone the afternoon off.

No overtime at all. Another lie.

The next day, Julius still didn't come home.

Same four-word text. Working late. Won't be home.

The day after that, two words changed. Working late. Home later.

I did the math. In the past six months, there had been fifty late nights. Thirty "won't be home"s. Twenty "home later"s.

Julius walked through the door past midnight.

“Still up?”

he asked.

“Waiting for you.”

He noticed the cotton roses, long since dried and dead, picked up the bouquet without a second glance, and tossed it into the trash.

The way you'd throw away a relationship that had already withered.

“Julius.”

I said his name. My voice came out steadier than I expected.

“Sarah's back?”

“Yeah,”

he said, his tone perfectly even.

“Got back to the States last week.”

A lie. On New Year's Eve, I'd smelled cotton roses on his skin.

I waited for him to keep going.

Watched him, wondering what pretty excuse he'd come up with next.

“The names on the fireworks,”

I said, my voice calm, a dull ache pulling tight behind my ribs.

“I saw them.”

The fireworks weren't all I'd seen. I'd also found the standing order he'd placed at the flower shop.

Six months' worth. Twice a month. Each delivery scheduled three days after the order date.

A different love note on every card.

I thought about how, not long ago, I'd brought him a handful of wedding vows other people had written and asked him to pick one.

He'd pointed at random, like pulling a prize from a grab bag.

The ache in my chest tightened.

“She said the guy who was supposed to confess to her stood her up.”

“So I stepped in.”

While he said it, he turned his head away, too guilty to meet my eyes.

“So what exactly are you and Sarah now?”

I asked, keeping my voice low.

He finally turned to face me.

His gaze carried a cold distance, as if to say: I already gave you an explanation. Why are you still digging?

“What do you want to hear?”

Irritation edged into his voice.

“We're just brother and sister from the orphanage……”

Brother and sister. Really?

Driving across the city in the middle of the night to keep her company? A fireworks confession visible from every rooftop in town?

“It's late.”

He stood and walked toward the bedroom.

“Go to sleep.”

I couldn't sleep.

The bedroom door was ajar, and I could see him sitting on the bed, the faint glow of his phone screen illuminating his face.

He was texting someone on the other end, smiling wide.

Two months ago, he'd gone out for a business dinner and drunk himself into the hospital. I stayed by his side the entire night.

When he woke up, the only thing I got was a “Why is it you who's here?”

I sent my boss at the station a message accepting the overseas assignment.

【You sure you don't want to reconsider? Your wedding's right around the corner.】

【I'm sure. A career matters more than a wedding.】

I typed my reply to her question, compressing every ounce of heartache into a joke.

She told me there was one last interview I needed to do before I left.

I opened the interviewee's profile page, and the name “Sarah Harding” stared back at me.

Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humor I didn't appreciate.

The next day was Saturday. Julius was out the door early.

He said something had come up at the office.

But he'd dressed carefully, his hair styled neat, and he'd put on cologne.

The scent was light with a trace of sweetness. Kapok blossom.

My phone buzzed.

A text from Julius.

【Won't be back for lunch. Ordered you some herbal soup for your stomach.】

【Okay, thanks.】

My stomach issues were last month's problem. I didn't bother correcting him.

Then I made another call.

“Roderick James, that interview subject the station assigned me, Sarah Harding. Send me her contact info.”

I said,

“I want to set up a chat with her.”

After I hung up, I walked back to the bedroom.

My mind drifted to an autumn evening three years ago. I'd gone deep into a rural village to investigate a trafficking ring when the locals caught on and cornered me in a pig pen.

I was crouched in the corner, covered in filth and mud, my face bruised where they'd hit me.

The villagers stood outside with hoes and carrying poles, hurling threats and slurs.

My camera was smashed. My phone had no signal. I genuinely believed I was going to die there.

Then Julius came.

He charged through the crowd with a shovel in his hands, like a man with nothing left to lose.

Later, I asked him how he'd found me.

【I couldn't get through to your phone. I checked your location and followed it all the way here.】

I asked him if he'd been scared. What if he couldn't fight them off? We both would have died there, and no one would have ever known.

【I was scared. But I was more scared of not reaching you in time.】

When he said those words, the way he looked at me was fierce with love, so bright it burned through every last shred of fear I'd been carrying.

But last night, when he looked at me, his eyes were cold.

All that blazing love seemed to have vanished in the weeks since Sarah Harding came back to the country.

Or maybe it hadn't vanished at all. Maybe it had simply been transferred, every last drop, to her.

I picked up my phone and, through the contact Roderick forwarded, added Sarah Harding on WhatsApp.

Her profile picture was a kapok blossom. Julius had recently changed his to the same thing.

Her latest post on social media was from an hour ago.

The photo showed two people's shadows, close together, hands overlapping. The caption read:

【Revisiting old places with the one who got away.】

Underneath was Julius's reply.

【This time, I won't let you slip away again.】

I stared at that photo for a long time. Long enough that my eyes began to sting, and the tears came before I could stop them.

I was a social news reporter. I'd seen every kind of photograph that could break a person's heart.

But this was the only one that made me cry the moment I saw it.

I dried my tears and sent Sarah Harding a message.

Once this interview was done, I could leave.

Our brief exchange on WhatsApp revealed something I hadn't expected: Sarah and I had spent time in the same orphanage as children.

We agreed to meet at three o'clock at a coffee shop on the south side of town.

Maybe it was some petty competitive instinct, but I made sure I looked good.

I wore the most expensive dress in my closet, did my makeup light and natural, and curled my hair on the spot.

Going to meet Julius Henson's first love, the least I could do was look the part.

She was already there when I arrived.

Prettier than I'd imagined.

Just like her name suggested, she was vivid, full of life, with a stubborn spark that refused to quit.

“Alma!”

The moment she saw me, she stood and waved. On her wrist was a red string bracelet threaded with a tiny bell engraved with a blessing.

“Over here, over here.”

Her wrist swung and the bell rang, crisp and clear. I recognized it. Julius and I had picked it out together not long ago.

He'd said it was a gift for a business partner's daughter. I'd believed him.

I walked over and sat down.

“I remember you liked sweet things. Even at the orphanage, you'd add an extra spoonful of sugar to the plain oatmeal.”

She pushed a mango smoothie across the table toward me.

We'd only overlapped for six months, yet she remembered details like that.

Julius didn't. Last month, for my birthday, he'd gone ahead and swapped the mango cake I'd ordered for a matcha one.

And when he brought it home, a corner was already missing.

He said he'd given that piece to Sarah.

“You have a good memory,”

“Of course I do,”

She looked at me and smiled, her eyes curving into warm crescents.

“Alma, you saved my life!”

“The winter I came to the orphanage, I had a fever so bad I started seizing. You were the one who got up and woke the caretaker and got me to the hospital.”

“The doctor said if I'd been brought in even an hour later, the fever could have caused brain damage.”

My fingers stiffened around my cup.

I never knew there was that kind of history between us.

“I remember now,”

I said, my voice suddenly thick.

There were words I swallowed back down.

I should have confronted her about her relationship with Julius. I should have questioned her character, thrown the drink in her face.

But looking at the girl beaming at me with such open warmth, I couldn't do it.

“Alma, how long have you and Julius been together?”

As we were leaving, she asked the question out of nowhere.

“Three years.”

“Three years,”

she repeated, her face glowing with genuine happiness for us.

“You two must be so solid. Julius seems cold on the surface, but he's actually the most devoted person I know.”

“Once he decides something matters to him, he never, ever forgets.”

She was right. And she was wrong.

Julius was devoted, yes. But the person he was devoted to was her. The one he never forgot was her.

On the drive home, a message from Julius came through.

【Dinner meeting tonight. Won't be back.】

【Got it.】

I took a detour to the store and bought a bunch of fresh gardenias, then went home and arranged them in a vase.

On impulse, I snapped a photo of the flowers and posted it to Instagram with a single line.

【Love yourself before you love anyone else.】

Then I booked a flight overseas. The day after tomorrow.

By the time I finished packing, I noticed Sarah had liked the post, and Julius had left me a rare WhatsApp message.

【You interviewed Sarah today?】

【She's not in the best health. Don't ask too many questions that might upset her.】

Aside from his usual "working late, won't be back," that was the most he'd said to me in weeks.

Make do.