For the school anniversary, Christian Cobb was invited back to give a speech. While he was clicking through old photos, his finger landed on a video by mistake.

There he was at eighteen, the evening wind in his hair, grinning straight into the camera as he made his confession.

"From now on, every painting I make is for you. Only you."

"I love you. Heaven and earth as my witness."

Gasps rippled across the rows below. Half the room turned to look at me, eyes full of envy.

"From high school sweethearts to married. That's too sweet!"

The next second, the camera flipped, freezing on a girl's flushed cheeks.

The face on the screen wasn't mine. It was my best friend, Stephanie Fox.

For that name, the Christian Cobb of those younger years had told me too many lies to count.

He sent me to the copy room to fetch test papers so he could ride his bike and take Stephanie down to the riverfront to watch the sunset.

He told me to wait at home for him on the weekend to watch a movie, so he could go to the theater with Stephanie and see the artsy film she loved.

He lied to me about the fall trip so he could spend a whole day at the amusement park alone with Stephanie.

Christian stepped up and closed the video, explaining with an even face, "Sorry. Hit it by accident."

But before he tapped it off, his gaze held on the screen for several seconds.

In those few seconds, the boy of eighteen was smiling with nothing held back, and there was only one person in his eyes.

The thirty-year-old man standing under the spotlight now was steady, restrained, not a crack anywhere.

I thought of the night we got legally married, his lips on my forehead.

"Miranda Young, everything in the past is behind me now. From now on, I won't lie to you again."

But Christian, how is it you've lied again?

…

During the Q&A, a bold underclassman lifted her microphone.

"Chris, could you tell us about your first love in high school? I heard it caused quite a stir back then."

The hall went still for a beat.

Christian lowered his eyes and tapped the desk twice with his fingers.

"That's all in the past."

His voice was light, like he was discussing some old news that didn't matter.

But the microphone was sensitive, and that faint sigh he hadn't meant anyone to catch carried through the whole room.

"You have to look forward."

A murmur rose around me.

My phone buzzed in my bag.

I looked down. A text from Stephanie.

【Mira, I'm back.】

I turned the phone over and pressed it screen-down against my knee.

When the speech ended, Christian came down off the stage. I stood and caught up, and the two of us walked out of the hall side by side.

"That was an accident earlier. I already deleted the video."

I was about to speak when my phone buzzed again.

"Free to get dinner sometime? It's been so long. I never even gave you two a wedding gift. Let me make it up to you!"

I looked down and replied to Stephanie. 【Sure.】

When I looked up again, Christian was already two meters ahead.

In my memory, there were always two meters between us.

When it was the three of us, Christian always walked shoulder to shoulder with Stephanie, and I trailed behind.

Stephanie said she wanted to go up to the rooftop, so Christian went up to the rooftop with her.

Stephanie said she wanted a latte, so Christian skipped the last study period to go buy it.

Wherever Stephanie went, Christian followed.

I was like a shadow, two meters behind the two of them.

Later Stephanie went abroad, and I thought we'd finally walk side by side.

But we never did.

"Miranda."

"What are you spacing out for?"

He'd turned back to call me from up ahead.

The red glow of the anniversary banner washed over his face, softening his edges.

For just a moment, I half-saw the seventeen-year-old Christian.

The boy who'd climb the school wall to buy roasted chestnuts because Stephanie said one word,

the boy who'd break someone's brow bone to settle a score for Stephanie,

with a fire always burning in his eyes.

But now his gaze was calm and mild, and nothing could stir it.

It hit me all at once: I would never again see the Christian Cobb who loved someone with nothing held back.

The car was quiet.

Christian never liked music when he drove, but today, strangely, he'd connected the Bluetooth.

The instant the intro started, my shoulders went stiff. It was "Clear Skies."

Stephanie Fox's favorite song.

At our senior graduation party, Christian had sat on the stage with a guitar and sung the whole thing.

When he got to the line "Somehow we get to love one more day," his gaze went out over the crowd and landed, with perfect aim, on the seat at the edge of the third row.

Stephanie was sitting right there.

"Did you know Stephanie's coming back?"

I kept my eyes on the street sliding past the window, and made my voice as casual as I could.

The hand on the wheel went still.

"No."

It took him a while to answer.

Outside, the neon signs slipped by frame by frame, and I noticed the wedding ring was gone from his finger. I didn't know when he'd taken it off.

I swallowed past the catch in my throat. "Tonight, at the reunion. Can we make it public?"

Three years.

Christian and I had been legally married for three years. No photo of us together posted anywhere, no public acknowledgment.

Countless times I'd wanted to bring up going public, and every time I'd swallowed it back down.

He ruffled my hair. "Up to you."

The reunion that night was set at a restaurant nearby.

Before we got out, Christian reached over and smoothed the loose hair by my ear.

"What's wrong? You don't look so good."

Before I could say anything, I heard heels behind us.

"Chris. Mira."

Stephanie stood three steps away, white dress, long hair, exactly the way she'd looked at seventeen.

She looked at Christian, and he looked at her.

The moment their eyes met, the air froze.

"Long time, Christian." Stephanie spoke first, her voice a little hoarse.

"Yeah. Long time." His throat moved.

I stood off to the side, watching them hold each other's gaze across those three steps in silence.

The glass door threw back the reflection of all three of us, with that invisible line forever running between me and them.

The three of us walked in side by side.

In the private room, the old classmates erupted. "No way! Stephanie's back? My whole youth, right here! Don't tell me they're still together!"

"Honestly, after all these years, Christian and Stephanie still look best standing next to each other..."

Stephanie laughed and waved a hand. "We just ran into each other. Don't be ridiculous."

At the table, the conversation circled around and around, and in the end it came right back to high school.

Someone who'd had a few drinks said, "Seriously, Christian chased you so hard back then, it was the talk of the school. Any chance it's still on?"

A pair of chopsticks knocked against the rim of a bowl, and for a second I drifted somewhere else.

Someone tossed it over to me. "Mira, you're Stephanie's best friend. Give us the inside scoop. Are they a secret thing, or just two long-lost lovebirds?"

I opened my mouth.

I'm married to him. The words turned over on my tongue a few times, and in the end I swallowed them back.

"I really wouldn't know."

The words had barely left me when Christian set down his water glass.

The base of it clicked against the table, sharp.

"Actually, Mira and I are already—"

"I came back for a marriage alliance..."

Stephanie cut him off, her eyes sweeping over me before settling back on his face.

"There's nothing left between him and me."

Christian paused, then picked up the bottle in front of him and slowly poured himself a glass.

"You're getting married? Was it... arranged by the family?"

Stephanie smiled. "What? I can't be marrying for love?"

He didn't press any further. He tipped his head back and drained the glass.

I didn't read any further.

I picked up the phone and muttered, "Going to the restroom," then pushed the door open and all but fled.

At the far end of the hallway I leaned against the wall, and it took a long time before my breathing settled.

It was only in the car that I realized I'd grabbed the wrong phone. It was Christian's.

The instant I unlocked it, his text messages popped open.

The newest thread had no contact name saved, just a blank where a name should be.

The last message was from two days ago.

【Chris, I'm coming back.】

A long while passed before he replied: 【It's been raining lately. Bring an umbrella.】

【How did you know?】

【My hand hurts.】

I stared at that line, and slowly my eyes began to sting.

Every time it rained, Christian's right hand ached.

An old injury, left behind by the accident.

That rainy night after graduation, Christian had driven out to chase down Stephanie, who was about to leave the country, and crashed the car.

Nerve damage. He could never paint again.

There was a time he'd sketched Stephanie once a day, filling whole books with her.

Afterward those sketchbooks were sealed away along with the injury, and he never mentioned painting again.

I was the one who saw him through rehab.

Through every night of nerve pain, through every surgery and follow-up.

And in time he got better.

Later, in the hospital garden, with the setting sun stretching our shadows long across the ground, he said,

"Miranda, let's give it a try."

I thought he was trying to love me.

Only now do I understand. Maybe he was only trying to let himself off the hook, to let go of a love so fierce it could never quite be put out.

The cab driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Where to, miss?"

I opened my mouth and found I couldn't say the home I shared with Christian.

Was that home still mine?

It was eleven at night before Christian came back.

He carried a faint smell of liquor and perfume, the white-tea scent Stephanie always wore.

"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"

He flicked on the entryway light just as I was curled up on the couch.

There was ibuprofen on the coffee table. My cramps had started in the afternoon and hadn't let up since.

"Not feeling well?"

He came over and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.

I said nothing, and turned my head away from his hand.

"Miranda, let me take you to the hospital."

He crouched down and looked up at me.

"You've been drinking," I said.

Just stating a fact.

He rarely drank, except at work functions.

"Stephanie's really getting married—"

"Christian, I'm tired."

I cut him off and pushed away the hand he'd laid on my shoulder.

At two in the morning, the pain woke me.

The reunion group chat was lively in the dead of night.

【Did you guys hear? Stephanie's coming back for a marriage alliance this time. Her family's company hit a cash-flow crisis, and the guy she's marrying is fifteen years older than her…】

【No wonder she said at dinner tonight that there was "no chance with Christian anymore." It was so sad to hear!! Is the couple I shipped really gonna end like this?!】

【After things broke up tonight I saw Christian and Stephanie talking at the end of the hallway. No idea what they said, but both their eyes were red.】

【Wait, did anyone notice Christian had what looked like a ring mark on his ring finger? The kind you only get from wearing a wedding ring for years.】

【!! Seriously?? Who'd he marry??】

【No idea. It was never made public.】

【It wouldn't be… Miranda, would it? She seemed kind of off.】

The tears slid silently into the pillow, and I got up and walked out of the room.

The living room was pitch dark, except for that study door, sealed shut for years, now standing ajar.

I pushed it open, and when the light came on, I froze where I stood.

The whole room was full of paintings.