I stared at the oversized glass on the table, my face draining of all color and my voice trembling. "Ellery, you know my stomach's bad. Mixing three kinds of liquor like that could kill someone. Do you really want to do this to me?"

Ellery turned to glance at me with a slight frown, sighed, and walked over. Without any warning, she grabbed my jaw and forced my mouth open. I struggled, but she poured the contents down my throat anyway.

My throat and stomach burned like they were on fire. A few seconds later, the room began to spin. The last thing I registered before everything went black was the mocking smile spreading across Theo's face. He had done it on purpose.

...

The video on my phone was still playing on loop, but I had already calmed down.

I opened every social media app in silence, deleting the happy announcements from the night before one by one. Then, I booked a moving service to come to the apartment. After that, I opened the messaging app, pulled up the breakup message Ellery had just sent, and replied: [Okay. Let's break up.]

I put the phone down and went into the bathroom. Calmly, I lathered my hands with shower gel. The ring was on too tight, and this was the only way to get it off. After struggling with it for what felt like forever, it finally slipped free.

I looked at the ring on my palm. I had made it with my own hands. At this moment, all I could do was laugh at myself.

Three different gemstones were set into the band, and each one was Ellery's favorite. I had designed and crafted a matching pair specifically for the proposal.

"Ellery, you once told me these three gemstones were your favorites. Ruby for wealth, sapphire for love, topaz for something precious. So, I spent a long time finding six perfect stones and set them into our matching rings. I wanted to tell you that our love is my most precious treasure."

The emotion from the night before was still vivid, but now, all of it had turned to nothing.

I looked up at my own wrecked reflection in the bathroom mirror, thinking to myself that love and happiness were nothing but a joke.

Ellery and Theo did not come back until the middle of the night. A whole group of their friends trailed in behind them. The moment the door opened, they walked right into the movers packing up the last box.

Ellery froze at the sight of the apartment stripped bare, then her brows furrowed sharply. "Reid, what are you doing?"

It was not until one of the movers passed by her that she snapped out of it and blocked his path. "Wait. Who said you could take anything out of here?"

I heard the commotion and came out. A crowd of people was at the doorway. "I did. Ms. Whitfield, we've already broken up. Is there a problem with me moving my things?"

The second Theo saw me, he clapped a hand over his mouth, his eyes glittering with barely concealed delight. "Oh no, what happened to you? You look terrible. Don't tell me you're actually upset over a dare?"

Ellery looked like she had just heard the funniest thing in the world. "Over a dare? Reid, can you stop being so childish?"

Theo pouted and draped an arm over her shoulder, taunting, "Your man's got a fragile little heart. He's not like us. You'd better hurry up and apologize."

Ellery looked me up and down with complete indifference and let out a scoff. "It was just a game. Fine, I'll apologize. There. It's over."

A few of the friends behind her chimed in, "Come on, it's not that big a deal. Is this really worth all this? Ellery had too much to drink. You know how she gets when she's drunk."

That was when I noticed the watch on Theo's wrist. It was the same one Ellery had kept in her shopping cart. It was worth over a hundred thousand dollars, and she had bought it for Theo without blinking.

Yet after I gave her 880,000 dollars worth of wedding gifts as her family had requested, she claimed her family was struggling financially and could not even manage 30,000 dollars worth of gifts.

When my parents raised a mild concern, she turned around and snapped at me, accusing me of having no sincerity and nickel-and-diming the marriage.

Her heart had never been with me.

I let out a bitter laugh and held up my hand, pointing to the bare finger where my wedding ring should have been. "My ring's gone. Do whatever you want with yours."

That finally rattled her. She stepped closer, her frown deepening. "I already apologized. Theo was worried about you, so he came all the way back with me just to check on you. Why do you have to keep being so unreasonable about this?"

Theo got up and walked over, his tone cool and cutting.

"Throwing a tantrum so bad that you tossed your ring? Sounds like you've been holding a grudge against Ellery for a while now, and you're just using this as an excuse to blow up. Or maybe you've already got someone else, and our little game gave you the perfect out."

He was not even finished before Ellery cut him off.

Theo pursed his lips in annoyance, as if to say this was hardly the first time he had run his mouth like that. I knew it was not.

In the handful of occasions we had met over the years, he always found a way to take shots at me. When I visited Ellery's family during the holidays, he deliberately picked apart every gift I brought, calling them cheap and embarrassing. He kept trying to turn her family against me.

When I was down with a stomach infection and asked Ellery not to go out, he called and made snide remarks about me controlling her freedom.

Not once, in any of those moments, did Ellery ever speak up for me. She always said Theo was just a kid who did not know when to stop and loved to joke around. She said I should be the bigger person and let it go. She seemed to have completely forgotten that Theo and I were the same age.

Only now did Ellery finally step in to shut him down. She had finally heard how ugly his words really were. However, I no longer needed it. I no longer cared.

I walked past Ellery and stopped in front of Theo, my voice calm. "Theo, I've honestly never understood what I've done to make you go after me like this."

As I spoke, I slowly raised my hand to brush a stray hair off my shirt. Theo lurched sideways and crumpled to the ground.

Before I could even process what happened, Ellery rushed over and shoved me hard. The force sent me stumbling backward, and my abdomen slammed into a sharp edge of a table. I crumpled to the floor as a searing pain tore through my stomach. Every ounce of strength left my body.

The group closed ranks in front of Theo. Ellery stared down at me, her eyes full of disappointment and her voice ice-cold.

"Theo told me before that you were always picking on him, and I only half believed it. Now, you tried to slap him right in front of me. Reid, you've disappointed me."

Tears spilled from my eyes again. I could not tell if it was because of the pain tearing through my body or because I had been wrongly accused yet again.

"Ellery, take me to the hospital... My stomach..."

Everyone saw the color drain from my face and my features twisting in agony. Their expressions shifted.

"Something's seriously wrong with him. We should get him to a hospital—"

Before they could even finish speaking, Theo jumped out and crouched down in front of me, his face scrunching into a wounded look. "I know you can't stand me, but faking stomach pain just to scare everyone? Are you seriously trying to guilt Ellery's friends into feeling sorry for you?"

The concern on Ellery's face curdled into humiliation. "Reid, enough! How did you become this shameless? Making a fool of both of us in front of all these people, huh?!"

The pain was blurring my vision. I did not have the strength to get up on my own. "I'm not faking... It really hurts... Ellery... please..."

She took a step back, pulling away from my outstretched hand. The others exchanged uneasy glances, then one by one, they followed the two of them out.

…

By the time I opened my eyes again, I was already in the hospital.

The nurse handed me the medical report, and that was how I learned I had suffered a severe gastric hemorrhage. If the movers had not come back upstairs and found me when they did, I could very well have bled out internally and died.

It was only then that I realized my face was already soaked with tears.

I did not know how much time had passed before the sound of my phone pulled me back. I tapped the cracked screen and found a string of messages from Ellery.

[Where'd you go?]

[Still mad?]

[Theo says he doesn't blame you anymore. He understands you only did those things because you love me too much.]

[Come home. Didn't you say you wanted to talk about where we should go for engagement photos? I'm free tonight to figure it out.]

[Ignoring me now? Giving me the silent treatment? Real classy, Reid.]

[Still not answering? Then don't bother coming back. Ever.]

[I already cleaned the ring and put it back in the box. If you can't swallow your pride and face me tonight, you can come back tomorrow during the day.]

I picked up my phone, took a photo of the medical report, and hit send.