2: 2

In the photos the two of them looked so sweet, like they were made for each other.

I looked like the outsider, standing off to the side, awkward and out of place.

The photographer wouldn't stop praising them, so I quietly stepped back and left them their space.

"Evie, come join in."

Sophie waved me over. I gave a small shake of my head.

"This is between you two. I'll stay out of it."

John's face went dark, and he yanked me over by force.

"What's with the pitiful act? Weren't you the one whining about taking pictures? Now that we're taking them, suddenly you don't want to?"

He pulled my arm until it nearly came out of the socket, and I could barely keep my footing.

Sophie saw how uncomfortable I was and, grinning, insisted on putting lipstick on me.

"Evie, you look so washed out. Let me give you a little color."

A second later I was a smeared, streaky mess, an ugly clown.

It was ridiculous enough to make John laugh out loud.

"You two really suit each other. Only you could make such a fool of yourself."

My pride was pressed under his heel and ground into the dirt, and I didn't understand why John had become like this.

For eight years he had been so careful with me.

He never let anyone say a bad word about me, terrified I'd suffer even a little.

And now he stood there like a stranger, as if none of it had anything to do with him.

I forced the corners of my mouth up and let them do whatever they wanted with me, like a puppet.

By dusk the two of them had played to their hearts' content, while I'd spent the day drawing stares like some circus monkey.

"Today was so much fun. Wasn't it, Evie? We took so many photos of you."

I looked at the ridiculous pictures on the phone, the ones that only made Sophie look prettier and more radiant.

I said nothing. I just quietly deleted them and shut off the screen.

Back at the hotel, my social media feed updated. Sophie had posted a nine-photo grid.

Before I could even react, John instantly liked it and left a comment:

【Hahaha, the ugly little freak in the middle is hilarious!】

I looked closer. My face was blown up and set right in the center, like it was mounted on a wall of shame.

The two of them, all peace and bliss, and I was the clown.

I swallowed my anger and thought I'd try to talk it out with Sophie.

Before I got two words in, Sophie's eyes went red, pitiful.

John tucked her behind him.

"I told her to post it. If you've got a problem, take it up with me."

We stood facing each other, and yet it felt like a whole galaxy lay between us.

All at once I was just tired. I didn't argue a single point.

I quietly went back to my room.

I dug into the blocked contacts in my address book, pulled the old flame from the very bottom, and sent a message:

【I heard you're in Southport. Could you come get me?】

In less than a second, the man on the other end replied:

【Send me your location, Evie. I'm ready to go anytime.】

Warmth flooded through me.

I knew he would always be the one I could lean on.

I looked up at John at the table, sharing a single cocktail with Sophie.

My eyes dimmed for a moment.

Since I couldn't force his attention out of him.

Then I'd give it up on my own. I wouldn't be the third wheel between them anymore.

John, this time I really am leaving.

3: 3

The next morning was the third stop on our trip.

I'd lost the excitement I used to feel, and I'd gotten used to John not being at my side.

After folding the last shirt, I tossed John's old clothes off to one side.

A man who no longer belonged to me had no business taking up my space or my world.

He walked in just then, and the words he opened his mouth to hurry me along turned into surprise.

"Evelyn... are you done packing... did you just throw my clothes on the floor?"

His eyes went wide in disbelief, like it had never occurred to him that I would refuse.

Fair enough. The old me had always given in to him completely. If he told me to go east, I'd never dare go west.

But now I seemed to have become someone different.

John froze for a second, before he could get a word out.

Then Sophie called him over in that syrupy voice of hers.

"John, come look, does this outfit go together?"

His soul seemed to be pulled straight toward her, and he trotted over.

Just as I was about to close the suitcase, I saw Sophie's skimpy swimsuit sprawled across my modest one.

I thought back to the beach a few days ago, the way John's eyes had stuck to Sophie.

She was slim, curved in all the right places, and next to her I looked like a block of wood without a shred of desire.

Throwing the swimsuit in front of me now was a bare-faced dare.

I sighed, picked up the swimsuit, and went to return it.

I'd barely reached the door when I heard something I didn't want to hear.

"Stop it, you almost tore my strap right off!"

John laughed, low and flirtatious. "Isn't this exactly how you like me?"

I cleared my throat, cutting off whatever the two of them were about to do next.

"Your things. Here."

John's face went darker than a storm. When I turned to leave, he grabbed my arm and held on tight.

"You did it on purpose? Stealing Sophie's clothes?"

I couldn't help laughing.

"I don't have that kind of time to spare, spying on things that don't matter to me. You two do whatever you want. I'm going."

When I said I was going, I meant leaving for good.

My suitcase was already outside the hotel.

And his Maybach had been waiting a good while.

John didn't take it seriously. He still thought I was throwing a fit the way I always did.

As I turned to go, my bag strap caught on Sophie by accident, and she took the opening to fall.

She hit the floor with a thud.

I gave it one glance and walked off, baffled.

But John reacted like it was some emergency and yanked me back by force.

"Apologize to Sophie! You did that on purpose, didn't you!"

He pulled hard enough to hurt, and I fought my way out of his grip.

"Why should I!"

With that, I ran for the door without looking back.

Until Jim Sanchez appeared beside the car and caught me steadily in his arms.

Behind me, the color drained from John's face in an instant.

"Evelyn, you've actually been in contact with him!"

It didn't surprise me that John still remembered Jim.

The two of them hadn't seen each other in eight years, but Jim had always stood right there between John and me.

Jim lifted his chin, the look he gave the man across from him full of contempt.

"It surprises you that Jim and I are in touch? Besides, there's nothing between you and her now, is there?"

I thought John would nod it off like it was nothing, then turn and leave with Sophie.

Then he'd never have to keep up the empty pretense with me, and he could be with his true love Sophie out in the open, no shame about it.

Jim finished speaking, took my hand, and moved to help me into the car.

But then John suddenly stepped in front of me, and the look in his eyes as he stared at me was full of injury.

"You're my girlfriend. Don't tell me you don't want me anymore?"

The moment the words were out, everyone was stunned.

Sophie included. Her face turned unbearably ugly.

She must not have expected it. That John would declare, in front of everyone, how much he wanted to keep me.

Jim's mouth curled with mockery, like he'd just heard a joke.

"Your woman? You who kept one on each arm, who ordered her around like a servant?"

"Your woman, huh. Go ask the friends standing next to you. Eight years, and who among them even knew she was your girlfriend? Not only did she do everything you said, she had to watch you drop her, again and again, and run off to another woman."

"John, I used to think you were brave back then, that you'd truly be good to her. Turns out I had you wrong."

Jim looked at him, contempt all over his face, gripped my hand tighter, and took me away.

4: 4

Eight years without seeing him, and still, being near him made me feel safe.

He got me into the car, where he'd already set out the iced latte and snacks I loved, and I could eat as sloppily as I pleased without a shred of shame.

Back with John, if crumbs got left in his car, he'd sneer and call me a pig.

Yet in the posts Sophie put up afterward, there was John, doting on her, tearing open snack bags for her one after another.

I couldn't hold it in any longer. My eyes went red, and the tears just came.

Jim wiped them away slowly, every word soft with tenderness.

"Once we leave this time, we're never coming back. I'll protect you for the rest of my life."

I said nothing. I just let him pull me in, feeling his stubble brush lightly across my forehead.

He took me to his villa in Southport and thoughtfully gave me the master bedroom.

I settled in and started to wash up, and then Jim knocked at the door.

I opened it to find a cup of warm, fragrant milk.

"In college, when we walked every evening, you always wanted a cup of hot milk."

I nodded hard and drank the whole thing in one go, not wasting a single drop.

He laughed and ruffled my hair.

"All right, get some rest. Give me a few days to wrap things up here, and I'll take you home."

I went back to bed, and in my dreams the past came drifting back, all of it, Jim and John and me.

Jim and I had been classmates. When we were young and first learning what it meant to like someone, the two of us had quietly fallen for each other.

His grades were excellent. He was one of those campus stars, the top student everyone knew about, and the school picked him to go study abroad.

We both understood chances like this didn't come twice. Turn it down and it was gone for good.

But he didn't want to go, because of me. And when that so-called fan club of his on campus found out, they came after me without letting up.

At first I could take it. It was only small torments, things that made daily life harder.

Then it got worse. They put dead rats in my food and scattered nails on my bed.

All of that I could endure. But during finals, they banded together and accused me of cheating.

A slip of paper drifted down by my foot, and just like that I was ruled a cheater.

At a moment when almost no one would speak for me, John stood up and said I'd been framed.

The dean's face darkened, and he demanded proof. So John, risking the same punishment, said with no expression at all,

"During the exam, I was watching Evelyn Bennett the whole time. I can guarantee she didn't cheat."

Every teacher was stunned. He went on,

"I like Evelyn. That's why I kept watching her. The writing on that paper is ugly. There's no way it's hers."

That was when I learned that this quiet, reserved boy had loved me in silence for a long time.

Back then I thought maybe John suited me better. So I parted from Jim, and stayed with John, all the way until now.

The past really was beautiful. It was just that reality couldn't hold up against the wear of the years.

The next morning, the moment I woke, a phone call from a friend back home wouldn't leave me alone.

The second I picked up, a coworker was shrieking, asking where I was.

It turned out John, seeing me leave, had insisted on chasing after me without a license. He'd flipped several cars on the road, and now the cops had him in custody, and he was losing his mind down at the station.

Abroad, he couldn't reach a single person. I was the only one who could bail him out.

In the photos she sent, John was unshaven, the buttons on his vest done up one row off.

He had a death grip on the collar of a foreign cop, like he was interrogating him about something.

My friend's voice was all helplessness.

"He's hysterical right now, and he can't understand a word of Southport's language, so he got into it with the cops. He wants you to come back."

"He keeps saying you have to come back, or he won't go home!"

For a moment I had nothing to say, no idea where to even start. All I could tell her was that I wasn't going to see him.

The last photo was Sophie clinging tight to John, and John slowly calming, the rage draining out of him.

She said, "Evie, we all know you're the one who's been John's girlfriend for eight years. Can you really just watch someone snatch your boyfriend away?"

Seeing the two of them so intimate, there wasn't a trace of hurt in me. Only a tired resignation.

Because deep down, I never wanted to hear another word about the two of them.

I wrote back, "A worn-out shoe someone's already broken in, there's nothing to feel bad about. And I'm not a dog, standing guard over a pile of crap so no one else can have it."

I didn't reply to my friend again. I pulled the SIM card out of my phone and tossed it aside.

All of it, every bit of the past, should just dissolve back into memory where it belonged.

Jim didn't seem in any rush to head back. He kept taking me around, place to place.

Under his care, all the exhaustion in my body and mind was swept clean away, like I was back to the way I'd been fresh out of college.

Plenty of old friends who saw me kept asking what high-tech secret I'd used to grow younger instead of older.

I said nothing. I only looked slowly over at Jim and, with complete sincerity, said,

"Thank you."

He didn't answer. He just pulled me in and held me tight.

That evening, Jim was tied up with something and stayed busy. I ordered delivery to the villa, and it was taking forever to arrive.

I was just about to call and ask when the doorbell rang.

I hurried to open it, and there was a huge bouquet right in my face, white lilies, my favorite.

The person on the other side was John.

The smile froze on my face the moment I saw him, and without a second thought I moved to shut the door.

I never expected he'd be bailed out this fast.

As if he sensed what I meant to do, he jammed the flowers into the doorway at once, his long fingers clamping down hard on the gap.

His eyes had gone red.

"Evelyn Bennett, I never thought you'd be this cruel, changing your number and all!"