At our tenth engagement party, my girlfriend crushed my heart again, leaving my proposal ring dangling in the air.

She had been chasing the ghost of her first love, and I was done being her fallback guy. When I finally opened my heart to someone new, she realized what she'd lost.

Ten years together, ten engagement parties, and still, she wouldn't take my ring. Every time we reached the moment to exchange vows, she'd stare at the door, waiting for that man to swoop in and rescue her.

She swore she'd only marry me if he crashed the party, claiming it would prove she'd truly chosen me.

This time, I couldn't hold back. "If he never shows, are you just gonna keep stringing me along forever?"

She shot back, "He still loves me. He'll show up to stop this. Besides, we've been together a decade. Does a ring even matter at this point?"

The tenth engagement party was a shadow of the ones before.

The banquet hall felt hollow. Neither Felicity Hill's parents nor mine bothered to show up. Her folks were mortified by her repeated stunts, while my mom and dad were fed up with the public humiliation. They'd even threatened to disown me if I didn't cut ties with her.

I told myself that this was the last time.

Felicity stood beside me, but her eyes weren't on me. She kept sneaking glances at her watch, then at the double doors. I knew who she was waiting for.

The emcee shifted awkwardly, nudging her to take the ring I held out and seal our vows. I didn't push her, still clinging to a shred of hope.

The guests started whispering, their patience wearing thin. Finally, Felicity sighed, extending her hand like she was doing me a favor.

My heart pounded, a decade's worth of longing surging through me. But before I could put the ring on her, the doors flew open.

"Felicity! Please, don't marry him. If you do, I swear I'll end it all!" Julian Hogan shouted, stumbling in.

His white shirt untucked, he looked like he'd just stepped out of a melodrama. Tears streaked his face, and he clutched a knife to his wrist.

Felicity froze, her eyes lighting up with hope, but my chest caved in. I should've given up long ago, but I'd let those ten years blind me, forgiving her time and again.

"Felicity, no. Don't go to him," I begged, my voice cracking as I grabbed her sleeve.

I knew she'd pick him without a second thought, but I needed her to hesitate, just for a second, to prove my decade of devotion wasn't a waste.

She wrenched her arm free, her face twisting with disgust. "Are you serious? He's about to kill himself, and all you care about is this stupid ceremony? Have some humanity!"

She didn't look back as she ran to Julian, yanking the knife from his hand and tossing it to the floor. She pulled him into her arms and whispered, "Come on, let me take you home."

Julian shot me a smug glance, his lips curling into a victorious smirk before he buried his face in her shoulder. "Even if you don't get engaged today, you'll do it eventually. I might as well die now."

His words were a calculated jab to kill any chance of our engagement. Oblivious, Felicity kept soothing him like he was a wounded puppy. "I'm not getting engaged to him. Come on, you're not thinking straight. Let's get you out of here."

He nodded, hesitant.

I stood alone on the stage, our friends' pitying stares bearing into me. My teeth ground together as I shouted after them, "Felicity! If you walk out that door, I'm done forgiving you."

She didn't turn around, just tossed back a flippant, "Grow up, Malcolm. His life is on the line."

I laughed, a bitter and hollow sound. My heart felt like it was being carved open, but I stayed rooted, letting the pain rip through me.

In her mind, Julian was always more important than me.

Felicity and I had been together since the night of our high school graduation.

At the party, she drank a lot, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glittering like stars. She grabbed my hand and slurred, "Wanna be my boyfriend? We're going to the same college. We'll be together forever."

Back then, she was the girl everyone noticed, and I'd been nursing a crush on her for three years. So, when my teenage dreams were coming true, I nodded without hesitation.

That night, she was electric, dragging me in front of our classmates. "Guys! Malcolm is my boyfriend now."

The crowd whooped and teased, and my ears burned red all night.

I thought we'd always be that way—she doting on me, and my world revolving around her. It felt like a fairy tale, too perfect to last.

Then college ended, and she went abroad for graduate school. That was when Julian Hogan entered the picture.

Her texts became short, her calls rare. I felt her slipping away, but I didn't want to believe it.

Then a friend sent me photos of Felicity and Julian strolling hand in hand, sharing kisses in the street.

She'd skip classes to be with him and get into fights defending him. Julian, with his brooding charm, would get plastered and lean on her, their fingers intertwined. He'd throw fits when she contacted me and sped on the road to chase her.

I was the punchline, watching from thousands of miles away.

When Felicity came back to the country, Julian trailed her like a lost puppy.

Her parents couldn't stand him, especially since I'd cared for her sick mother during her absence. They were touched and treated me like family.

Forced to dump Julian, Felicity blamed me, ignoring that I was her first love, the one who stayed despite her betrayal.

Even knowing she cheated, I didn't walk away. I loved her so deeply that I kept swallowing my pride and lowering my boundary.

I was pathetic, and she knew it, exploiting it to hurt me again and again, until I hit my breaking point.

When I got home that night, my mom saw the defeat in my eyes. She reached for my hand, but my dad cut in, his face dark with frustration.

"I told you to ditch her, but you let her break you first!" he said harshly.

But I heard the concern beneath it. I shouldn't have let it go this far.

My mom shot him a look to cool it, but he kept going. "Once you're over this, you're going to manage our overseas branch."

I was their only child, meant to take over our family business. My dad had been pushing me to manage our international branches, but I'd always said no, too tangled up with Felicity.

This time, I looked him in the eye and agreed without hesitation.

Their shock was palpable. Maybe they thought it was just talk, or that I'd choose Felicity over them again. Like anyone else, they believed I'd throw everything away for her. But she trampled on that love like it was nothing.

The irony wasn't lost on me.

Later that night, Felicity showed up outside my house, playing the repentant martyr.

Earlier, I'd already seen Julian's latest post. It was a smug shot of her tying his shoelaces, captioned, [Still treating me like a kid after all these years.]

His feed was a shrine to how much Felicity adored him, every post timestamped during our engagement parties, when she bolted on his calls.

There she was now, standing in the pouring rain. It was her go-to move every time.

My mom peered through the window, torn between pity and fear I'd cave. My dad slammed his coffee mug on the table, terrified I'd stay for her.

I gave my mom a small nod and stepped out. The rain battered my umbrella as I held it over Felicity's head. She looked up, not with relief but with smug certainty, as if she knew I'd come.

"I get that you're upset. But Julian could've really hurt himself. I couldn't let him die because of me," she said, her excuse as flimsy as ever.

I used to eat it up, like a fool under her spell. Now those rehearsed lines stirred nothing.

I simply handed her the umbrella, my voice flat. "You really think he'd do it? Funny how he only pulls this crap on our engagement days."

Once, I'd take any excuse Felicity offered, loving her despite Julian's apparent games.

Not tonight. I was done.

Her face twisted, either because I'd struck a nerve or because she couldn't stand me criticizing her darling. Her eyes blazed as she hurled the umbrella to the ground. "What do you mean by that? You think he faked it? Not everyone is as petty as you, okay?"

The rain stung my skin, cold and relentless, mirroring the gash in my heart. I stared at the discarded umbrella, feeling like a clown. The ten years we shared bound only me.

She would never let Julian get wet, and now she didn't care that I'd just gotten over a fever. Maybe she never cared about me at all.

"I'm going abroad next week," I said, turning to go back. "Take care."

She grabbed my wrist, her face twisted, not with regret, but irritation. "Now you're using leaving to manipulate me? I told you I just need to sort things with Julian. You've waited ten years. What's a little longer?"

That was a sheer lie. If she really wanted to sort things out, she wouldn't have done so many years ago. Her entitled attitude made me laugh bitterly. She acted like being with her was my greatest honor, blind to Julian's obvious manipulation.

Her expression softened when she saw the scorn in my eyes. She reached for my cheek. "Come on, babe. Don't be like this. I'll clear things up with him soon, I promise."

I stepped back, dodging her touch, a move that surprised us both.

I hadn't realized how much I'd come to resent her. A bitter chuckle escaped my mouth. "If you wanted to cut him off, you would've done it years ago. I'm done playing your clown. You've always known I loved you, and you used it to walk all over me."

Her pride couldn't handle me walking away first. She glared at me, her voice sharp. "Stop blowing this out of proportion! I've been with you for ten years. What else do you want? Julian never pressures me like you do."

In her mind, being with her was some grand prize, but that was not the worst part. Everyone saw through Julian but her, lost in their fleeting romance.

"Then go to him," I said, walking away.

Her shouting echoed behind me, but I didn't look back. "Felicity Hill, I'm done loving you."