Harper froze briefly before reaching for the juice on the table and pouring me a glass.

“Alright, Jayden. You can fool everyone else if you want, but there’s no point fooling yourself.”

The warmth in her voice had been replaced by a hint of coldness.

“Regarding marriage, I already made myself clear the last time we talked about it. I don’t want to spend any more energy on something I’ve already made up my mind about.”

By “the last time,” she meant our eighth anniversary two weeks ago.

After all those years together, I had thought it was time for us to move on to the next stage of our lives.

I knew Harper had spent the past two years completely absorbed in her startup. She barely ever had a moment to breathe. So, I had decided to take the initiative and propose to her.

I was willing to take care of every aspect of the wedding myself. She only had to show up on the day and be my bride.

That night, I took out the matching rings I had prepared. While blushing deeply, I had asked her if she would marry me.

However, Harper showed none of the excitement and joy I had imagined.

“Jayden, I don’t have time to get married now.”

She closed the ring box and pushed it back toward me.

“Can you wait a little longer?”

Her tone carried the same familiar warmth and intimacy as always.

But something inside me slowly ran cold.

I had already heard the word “wait” far too many times.

Harper and I had grown up together. Our families knew each other well, and they were more than happy to see us together.

As soon as we graduated, they started bringing up marriage plans.

Harper had told me we were still young, and that she wanted to focus on her career for two years before getting married.

I had agreed and told my parents there was no need to rush things.

They respected my decision and never mentioned it again.

Two years later, Harper left her job at the company and started her own business.

In the early days of her startup, she worked until two or three in the morning almost every day.

When she came home, she would hold me around the waist and promise to marry me once she succeeded, asking me to wait just a little longer.

I saw how hard she worked, so I never brought up marriage again.

It was already our eighth year together.

Harper’s company had gradually stabilized. Though she was still busy, it was nothing like the early days when she practically lived in the office.

I thought it was finally time for us to get married.

Even if she had no time to handle the wedding arrangements, I did not mind. I just wanted to marry her.

But to my surprise, her answer was still “wait.”

“We’ve been together for eight years. Don’t you want to marry me?”

I could not hold it in anymore. My words spilled out in a rambling rush.

“I don’t even care if the wedding is grand or modest. As long as it’s the two of us and our closest family members, I can–”

“Jayden Grant.”

In our eight years together, it was the first time Harper had ever called me by my full name.

All the warmth left her face, replaced by overwhelming exhaustion.

“I’m already worn out from work every day. Why do you keep pressuring me? Are you really in that much of a rush?”

Harper’s voice had not been loud. If anything, it was remarkably calm. It was as if she were simply commenting on the weather.

I sat across from her while staring in disbelief at the woman I had loved for eight years.

Back when we first started dating, she was the one who held me and said that her greatest wish in life was to graduate as soon as possible and marry me.

She had also said that whenever life became exhausting, the thought of marrying me motivated her to keep going.

But somehow, I had become the one pressuring her. I had turned into the one who could not wait.

“Harper, you’re the one who said–”

“So what?” Harper interrupted, sounding impatient.

“People change their minds. I’m busy right now, so I don’t want to get married yet. Can you accept that?”

With that, she shot to her feet.

The chair legs scraped across the floor with a harsh screech.

“Take some time to calm down. Something came up at work, so I’m leaving.”

The door slammed shut behind her, and the sound echoed through the room before everything fell into dead silence.

I sat frozen in my chair, my gaze falling on the closed ring box in front of me.

It felt like a hard slap across my face, the type that left your skin burning and stinging.

On our eighth anniversary, the proposal I had worked up all my courage to make ended in complete humiliation.

A notification chimed on my phone. It was the edited video of our eight years together that I had commissioned.

I had planned to curl up on the sofa with Harper and watch it projected on the screen, but that was no longer possible.

When I set my phone down, I accidentally hit play.

The next second, a bright, cheerful female voice came through the speaker.

“Today is February 14, 2018, Valentine’s Day. Jayden and I came to Lake Eronne. I, Harper Langley, swear upon this lake that I will love Jayden Grant for as long as I live.”

It was the first trip Harper and I had taken by ourselves after graduating from high school, and we had traveled to Dewmere.

Harper had made that vow at the foot of Mount Caelum, beside Lake Eronne.

Every memory I had with Harper played through my mind, frame by frame: holding hands at amusement parks as children, sitting in the same classroom at school, sheltering from rain by the roadside, and cooking together in our first shared home.

In the end, I still could not bring myself to let go of this childhood love.

Perhaps she had only acted this way because the pressure of starting her own business had become too much for her.

I should have been more understanding.

After thinking it through, I grabbed my coat and went to Harper’s company.

Just as I reached the entrance and raised my hand to knock, a woman’s confused voice came from inside.

“Harper, what were you thinking? Jayden’s been with you for eight years. He proposed because he wants to marry you. Did you really have to hide out at the office like this?

“Besides, you used to go on and on in school about being his future wife. Now that you’re at the right age to get married, why are you dragging this out? You didn’t even accept his proposal.”

My hand froze midair. I instinctively held my breath.

The faint click of a lighter came from inside.

Harper had picked up smoking during the early stages of her business, but she only smoked when she was especially stressed.

After a long silence, I finally heard a familiar voice.

“I honestly don’t know.”

Harper’s usually calm voice carried a faint sense of uncertainty.

“At first, I wanted to get married. Even starting the company was tied to that thought. I wanted to succeed and marry him in style.

“But for some reason, whenever marriage comes up now, Eugene’s face keeps popping into my mind.”

“What?” Her best friend gasped in disbelief.

“Didn’t you detest him the most back at university? You even said he was like chewing gum that wouldn’t come off.

“I found it strange when you first started the company and hired him as your secretary. I never thought you’d actually fall for him. But what about Jayden?”

Harper fell silent for a long time before she finally answered.

“I wouldn’t say I like him. I still love Jayden. It’s just that Eugene has been by my side for so many years. If I marry Jayden, he’ll be really hurt. It just makes him seem… kind of pitiful.”

I did not know how I exited the building.

By the time I came to my senses, I was already out on the street in a daze. My face was wet with tears.

Never had I imagined Eugene to be the reason Harper did not want to get married.

Although Harper and I had attended the same university and even the same class, we chose different academic tracks.

On the first day of class, she had messaged me, saying that a boy had asked for her contact details and kept tailing her even after she turned him down.

That boy was Eugene.

Later, she became so annoyed that she started bringing me along to class.

Even so, it did not deter Eugene from pursuing her. He still trailed behind her.

But my childhood bond with Harper was never something he could threaten. She had rejected him coldly every time.

For that reason, I never once doubted her feelings for me.

Even when Harper hired Eugene as her secretary during the early days of her company, I had only assumed he shared her academic background and was simply well-suited for the position.

I never expected Eugene to already occupy a place in her heart without me realizing it.

Harper had abandoned the idea of marrying me out of pity for his years of unrequited love.

What would come after that?

Would she feel guilty again over his steadfast devotion and eventually give him a chance to be with her just to make him happy?

What would our childhood bond even amount to?

A phone notification pulled me back to reality.

It was a voice message from Mom.

“Jayden, you and Harper have been together for eight years. It’s about time you got married. A while back, Mrs. Litchfield asked me if you two had broken up, since you’ve been together so long without getting married. She also said that if you had split up, she could introduce you to her niece. I…”

As I listened to Mom’s rambling voice, I wiped away my tears and replied, carefully emphasizing every word.

“Mom, Harper and I have broken up. Please tell Mrs. Litchfield I’d like to meet her niece.”