Theater: NovelMaster | Language: English
Synopsis
In the seven hundred-plus days I was with Carter, he never bought me flowers once. I told myself it didn’t matter.
He said he hated going out, so I stayed in, ordering takeout and playing video games with him. I thought that was enough.
Then, ahead of this long weekend, he actually suggested a trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. I was so thrilled I bought a brand-new suitcase just for the occasion.
Right before we were supposed to leave, he claimed an urgent project came up at work. He told me to go ahead without him, promising he'd catch the late express train and meet me there.
I spent six hours on a slow regional train, transferred between two long-distance buses, and didn't text him once about my swollen knee because I didn't want him to worry.
When I finally checked into the hostel and sent him my location, his reply took forty minutes. Just three words: Talk to you tomorrow.
I didn't press. I just lay on the bunk bed, scrolling through my phone.
That was when I stumbled across his cousin Serena’s TikTok.
In a warm, private restaurant booth, Carter was leaning over her plate, carefully picking out fish bones for her. He had the softest, most tender smile on his face.
In two years, I had never seen him look at anyone like that.
Serena had posted clips from that same upscale restaurant for three days straight. There was no urgent work project. There was no late train.
Beneath her video, I left a four-word comment: What a lovely couple.
Seconds later, my phone rang. Carter’s voice was shaking on the other end: "Delete that right now. She’s going to feel embarrassed."
All of a sudden, the pain just stopped.
I blocked his number across every platform, then pulled the zipper shut on my mint-green suitcase.
Seven hundred-plus days. Turns out he wasn't incapable of romance—he just never wanted to give it to me.
"Delete that right now. She’s going to feel embarrassed."
His voice came through the speaker, trembling with barely concealed panic.
I stared at the white ceiling above the top bunk in the hostel.
His first words weren't Did you make it safely?
They weren't I'm so sorry I couldn't come.
They weren't even You've got the wrong idea.
They were: She’s going to feel embarrassed.
She.
I rolled the word over in my mouth. Inside, I felt unnervingly still, like a glass of water that had gone cold hours ago.
"Where are you right now?" I asked.
"Chloe, just delete the comment first. We’ll talk when I get back."
"Where are you?"
He went quiet for two seconds. "I'm... taking care of some things."
I hung up.
The blanket was thin. The hostel’s standard white pillowcase carried a faint scent of industrial detergent.
Across from me, a girl had already fallen asleep. Her boyfriend hadn't shown up tonight either; she had cried into her pillow for a while before drifting off.
For a brief second, I envied her. At least she knew why her person hadn't come.
My phone buzzed. An unknown number.
I answered.
"Chloe, listen to me, Serena was just—"
"You looked really handsome when you were picking out those fish bones for her," I said.
Silence on the other end.
"In two whole years, I never saw that look on your face," I continued, my voice steady as stone. "I honestly thought you were just the type of guy who didn't smile much. Guess I was wrong."
"She filmed that herself. I didn't even know she—"
"You went to dinner with her three nights in a row."
Silence again.
Outside the window, a night breeze from the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains rustled through the trees. My knee was throbbing—a dull, rhythmic ache, like something grinding slowly into the joint.
I hadn't told him my knee had swollen up.
I never did.
"Carter, do you have any idea how long I spent traveling today?"
"...How's your knee holding up?"
I froze.
He knew about my old knee injury.
Yet he had waited until this exact second to ask.
"It's fine," I said.
I hung up, blocked the number, set my phone to silent, and turned toward the wall.
The ache in my knee became sharper in the quiet.
I counted the pulses of pain. Around the seventh throb, it hit me: tonight, he was supposed to be in that candlelit booth.
Soft amber lighting. Gourmet dishes. Serena whining, Carter, you know I hate fish bones, and him leaning in with his fork, meticulously removing every single one.
There had been a light in his eyes while he did it.
Not the restaurant's lighting. His own.
I closed my eyes.
No tears came. Not a single drop. Just a strange, stark clarity—as if someone had lifted a heavy weight out of my skull. It felt so much lighter, but utterly hollow.
Before dawn, I slipped out of bed and dragged my suitcase from under the frame.
That dark scuff mark was still on the side, impossible to wipe away.
In the dim light, the mint-green shell looked dull and gray.
I zipped it up and wheeled it out the front door of the hostel.
A night guard sitting by the entrance glanced at me, hesitated, and finally called out, "Miss, the first bus down the mountain doesn't run until sunrise."
"I know. I'll wait here."
I sat down on the concrete steps, resting the suitcase beside me.
A damp mountain breeze swept over, tangling half my hair across my face.
I didn't bother brushing it away.
I just sat there, waiting for the first morning bus, watching the horizon slowly bleed into a pale, dusty gray.
A random memory surfaced in my mind.
He had once told me mint green was his favorite color.
That was the only reason I bought this suitcase.
"Miss, the bus is here," the guard called from behind.
I stood up and grabbed the handle.
My knee hurt, but I could walk.
I climbed aboard, took the very back row, slid the suitcase into the aisle next to me, leaned against the glass, and closed my eyes.
My phone buzzed. Expecting another burner number from Carter, I unlocked the screen.
It was a text from Brooke, sent at 3:42 AM.
I just saw Serena’s TikTok. Where the hell are you?
I replied with two words: Heading back.
Four minutes later, her text arrived.
Text me the second you get in. Hot pot is on me.
The bus engine roared to life. As it wound down the pitch-black mountain road, I set the phone flat against my denim-covered knee, feeling the faint warmth of the screen seep through the fabric.
Just that tiny bit of warmth made my eyes sting.
Not because of Carter.
Because someone was looking out for me at three in the morning.
Text me the second you get in.
I took a deep breath and shut my eyes.
The bus took a sharp curve. My shoulder slammed against the cold windowpane, but I didn't pull away.
Time to go home."You never told me your knee flared up."
Brooke dropped a plate of sliced beef into the simmering hot pot. Her voice was taut with suppressed rage, which was infinitely scarier than when she yelled.
"Telling him wouldn't have changed anything," I said, fishing out a piece of tripe.
"How can you say that? He knows you had surgery on that knee!"
"And what if he does?"
Brooke stared at me for a long moment, letting the topic drop.
Steam curled up between us, blurring the outlines of her face.
We had been friends for eight years. She was always the brutally honest type, shooting straight from the hip.
Carter hated her. He used to say she had a venomous tongue, that every time I hung out with her, I came home "acting weird."
I actually believed him back then.
Looking back now, he only hated Brooke because she saw right through him from day one.
"Let me tell you something," Brooke said, setting her fork down. "And don't you dare say it's nothing."
I nodded.
"Last month, while I was waiting for you outside his office, I saw him and Serena walking out of the parking garage." She paused. "He was carrying her handbag."
I didn't say a word.
"In two years, how many times did you two go out? Did he ever once carry your bag?"
I thought back.
In two years, we went out maybe three times, always to the grocery store. I'd push the cart while he walked beside me, scrolling on his phone.
I didn't answer her.
My silence said everything.
"Chloe." She slid her phone across the table. On the screen was Serena’s TikTok, paused at the exact frame where Carter was leaning over the fish. "Look at his eyes."
I didn't look away.
There was something in his gaze. Something I had never received in seven hundred days. Simple, genuine care.
He cared whether there were bones in that fish, so he bent his head to pick them out.
He had never cared if there were bones on my plate.
The only thing he ever told me was: Maybe you should just stop eating fish.
"I remember when you choked on a bone that one time," Brooke's voice dropped low. "What did he say again?"
"He told me to stop eating fish."
"And you actually listened."
It wasn't a question.
I chewed on the meat. It tasted like cardboard.
"You know what the sickest part is?" Brooke scoffed. "You actually thought he was trying to protect you."
"...I thought he just hated hassles."
"He hated hassles when it came to you. But the second Serena says 'I'm scared of bones,' he whips out his utensils and fillets it for her." She shook her head. "He didn't hate trouble. He hated you."
He hated you.
The words struck like a slap, sharp and stinging.
It wasn't that I had never considered it. I was just too terrified to admit it to myself.
"About the Blue Ridge trip," I spoke up. "He told me an urgent project came up, told me to go first, and said he'd take the late train."
"Did he ever take it?"
"No."
"Because he never planned on going." Brooke’s tone was deadpan, laying out the facts with cold precision. "He sent you on a six-hour regional train all by yourself, watched you suffer through a swollen knee in silence, and spent those three days having romantic dinners with Serena."
I nodded.
Brooke fell silent.
That silence felt heavier than if she had flipped the table.
"That new suitcase," she said quietly. "Did you buy mint green on purpose?"
I kept my eyes on the boiling pot.
"He mentioned once that he liked that color."
"...Chloe."
"Yeah?"
"I've known you for eight years," her voice cracked slightly. "You used to wear whatever wild, gorgeous colors you wanted. Your art was always so bold and vibrant. On your birthdays, you used to buy huge bouquets of fresh flowers just because having them in a vase made you happy."
I kept my head down.
"And now?" she whispered. "Now you won't even buy a suitcase without checking if it fits his aesthetic first."
The soup bubbled loudly.
I picked up my water glass and took a sip, saying nothing.
Not because I had nothing to say.
Because speaking the truth out loud hurt far worse than staying quiet.
"When did it start between him and Serena?" I asked.
"I don't know for sure, but honestly?" Brooke paused. "I don't think it ever stopped."
I set my glass down, keeping my voice utterly level.
"I know."
Brooke blinked, taken aback by my calm.
"So what now?"
"I blocked him. Packed my stuff and moved out."
She stared at me for a long beat.
Then, she pushed the plate of beef toward me, her gaze softening.
"Eat up. You probably haven't had a decent meal all day."
I picked up my fork and took a bite.
After a couple of chews, the flavor finally broke through.
"Brooke," I said. "His mother said something to me once."
"What?"
"She told me Carter and Serena had been close since they were kids. Said it would've been a match made in heaven if they ended up together."
Brooke's fork froze in mid-air.
"She said that right to your face?"
"Right to my face. Then she sipped her tea and walked away."
Brooke took a deep, shuddering breath, holding it in before letting it out in a cold hiss.
"That whole family never saw you as one of them."Back at my rental apartment, I deadbolted the door and sat on the hardwood floor, taking stock of what was mine.
Two years of living together, and everything I owned fit into one suitcase and a canvas tote bag.
Some clothes, art supplies, a few books, and an old electric kettle.
The kettle had belonged to my late mother. In the winter, when my hands were always freezing, I loved wrapping my fingers around it for warmth. Carter constantly complained that it was an eyesore, that the frayed cord was a fire hazard, and told me to throw it out.
I never did.
It was the last piece of my mother I had left; I couldn't bear to let it go.
Yet I lived in that apartment with him for two years. For two whole years he nagged me to replace it, and through it all, I never figured out whether the kettle was the real hazard, or if our entire relationship was.
The kettle sat right at the top of the canvas bag, complete with a tiny dent on the metal base from when a college roommate had accidentally kicked it years ago.
Staring at that dent, memories started trickling in.
Three months into dating, I choked on a fish bone, and he told me, Maybe you should just stop eating fish.
And I actually stopped.
Four months in, he told me that seeing Brooke made me "act weird." I spent an entire afternoon brooding over it, and ended up canceling our next hangout.
Six months in, I posted a cute photo of us on Instagram. He snapped, Why are you sharing our private life online? I deleted it that very night.
Seven months in...
I cut the train of thought off.
Not out of fear. But because looking back, there wasn't a single dramatic moment I could point to and say, That's where I lost myself.
It was seven hundred days of boiling water slowly heating up degree by degree. You swim in it, thinking it's fine, thinking you can endure it, and by the time you realize you're scalding, you've already been cooked alive.
My phone buzzed.
It wasn't Carter. It was his mother.
I stared at the caller ID for a few seconds before answering.
"Chloe," she began, her tone measured, carrying that familiar, high-and-mighty edge. "Carter told me what happened between you two."
"Yeah."
"Did you leave a comment on social media?"
"I did."
"You're a grown woman. Airing out your dirty laundry on the internet like that—don't you think it's utterly classless?"
I stayed silent.
"Carter and Serena grew up together. It's completely natural for them to be close. You two aren't even married; since when do you get to dictate who he grabs dinner with?"
"Mrs. Vance," I said evenly. "Do you remember telling me, right to my face, that Carter and Serena would have been the perfect couple?"
She hesitated for a split second.
"I was joking."
"I know you were," my voice was flat. "Too bad I wasn't."
"Excuse me? How dare you speak to me like—"
"Mrs. Vance, we're done. This isn't a petty fight. It's an official breakup. I've already moved all my things out."
Silence fell over the line.
Five, maybe six seconds ticked by before she spoke again, her tone completely devoid of warmth.
"Fine. Good riddance."
Just like that.
Good riddance. Seven hundred-plus days of my life, dismissed in two callous words.
"Right," I replied. "Have a nice life."
I hung up and blocked the number.
The canvas tote rested against the baseboard. Beside it stood the mint-green suitcase, the black scuff mark facing me like an accusing eye.
I sat on the floor for a long time, until the sky outside faded into twilight.
Then my phone rang again.
I figured Carter had gotten his hands on yet another burner. But when I looked at the screen, it was a completely different local number. I picked up, and a woman's voice came through.
Syrupy sweet.
"Chloe? It's Serena.""Chloe, you've got this all wrong."
Her voice was silky and patronizing, the way someone might talk down to a toddler throwing a tantrum. "Carter was just taking me out for my birthday these past few days. You know how close we've always been; having a birthday dinner together is totally normal. There was really no need for you to make a scene in my comments... Everyone at my office saw it, you know. It was super awkward."
I didn't interrupt. I let her dig her own grave.
"Besides," she paused, as if deliberately picking the sharpest words, "if Carter's own girlfriend doesn't mind our dynamic, why should anyone else care? Don't you agree?"
"When is your birthday?" I asked.
"...What?"
"Your birthday. What date is it?"
She hesitated. "October twelfth."
"It's May."
"...We were just celebrating early."
"Three days in a row, at the exact same five-star restaurant, five whole months in advance?"
She went dead quiet.
I waited.
"Chloe, the way you're interrogating me right now... honestly, it feels like an attack," her tone shifted, remaining delicate on the surface, but steeped in rehearsed victimhood. "I know you're upset, but whatever issues you and Carter have, they really have nothing to do with me. That's between the two of you."
"Oh? And what issues would those be?"
"You're just way too insecure," she said smoothly. "Carter always told me you overthink everything. The moment he gets close to anyone else, you throw a fit. Do you have any idea how many times he avoided seeing me just to keep you happy?"
Avoided seeing her just to keep me happy.
I replayed the past two years in my head.
He picked her up from work, dropped her off, took a personal day to help her move apartments, treated her to high-end sushi, played weekend tennis with her, and kept a childhood photo of the two of them as his phone lock screen.
And that was his definition of avoiding her.
"Serena," I said calmly. "You just told me your birthday is October twelfth."
"Yeah. It is."
"So, do you want to double-check the timestamps on the videos you posted?"
Silence.
"Social media apps log the exact date and time," I reminded her. "The metadata doesn't lie."
Another stretch of silence, longer this time.
When she spoke again, the faux-sweet mask shattered completely.
"Look, Chloe, if you want the harsh truth, you and Carter were never a good match to begin with. Your problem isn't me, and deep down, you know it."
She took a cold, spiteful breath.
"What did you even offer him in two years? Ordering cheap takeout and watching him play video games? You couldn't even plan a weekend getaway without him taking the initiative. You're boring. You're a homebody who drags everyone down to your level. He reached out to me because I give him an excitement you never could."
Her voice slowed, dripping with smug superiority.
"You know as well as I do that he never commented on your posts. He barely even looked at your feed. Meanwhile, he replies to my stories within seconds. That's not my fault. It's just that you were never woman enough to keep his attention."
In the hallway outside my apartment, footsteps scuffed against the floorboards.
I let her finish every last drop of poison.
"Serena," I said, my voice eerily calm. "You just admitted something very interesting."
"What?"
"You said he reached out to you."
She froze.
"So he was the one who pursued you."
Not a word from her.
"Good to know," I said. "Thanks for clearing that up."
I ended the call.
Taking a breath, I opened the screen recorder app on my phone. The entire two-minute conversation had been recorded in crystal-clear audio.
I saved the audio file to my cloud drive and locked it.
Standing up, I flicked on the ceiling light.
The apartment was still a mess, my belongings scattered across the floor.
Time to unpack.
I unzipped the suitcase, hung my clothes in the closet, and set my sketchbooks and brushes on the desk. Then I plugged in my mother's kettle, waiting for the water to boil.
Sitting by the desk, I pulled up Serena's TikTok account.
It was completely wiped clean. Not a single video remained; her profile was entirely blank.
Too bad for her. Every screenshot was already saved in my camera roll.
Three consecutive days. The same private dining booth. Carter meticulously deboning fish for her. The timestamps. And the audio recording of her confessing that he pursued her.
I grabbed a notepad, flipped to a clean page, and drafted a neat, chronological list of evidence.
When I was done, I closed the pad and slipped it under my watercolor block.
The kettle gave a soft hiss as steam billowed from its spout.
I poured a mug of hot water and cupped it in both hands, letting the heat sink into my skin.
My phone buzzed again. Carter, using another new number.
I hovered my thumb over the block button, but paused long enough to read his text:
Chloe, Serena told me you called her. She’s completely devastated. Can you please stop acting like this? If we have issues, we should talk directly. The way you're behaving right now is unhinged. We need to meet face-to-face.
She's completely devastated.
Ha.
I set the phone on the nightstand, leaned back against the headboard, and stared at the ceiling.
What did Serena just say on the phone?
He reached out to me because I give him an excitement you never could.
Her exact words.
And the very first text Carter sent me began with: Serena is completely devastated.
Seven hundred-plus days, and nothing had changed.
I was never his priority. Not even once.
I locked the screen, blocked the number, turned on my side, and shut my eyes.
There was plenty of work to do tomorrow.
Tonight, I needed to sleep.
Chapters (4)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Watch & Promotions
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