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Chapter 3: The Gathering

The following Saturday, Nolan’s college roommate, Garrett, hosted a dinner party at an upscale downtown bistro.

When Nolan and I walked into the private dining room, Daphne was already seated at the center of the table. She was wearing a pristine white cashmere sweater dress, and resting beautifully against her collarbone was the diamond edelweiss necklace.

It sparkled aggressively under the ambient lighting.

She waved brightly. Nolan walked straight over and naturally pulled out the chair directly beside her, sitting down before I had even taken off my coat. I was forced to take the seat on his opposite side, rendering me a physical afterthought.

“Hey, future sister-in-law!” Daphne beamed at me, her voice dripping with saccharine sweetness.

“Don’t call me sister-in-law yet, Daph,” Nolan chuckled, pouring her a glass of wine. “We aren’t married yet.”

“Well, you basically are,” Garrett laughed from the head of the table. “Daphne’s been practically planning the whole wedding! She told me she was at your mom’s house tasting the menu.”

Daphne looked down, coyly tracing the rim of her wine glass. “I just wanted to help the bride-to-be out. Clara is so corporate and busy, someone had to do the warm, domestic stuff.”

“Daphne, that necklace is stunning,” Garrett’s girlfriend gasped, leaning over the table. “Is it custom?”

Daphne’s hand fluttered up to the ‘N’ pendant. She shot a covert, gleaming look at Nolan. “It is. Someone very generous had it made for me.”

“Wow. Did you buy that for her, Nolan?” Garrett asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I did,” Nolan said smoothly. “It was a birthday gift.”

The table went slightly quiet. The women exchanged loaded glances.

“You custom-ordered diamonds for your female friend right before your wedding?” Garrett’s girlfriend asked, unable to hide her cringe.

“Clara doesn’t care for jewelry,” Nolan interjected quickly, answering for me. “She thinks it’s a waste of money. Right, Clara?”

I looked at him. I looked at Daphne, who was watching me with triumphant, predatory eyes.

“Sure,” I said flatly.

Garrett, sensing the suffocating tension, clapped his hands. “Alright, let’s play a game! Couples trivia. Let’s see how well the groom actually knows the bride. Nolan, what is Clara’s favorite flower?”

Nolan opened his mouth. He closed it. He looked at the ceiling. “Uh… roses. White ones.”

“Bellflowers,” I corrected quietly. “I told you on our first date.”

“Right, right,” Nolan waved it off. “Okay, next.”

“What is Clara’s biggest phobia?”

Nolan laughed. “She isn’t afraid of anything. Clara is basically a machine. She’s fearless.”

“I am terrified of deep water,” I said, staring directly into his eyes. “I nearly drowned when I was six. I’ve told you three times.”

An agonizing silence fell over the room.

Daphne giggled, breaking the ice. “Okay, my turn! Let’s see if Clara knows Nolan. Clara, what is Nolan most terrified of?”

I stared at my plate. “I don’t know. He never tells me.”

Daphne smiled, a slow, victorious smirk. “He’s terrified of thunderstorms. When he was five, lightning struck the oak tree in his front yard and split it in half. He hid under his bed for two days.”

She looked around the table, basking in the attention. “He hates hot coffee, he only drinks iced Americanos, even in winter. And he cannot sleep unless the room is exactly sixty-six degrees.”

She knew his soul. She knew his childhood trauma. Whenever I asked Nolan deep questions about his past, he would shrug and say, “Nothing to tell, Clara. Just a normal childhood.”

With me, he was a brick wall. With Daphne, he was an open book.

I stood up, pushing my chair back. The legs scraped loudly against the hardwood.

“I’m going to head home,” I said smoothly. “I have an early morning.”

“Clara, come on, don’t be a buzzkill,” Nolan groaned, clearly embarrassed.

“I’ll call an Uber. Enjoy your evening.”

I walked out of the restaurant into the freezing night air. Daphne followed me into the vestibule.

“Clara, wait,” she called out. I turned around. The innocent, sweet facade had vanished. Her eyes were sharp, calculating, and cold.

“I’m going to be blunt with you,” Daphne said, crossing her arms. “You are making Nolan miserable. If you can’t even handle a simple trivia game without throwing a tantrum, this marriage is doomed.”

“Every time he went to Switzerland, he was with you,” I said, my voice void of emotion. “What do you expect me to feel?”

She smiled a razor-thin smile. “It was work, Clara. I had conventions. We just met up.”

“Work doesn’t require sharing the exact same hotel, the exact same ski lodges, and staging romantic photoshoots every year while lying to your fiancée.”

Her smile remained, but her eyes darkened. “Listen to me carefully. I am Nolan’s oldest friend. If you want to view me as a threat, that is your insecurity talking. But I’m not going anywhere. Oh, and by the way…” She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “I told Nolan to change the living room walls in the new house to a warm griege. He completely agreed with me. That sterile, hospital-white you picked out was incredibly depressing.”

I had spent four weeks interviewing painters, selecting the perfect milky white for that suburban house. Nolan had never once come to the property to check on the progress. But with one single sentence from Daphne, my choices were overwritten.

I didn’t argue. I didn’t yell. I just looked at her, truly looked at her, and realized I was fighting a war I had already lost five years ago.

“Have a good night, Daphne,” I said, and walked out the door.

Chapter 4: The Clean Break

Saturday morning. The apartment smelled of cheap drip coffee and cold toast.

“Nolan, are we going to the hardware store today?” I asked, sitting at the kitchen island.

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere,” he said, scrolling through his phone. “I’ll spend the whole day with you. We can pack up the rest of the guest room.”

I nodded. For a brief, pathetic second, I thought maybe we could have one normal day.

His phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, and his posture immediately shifted. He answered it, his voice dropping to an urgent hush. “Daph? What’s wrong? … A burst pipe? How much water? … Okay, don’t panic. The super is out of town? Fine. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

He hung up, practically sprinting to the closet to grab his coat.

“Where are you going?” I asked, my voice dangerously soft.

“Daphne’s loft flooded. A pipe burst in her kitchen. I have to go help her move her furniture before the water ruins it.”

“Call a professional water mitigation company, Nolan. It will take them an hour to get there.”

“They cost a fortune, Clara! She can’t afford that right now.”

Just two nights ago, I had asked him to help me carry three heavy boxes of books down to the moving truck. He had rubbed his lower back, winced, and said, “Clara, just hire a TaskRabbit. My back is killing me, I can’t be hauling boxes.”

But for Daphne, he was suddenly Hercules.

“Nolan,” I said, not moving from my stool. “Do you truly believe you treat her like a friend, and me like a fiancée?”

He stopped at the door, clearly irritated by the delay. “She is in a crisis, Clara! Yes, I treat her well, it’s a habit! But you are the one I am marrying! You are getting the house, the ring, the life! Isn’t that enough for you?!”

“Go,” I said quietly.

He didn’t hesitate. The door slammed shut behind him.

I sat in the silence of the apartment for ten minutes. The cold toast sat on my plate. The coffee stopped steaming.

I stood up. I walked into the bedroom, pulled my Samsonite suitcase from the top shelf of the closet, and opened it on the mattress.

I packed exactly what I had brought into this relationship five years ago. Two pairs of jeans. A handful of sweaters. My laptop. My toiletries.

I walked into the bathroom. On the vanity, my existence was reduced to a toothbrush and a bottle of face wash. Daphne’s existence was everywhere. Her spare curling iron under the sink. Her expensive face cream. Her designer canvas loafers by the door.

I walked into the kitchen and slipped the diamond engagement ring off my finger. The metal felt heavy, but leaving it felt weightless. I placed it perfectly in the center of the kitchen island.

Then, I went to the refrigerator. I peeled off the five cheap Swiss magnets. I lined them up in a perfect, straight row right next to the ring.

I pulled out a notepad and wrote a single line:

“The wedding is canceled. You can keep the ring, the magnets, and the house. For your honeymoon, you already have the perfect travel partner.”

I zipped my suitcase. I booked a one-way flight to Chicago, where my former firm had offered me an executive transfer six months ago—an offer I had declined because Nolan didn’t want to leave his “roots.”

I dragged my suitcase to the front door. I looked around the apartment one last time. The dent in the sofa where he sat. The coasters stained by Daphne’s teacups.

I pulled the door shut behind me, the lock clicking into place like a gunshot.

By the time I landed at O’Hare, my phone was a graveyard of missed calls.

Twenty-seven missed calls from Nolan. Eight from Bridget.

I called Bridget as I stood at the baggage claim.

“Clara! Thank God! Where are you?!” Bridget screamed into the phone.

“I’m in Chicago. I took the transfer.”

“You… you left? You quit your job here and left the state?”

“Yes.”

“Clara, Nolan is losing his absolute mind. He called me an hour ago in a complete panic. He said he came home and your stuff was just gone. He doesn’t understand why you left. He said you guys were perfectly fine!”

We were perfectly fine. A fiancée who designed and renovated an entire house alone, who sat in an apartment while her partner took his best friend to the Alps for five years, who finally packed her entire life into one suitcase and vanished… and in his eyes, things were “perfectly fine.”

“Bridget, do me a favor,” I said, watching my suitcase drop onto the carousel. “Don’t tell him where I am. Let him live realistically.”

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