Chapter 1

1: 1

On the day of our engagement, I stumbled across a post from someone mocked as a cheated-on partner, and something made me click into it.

"My fiancée got groped by her designated driver while she was drunk. She has no idea. Should I tell her or keep it from her?"

The comments were unanimous: keep it from her, for her own good.

A long while later, he replied.

"But it's been eating at me ever since. As a man, the one thing you care about most is your partner's purity."

It made me sick. Without thinking twice, I fired back in the comments.

"Calling a victim's experience a loss of virtue? That's pretty dehumanizing to your girlfriend."

"If you've got any spine, just say it to her face. She probably won't be grateful for your holier-than-thou pity anyway."

He replied to everyone in the thread. Everyone but me.

That evening I brought it up with my boyfriend, Nelson Finley.

I asked, "You don't actually think that kind of charity counts as love, do you?"

His back stiffened.

"People think differently. Do you really have to make such a big deal out of it?"

I sulked for a long time, and the man who loved me to my bones didn't come to smooth things over. First time ever.

The next day I went to pick him up from work like always, thinking I'd patch things up.

Instead I walked in on him kissing a company intern, the two of them unable to pull apart.

When he caught the tremble in my eyes, he stayed calm, like a bystander watching someone else's mess.

"Why would you do this to me?"

He raised his phone. That very post filled the screen.

"You told me to come clean. You said you looked down on my pity. Well, I dared to come clean. What about you?"

"Once you find out you're the one who got violated, do you still have the nerve to talk back?"

The color drained from my face. So the disgust in his eyes that night, after I'd sobered up, hadn't been my imagination after all.

But he'd forgotten. I don't accept pity, and I don't want to argue.

So I chose to let go.

1

The night wind slapped against my ears in waves, my vision blurred past the point of seeing.

I never imagined that the post I'd wandered into on a whim, just to join the noise.

The female lead a thousand people were dissecting, mocking, pitying, was me.

And that fact got laid bare, raw and naked, by the cheating boyfriend of eight years, right there in the middle of catching him in the act.

A dense, prickling sting rose in the bridge of my nose.

I held it back, again and again, and didn't cry.

"So this was your revenge? Cheating on me right in front of my face, right after we got engaged?"

The corner of Nelson's mouth curled into a sneer.

"I actually felt sorry for you. As long as you behaved, I was willing to lower myself and take you back anyway."

"But you had to go on thinking you were pure as snow. So don't blame me for not sparing your dignity."

Watching Nelson shield her so tightly, the three of us stood off against each other like we were separated by a galaxy.

My throat felt clogged with a grievance I couldn't put into words.

I opened my mouth to defend myself.

"I didn't know... I didn't know about any of that..."

Nelson raised an eyebrow and played a video.

On the screen, I was sprawled across the back seat, dead to the world, my face flushed red.

My collar hung open, and the designated driver had long since vanished without a trace.

As Nelson called out to me over and over, I lifted my head, and the faint red marks scattered across my neck came into view.

The Nelson in the video was panicking, and outside the screen, I had nothing to say.

"Now you believe it, right? If I hadn't gotten there in time that night, it doesn't take much to imagine what would've happened to you."

What broke my heart worse than the video.

Was that there was no ache in the man's eyes. Only disgust.

As if I'd already turned into a piece of filthy garbage.

Nelson put the phone away and swept his eyes over me, up and down.

Sally Donaldson, tucked against him, panicked and stepped on the hem of her own dress.

Nelson bent down at once to comfort her, brushing her hem clean.

"It's fine. I'll buy you a new one in a bit."

Then he looked at me again, and the meaning behind it was unmistakable.

"Anything dirty, I've never been able to stand having in my sight."

With that, he pulled the girl into the Maybach and left nothing behind but a trail of exhaust.

Through my blurred vision, the post updated again.

【Finally came clean with her. The weight on my chest is finally gone. No more pretending.】

My nose stung, and at last I broke down sobbing.

I don't know what I did wrong.

Because of one drunken night, I'd lost my so-called 'purity.'

And I'd lost the Nelson who once loved me more than anything.

I made it home in a daze.

Looking at the proposal setup Nelson had arranged so carefully the day before.

The festive confetti lay scattered in sad little clumps across the floor.

Yesterday's happiness struck me across the face like some cruel joke.

Aching, I picked up the picture book he'd hired someone to draw, the story of how the two of us met, got to know each other, understood each other.

It recorded the past eight years of us.

I turned to the last page, the one that had held the ring, where there was a photo of us from long ago under the cherry blossoms.

We were both laughing, wide-eyed and innocent. I flipped it over, and on the back Nelson had written something.

【Why did it have to be you. I feel so filthy, so filthy!】

Every word dripped with hatred.

The smile that had lifted on my lips froze in an instant, and the tears nearly spilled over.

Just how deep did the trauma of that night cut into Nelson, for it to keep gnawing at him like this?

Was what happened that day even real?

I had to find out.

I wanted to tell Nelson what I'd decided. If it was true, I'd leave quietly on my own and never cling to him again.

And I'd bring that designated driver to justice.

But if it was false, then why wouldn't he believe me? Why was he so eager to slap a "slut" label on me?

The message had barely gone through when a red exclamation point burned red into my eyes.

I opened Nelson's profile background. The photo of the two of us with fingers laced together was already gone.

In its place was a playful shot of Sally in profile, mid-meal.

Just how worthless was I in his heart, that in a single night he could cast me down into the deepest pit there was.

I let out a bitter laugh, slid the ring off, and set it on the last page of that picture book.

Since his heart was no longer here, there was no reason for me to hold on.