Chapter 4Perfection Was Never Love

When I went downstairs, the car I had driven there was already gone. Miles had taken it to urgent care.

He had not bothered to think about whether I needed transportation or how I was supposed to get home in the middle of the night.

The rideshare app searched again and again, but no driver accepted.

My injured finger had already begun to swell.

I gave up on the hospital and walked into a small twenty-four-hour clinic nearby.

After checking the wound and my vaccination history, the doctor recommended a tetanus booster. The injection stung badly enough to drain the color from my face.

Without thinking, I opened social media, and Audrey's latest post appeared first.

"First tetanus shot of my life. It hurts so much!"

"Good thing somebody is helping distract me from the pain."

The attached picture showed a bite mark on Miles's cheek.

He was still smiling at her with obvious indulgence.

Miles always said a perfect girlfriend needed to learn independence.

So when my cramps once got so bad I nearly fainted, he ignored me when I asked him to take me to the hospital.

He simply sent me a delivery link for pain medicine.

After years under his rules, I had thought my tolerance for pain must have become unusually high.

Apparently not. Tears still slipped down my face.

The doctor paused, eased up on the needle, and asked me to stay a while for observation.

I nodded, but my eyes drifted helplessly toward the comments under Audrey's post.

"Perfectly stayed still for the shot: plus one hundred."

"Bonus reward: the trip you've wanted most."

The screenshot beneath his comment showed two tickets for a guided tour through the Scottish Highlands.

My fingers froze over the screen.

Those were the honeymoon tickets Miles and I had originally chosen for ourselves.

Because our wedding had failed for seven years, the honeymoon had also been postponed for seven years.

Miles always said that if the tickets expired he would buy new ones, but the order of things could not be broken.

No one, he said, should let private emotion ruin the structure of a perfect marriage.

Yet now he had turned our honeymoon into a reward for another woman.

Could secondhand happiness still be perfect?

I did not know.

I wiped away my tears and replied beneath the post.

"Have a good trip."

"We're breaking up."

I only knew I did not want a secondhand honeymoon.

And I did not want a secondhand man either.

My phone began ringing almost immediately.

I declined the calls, and Miles started sending messages one after another.

"Making a scene under Audrey's post is childish. Have you reflected on what you did at all?"

"Audrey was generous enough to forgive you. Giving her a trip to make up for it is reasonable. Stop turning everything into a crisis."

"Perfect Girlfriend Rule One: always respond promptly. Minus five points."

At last he seemed to compromise by half a step. "Be there at ten tomorrow morning. If you're on time, we'll let you come with us."

I ignored his assumption, blocked both him and Audrey, and deleted them from my contacts.

Then I opened Nathan's message.

"The flight was moved up. We leave tomorrow morning."

I replied, "Okay."

I spent the rest of the night at the clinic, then took a cab to the rental apartment at dawn.

I collected my suitcase and went straight to the airport.

While waiting to board, I suddenly saw Miles staring at me in surprise.

I checked my watch. It was only seven.

He opened his mouth, but Audrey's delighted voice came from behind him. "Celia! Are you traveling with us too?"

She hurried over dragging a suitcase, clearly having just arrived herself.

Miles swallowed whatever he had been about to say and answered stiffly, "No. She's late again."

See? His clock only ever ran on time for Audrey.

From the meeting time he had pushed three hours later just for me, to the open favoritism standing right in front of me now.

He had never intended to let me anywhere near their trip for two.

After a moment, Miles let out a helpless sigh.

He took the cleaned wedding ring from his pocket and gently slid it back onto my ring finger.

"Be good. We'll be back in seven days. Get the wedding ready, and I'll be there exactly on time.

"Now stop making trouble. I won't even deduct points for being late, okay?"

He was certain I was still the Celia who would wait forever, become jealous whenever he and Audrey crossed a line, and calm down the moment he offered one promise.

But he was wrong.

Once I had truly decided to leave, even explaining myself felt unnecessary.

I watched the two of them walk away, pulled off the ring, dropped it into a trash bin, and headed toward a different gate.

Toward a future without him.

Seven days later, Miles landed and went straight from the airport to the wedding venue, arriving at the exact scheduled minute.

The moment he stepped inside, he stopped.

The ballroom was empty. There was no wedding and not a single guest.

Unease tightened in his chest.

He caught the venue manager, Gwen Halloway, by the arm. "Isn't Celia's wedding supposed to be here today? Where is everyone?"

Gwen looked genuinely confused.

"Ms. Monroe? She canceled every future wedding reservation a week ago. I heard she moved overseas."