Chapter 1Playing By His Cruel Rules

I spent four years with Brandon, and our entire relationship was governed by mystery boxes.

He claimed to suffer from severe intimacy anxiety, an emotional claustrophobia so intense that he needed an expiration date on love just to breathe. So he instituted a ritual. Whenever things became too real, I had to draw an envelope from his wooden box to determine how long he would stay committed to me before we "broke up" to reset his nervous system.

Once, I drew two days. The moment the forty-eighth hour struck, he declared us over and stranded me on the curb outside LAX, boarding his flight without looking back.

Another time, I drew seven hours. The timer ran out while I was in the middle of an emergency appendectomy; he couldn't even wait for the anesthesia to wear off before texting me that our time was up, leaving me alone in the recovery ward.

On the morning of our wedding, he placed three identical black boxes on the dressing table.

My hands trembled as I pulled out the slip of paper: "Three hours."

A sharp, collective gasp rippled through the bridesmaids behind me.

I looked up at him through my veil, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Brandon. We're getting married today. The guests are already arriving downstairs."

His face was smooth, entirely devoid of emotion. "Rules are rules, Laurel. Don't make me think you're someone who can't handle the stakes." He adjusted his cufflinks with cold precision. "The wedding is postponed."

Thirty minutes before I was supposed to walk down the aisle, he dumped me. Again.

I sat alone in the bridal suite, surrounded by cascading white orchids and tulle, staring blankly at my phone until an Instagram notification flashed across my screen. It was a story posted by my best friend, Delilah.

She had uploaded a photo of an identical card from Brandon's collection. Written across it in his familiar, sharp handwriting was: "Five Hundred Years."

Her caption read: "Just picked this on a whim! Brandon, maybe I should lend this to Laurel so she can actually finish her ceremony?"

Brandon’s comment appeared almost instantly underneath: "Absolutely not. That one belongs only to you."

I stared at the glowing screen for a long, quiet minute. The room felt suddenly, violently devoid of oxygen.

All this time, I had convinced myself that Brandon was simply terrified of commitment, that his soul was too bruised to handle the weight of forever. But that wasn't it at all. He wasn't afraid of forever.

He just didn't want forever with me.

I picked up the house phone and dialed the venue coordinator.

"Cancel the wedding," I said, my voice eerily calm. "Every vendor, the ballroom, the hotel accommodations, the flights for the guests. Bill it all to my personal card. I'll pay every termination fee."

I was done renewing my subscription to a dying love.

...

* * *

"Ms. Hall, are you certain about this?" the coordinator asked, her voice tight with panic.

"Entirely certain. Please forward the final invoice directly to my email."

I hung up, then dialed Brandon. It rang until the final beat before he finally picked up.

"According to the protocol, Laurel, you aren't supposed to call me right now," he said, his tone flat, completely detached.

My breath caught in my throat, my fingers tightening against the receiver until my knuckles ached. For four years, I had treated his absurd emotional protocols like gospel. I had accommodated his distance, swallowed his rules, and bowed to his whims. And what had it bought me?

Public humiliation. A deferred life. And a fiancé who openly flirted with my best friend while abandoning me at the altar.

I was done playing his game.

"I called off the wedding," I said.

A heavy silence settled over the line. Then, his voice dropped an octave, laced with condescension. "Who is this little performance for, Laurel?"

"I'm serious. It's over."

Brandon let out a quiet, dismissive chuckle. "Fine. But when you come to your senses, don't come crawling back, begging me for another walk down the aisle."

The line went dead.

He genuinely believed I would crawl back. Why wouldn't he? It had taken two years of relentless pleading just to get him to agree to a ring. In those two years, we had broken up one hundred and seventy-three times.

This would be the one hundred and seventy-fourth. And the last.

I went back to our shared penthouse to pack my things. Halfway through folding my coats, the front door clicked open.

Brandon walked in, followed closely by Delilah. She was clutching a bouquet of blush-pink heritage roses, her cheeks flushed with a delicate, performative glow.

Brandon stopped in his tracks, his brows drawing into a deep frown. "Why are you still here?"

According to his rules, once a countdown expired and we broke up, I wasn't permitted to sleep under his roof.

I didn't stop folding. "I'm leaving. I had to finish settling accounts with the hotel."

"Laurel, honestly," he sneered, tossing his car keys onto the marble console. "I had no idea you were such a drama queen."

I said nothing.

Delilah took a timid step forward, her voice dripping with calculated fragility. "Is Laurel upset with me? Brandon, maybe I should go. I don't want to make things worse."

Brandon immediately caught her by the elbow, pulling her back inside. "The wind is brutal out there, Delilah. Don't be ridiculous. You're not the one who needs to leave."

"The wind is brutal out there."

For Delilah, he noticed the chill in the air. For me, I was expected to wander into the freezing night without a second thought.

"He's right," I said quietly, looking Brandon dead in the eye. "I'm the one who should leave. After all, I didn't pull the five-hundred-year card."

His expression flickered, caught off guard. "Were you stalking my accounts?"

A bitter smile touched my lips. "It's on a public story, Brandon. The whole city saw it."

Delilah's eyes instantly welled with tears. "I'm so sorry, Laurel! I shouldn't have shared it. Usually when we mess around with those cards, I only draw thirty or forty years. I was just so shocked to see five hundred..."

I gave a faint nod, keeping my composure, then turned back to Brandon. "Why was it that every single time I drew, I only ever got a few days, or a few hours?"

Brandon let out an irritated sigh, running a hand through his hair. "Why are you comparing yourself to Delilah? You're the one who was going to marry me, Laurel. I was just teasing her, making her laugh."

"When was the last time you tried to make me laugh?"

"Laurel," his voice carried a sharp edge of warning. "Do you really have to push me on this? Are you really that desperate to get married?"

I looked at his handsome, callous face. The man I had loved so blindly. Before I could speak, Delilah gave a delicate, shivering sneeze.

Brandon's face shifted into instant concern. He pushed past me into the master bedroom, returning seconds later with the plush cashmere throw from the foot of our bed. It was a gift he had bought me last Christmas—he had whispered into my neck back then that he loved wrapping me in it because holding me felt softer that way.

"Wrap this around yourself before you catch a chill," he muttered softly, draping it over Delilah's shoulders.

A knot formed in my throat. I wanted to tell him that the blanket was mine, that it was the one thing he had given me that felt warm. But the words withered on my tongue. What was the point?

"If you're done talking, hurry up and pack," Brandon said over his shoulder, his hands still fussing over the edges of Delilah's blanket.

"Is she staying here tonight?" I asked.

"Do you really have to pick a fight with someone who isn't feeling well?"

I looked at him, then at her, and said nothing more.

"And take down all this plastic junk while you're at it," he added, gesturing toward the customized banners and floral garlands pinned along the hallway.

My parents had spent twelve hours helping me hang those decorations the day before yesterday. My father’s chronic back pain had flared up, yet he had insisted on standing on a stepladder to make sure every ribbon was straight. Meanwhile, Brandon had claimed his pre-wedding jitters were overwhelming him and had spent the entire day drinking bourbon at a private club downtown.

"Okay," I said quietly.

I stepped over and began peeling the tape from the walls, inch by inch. Brandon watched me from the sofa, a cold, mocking smirk pulling at his lips.

"God, Laurel. This pathetic, obedient act makes me sick."

I didn't answer. I spent the next two hours tearing down every shred of our celebration until my nails cracked and began to bleed.

When I finally zipped my suitcase and moved toward the doorway, Brandon walked over and extended a heavy wool coat toward me. "It's freezing outside. Take it."

I looked at the coat for three silent seconds. "No thanks. I'll call a cab."

He opened his mouth, as if to say something else, but another soft cough came from the living room. Instantly, instinctively, his body turned away from me and moved back toward Delilah.

I dragged my luggage down to the lobby, hailed a ride, and booked a one-way flight back to my hometown.