Chapter 1

I had pursued Orville for ten years, and I was finally tired of it.

So I turned around and accepted Edmund, who had been desperately courting me for three years.

Edmund booked every billboard in the city to wish me a happy birthday and bought a private island as an engagement gift.

But the night before our wedding, he suddenly vanished.

When I found him on the yacht, I overheard his lazy chuckle. "I only pursued her to spite Orville.

"Once I got her, it turned out to be rather dull.

"Isn't it fun that I run off on the wedding day and make her the laughingstock of the whole town?"

So I disappeared first, leaving Edmund to become the city's biggest joke.

*****

"Orville, I'm getting married tomorrow," I said.

I looked at the man I had loved for ten years straight. My voice was so steady that it even caught me off guard.

Sunlight poured through the café window, throwing patterns of light and shadow across his sharp profile. He kept his head down, fingers gliding over his phone like he was handling something serious.

He just gave a nod in response, not even bothering to look up.

Time slipped by, and the pattern in my coffee slowly faded, just like my feelings for him after ten long years. It was finally starting to disappear into the background.

Ten years.

From eighteen to twenty-eight, I had spent the best years of my life running after Orville.

I remember that winter in my sophomore year, when his department's basketball championship game was on. I skipped a crucial class, shivering in the cold, and cheered myself hoarse for him.

When the game ended, he grabbed a bottle of water from his teammate and didn't even look at me. He walked right by while I stood there clutching his jacket and towel like a fool.

Three years into my career, he landed in the hospital with a stomach bleed after a late-night business dinner.

I skipped a crucial meeting scheduled for the next morning, rushed straight to the hospital, and pulled an all-nighter by his bedside.

When he woke up at dawn and saw me sleeping next to his bed, he frowned and said, "Why are you here? Thanks for the trouble."

There were countless times I'd go out of my way to make his favorite treats, bring them downstairs to his office, and wait around until he was done.

Most of the time, all I got was a cold "Don't bring this again, I'm busy," or he wouldn't even bother coming down himself. He just sent his assistant to pick it up.

Everyone around me had been telling me for years, "Orville's got a heart of stone, and you'll never get through to him."

But honestly, Orville was even colder than that. He was like some ancient chunk of ice buried deep in the Arctic, never thawing, not in a million years.

I never bought it. I kept thinking, if I tried a little harder, got a little closer, maybe someday I'd finally break through his icy shell.

But now, sitting across from him, the guy who couldn't even bother to care about my wedding, I felt like there was a hollow where my heart used to be.

No more of that old sting, just endless fatigue and a numb emptiness, like the dust had finally settled and there was nothing left inside me.

Turns out, letting go of someone one had chased for years wasn't some dramatic explosion.

It was more like a whimper and a string deep inside one that had been pulled tight for ages finally snapping so quietly one barely even noticed.

"Orville," I called him again softly.

Orville finally looked up. His striking yet perpetually distant and cold eyes settled on me, filled with the irritation of being interrupted.

I took a deep breath, met his confused gaze, and said, word by word, "This is where it ends for us. From now on, I won't chase after you anymore."

Orville was caught off guard, like he couldn't believe what he had heard. Or maybe it had never even crossed his mind that I'd ever say something like that to him.

For once, I saw my own reflection in his usually blank eyes. And for a split second, he actually looked stunned.

But honestly, I didn't care anymore.

I grabbed my bag, stood up, and, without looking back, walked away from the place that had witnessed a decade of my one-sided love for him.

As I pushed open the door, the warm breeze of early summer hit me.

I looked up, the sunlight blinding for a moment, so I shielded my eyes with my hand. For a split second, it felt like the wind had finally blown away some of the weight that had been dragging me down.

My phone buzzed in my hand, and Edmund's name flashed across the screen.

I answered, and his warm, smiling voice came through right away. "Harley, where are you? It's almost time for your wedding dress fitting. Want me to come pick you up?"

Hearing the pure excitement and happiness in his voice, I let out a soft breath, trying to shake off the last bit of that lingering heaviness from earlier.