Chapter 1

The ninety-ninth scheduled wedding registration day with Sebastian. The ninety-ninth time Sebastian stood me up.

My phone buzzed.

A message from Sebastian's student, Chloe.

It was a selfie taken in bed—Sebastian was sound asleep, shirtless and vulnerable, while Chloe rested her head on his bare chest, smirking triumphantly at the camera lens.

Followed by the message:

"Vivienne, stop trying to trap Sebastian with marriage. In his heart, I'm more important than you. Honestly, he doesn't want to go to City Hall at all. If you really love him, you should set him free. He's made up excuses to bail ninety-nine times—aren't you willing to give up yet?"

In that moment, all I felt was a strange, dead silence.

I turned off the screen and shoved it back in my pocket, watching Sebastian get out of his car.

He walked up the steps, his brow furrowed.

He immediately started accusing me. "Chloe was crying just now because she couldn't get the color right. I shouldn't have left. If that painting is ruined, it's on you."

"Sebastian," I looked at the closed doors of City Hall, "today was registration day."

"I know." He cut me off impatiently. "It's just a piece of paper. Fine, let's go now."

I looked at this man I'd loved for seven years.

"City Hall is closed," I said, feeling the heavy, cold realization that 'next time' might never come.

He paused, and his tense shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Oh. Well, that's not my fault then."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Since we can't do it anyway, I'm heading back. Chloe's waiting for me."

With that, he turned and left.

Not even a word of comfort or apology.

I watched his car disappear around the corner, and for the first time I clearly realized: maybe I didn't need to waste my life on him after all.

……

When I got back to the apartment, I found Sebastian had brought Chloe home to teach her painting.

The high concentration of industrial turpentine nearly suffocated me on the spot.

I have severe asthma and am allergic to turpentine.

To accommodate Sebastian's creative process, I used to wear a gas mask just to clean his brushes.

But now, the living room had become a gas chamber.

And that ventilation system Sebastian had promised to fix countless times—he'd long since forgotten about it.

Chloe seemed startled by my violent coughing, and her brush clattered to the floor.

When Sebastian heard the commotion, his first reaction wasn't concern for me—it was to quickly comfort the frightened Chloe.

"Vivienne, can you keep it down?"

He barked without turning around, his voice full of irritation. "This painting is at a critical moment! Chloe just found her flow!"

"I... can't breathe..." I could barely squeeze out the words.

My throat felt like it was swelling shut, stinging as if I'd swallowed broken glass.

Tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes as black spots began to dance across my vision, signaling the lack of oxygen.

Sebastian finally glanced back at me.

His eyes held no panic, only disgust.

"Don't be so dramatic, Vivienne."

He said coldly, "It's just some spilled turpentine. Stop making a scene here."

Sebastian always said his memory was bad, that he couldn't remember my severe turpentine allergy, even though I'd coughed myself into near-asphyxiation in front of him countless times.

I thought this was just a quirk of genius artists—not caring about anything outside their creative work.

But his memory worked perfectly fine when it came to Chloe—he remembered her favorite "cobalt blue" had to be air-shipped from Germany, always ordering three tubes in advance, afraid she wouldn't be able to mix the exact shade she wanted.

Turns out his memory was selective.

I turned and fled that gas chamber.

I called my best friend Susan to pick me up and drive me to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, Susan pounded the steering wheel in outrage on my behalf.

"Is that even human? Shit! Vivienne, if you forgive him this time, I'm going to shake all the water out of your brain!"

I leaned back in the passenger seat, breathing from a portable oxygen tank.

At a red light, I saw two people sitting in an ice cream shop through the car window. Sebastian and Chloe.

Chloe held an ice cream cone, smiling as she held it up to Sebastian's mouth.

Sebastian is a severe germaphobe.

For seven years, he rarely even held my hand in public.

He told me countless times with disgust: "Exchanging saliva is animal behavior. I don't like sticky intimacy. Vivienne, respect my boundaries."

So I respected them. I maintained this relationship like a monk.

But now, that germaphobic "genius," that man who claimed to despise intimacy, tilted his head slightly, without any hesitation, and opened his mouth to accept the ice cream from Chloe's hand.

My heart ached as if it were being ripped to shreds.

With trembling fingers, I took out my phone and sent Sebastian a text: "We're done."