I dated Ethan for three years, and we were secretly married for four. But then I saw him in his car with his old flame, Olivia, kissing like the world was ending. He told me, "Sarah, I'm sorry. You look so much like her, but you're not her." But after I left, his lips trembled as he begged me, "I'll divorce her. Please come back?" 1 Ethan and I had been married for four years, but almost no one around us knew we were husband and wife. He always said marriage was just between two people, nobody else's business. Our fourth wedding anniversary came around, just a regular Tuesday in August, but he promised me a surprise. I’d planned something too – made his favorite dinner, bought a gift, and was just waiting eagerly for him to get home. I just never expected this kind of surprise. It was almost eleven PM, and Ethan still wasn't back. I started to worry. I called his phone several times, but it went straight to voicemail. Grabbing my phone, I went down to the garage, thinking I’d drive over to his office to check on him. The garage was dead quiet, except for the faint echo of my own footsteps. As I got closer to our parking spot, I saw Ethan's black Maybach already parked a few spots away. Had he come back already? For some reason, a strange knot formed in my stomach. I slowed down, creeping towards the front side of the car. Inside, two figures were wrapped in each other's arms, lost in a passionate kiss. In the dead quiet of the night, in that small, confined space, they clung to each other, kissing fiercely. I froze, rooted to the spot, watching the man consumed by lust, the woman lost in the moment. A wave of pain crashed over me, followed by another, and another, endlessly. The woman saw me first. She must have been startled because she stopped kissing him. Ethan followed her gaze and saw me standing there, stunned, in front of the car. They were still holding each other. Ethan gently pressed the woman down slightly, as if soothing her, or maybe trying to stop her from getting out. But she had already regained her composure. She pushed his hand away, pulled out of his embrace, and opened the car door. A slender, pale leg in a beige high-heel stepped onto the concrete. She walked right up to me, bold as anything, looking me straight in the eye. So self-righteous, like I was the other woman she'd caught. "Sarah, right? I've seen your picture on Ethan's phone. I'm Olivia," she said coolly, with the air of someone who knew she held the upper hand. "You saw what just happened. I'm sorry about that, but I figured you needed to know sooner or later. This is as good a time as any for Ethan and me to be honest with you." I was floored that someone could say something so shameless so calmly. I ignored her, looking past her at Ethan inside the car, his face pale and panicked. Ethan scrubbed his face with both hands, looking agitated. He pressed his lips together as if steeling himself, then got out of the car. He stood next to Olivia. In that instant, I knew. I'd lost. He chose to make me face them both, alone. He said, "Sarah, I'm sorry. I can't forget how I feel about Liv. We have over ten years of history. I don't want to lie to myself, and I don't want to lie to you. You look so much like her, but you're not her." My throat felt raw. "Ethan, we've been married for four years. What does that make me?" The woman stepped forward. "Sarah, Ethan just made it perfectly clear. You were just a stand-in. Letting go is better for all three of us. In love, the one who isn't loved is the third wheel." Ethan gently pulled her back. "Liv," he said softly, "let me handle this." Looking at these two, who could only be described as shameless, I thought I'd scream or break down, but I didn't. I held out my slightly trembling right hand towards the woman. "Nice to meet you, even if it's under these disgusting circumstances." The woman froze for a second, a flicker of embarrassment crossing her face. She didn't take my hand. Ethan stepped forward, coldly slapped my outstretched hand away, put his arm around the woman, guided her into the passenger seat, got into the driver's seat himself, and roared away. Maybe the engine was too loud. Long after the car was gone, my head was still ringing. Numbly, silently, I turned around and went back inside. 2 My fingerprint unlocked the door. The blast of cold air from the AC hit me, and I started shaking uncontrollably. Shaking so hard my phone slipped from my hand and hit my foot. I curled up in the corner of the sofa, trying desperately to calm myself down. On the dining table, the dinner I’d spent all day preparing was still laid out. Next to it, a beautifully wrapped box held the limited-edition telescope I’d pulled strings with a friend to buy six months ago. Ethan loved looking at the sky late at night. He said it was full of endless brilliance. That's why I spent so long choosing this telescope; it was the best gift I could afford. Except my gift never got delivered. Instead, I got his big "surprise." Thinking back now, when he stared at the night sky, he must have been thinking about that woman, far away. So that woman was Olivia. The sickening suspicion that had been hanging over me finally hit the ground with a thud. Dating Ethan wasn't exactly passionate; it was often bland, like water. We rarely went on dates, barely took pictures. He was always cool, reserved, impossible to read. But whenever I remembered what he said that day on the campus quad, my heart still filled with sweetness. When did I first suspect something? Getting our marriage license only took a morning. Ethan went back to the office that afternoon. He realized some files on his home computer hadn't fully synced and asked me to send them. That's when I accidentally opened a folder named "Her." Inside were thousands of photos documenting a girl's life from middle school through college. There was a subfolder named "My Olivia," mostly filled with pictures of the two of them together. The girl looked like me, especially around the eyes, but she was brighter, more vibrant, more outgoing. I froze. Ethan had never mentioned an ex-girlfriend. Of course, he didn't have to, but seeing so many pictures made my chest tighten. So, that night, I asked him, "Who's Olivia?" He brushed it off. "Just a girl from the neighborhood growing up." No other explanation. The next day, when I tried to use his computer again, it was password protected. The question I had back then finally had an answer today, even though the answer was brutal. A sharp pain flared in my chest and quickly spread through my entire body. 3 My phone pinged with a new message notification. I automatically picked it up off the floor and opened it. It wasn't from Ethan. It was from one of his friends. It was a picture of Ethan and Olivia hugging in a bar, along with a message: "The placeholder got kicked out now that the real one's back. Guess what happens to the placeholder? " He even added a laughing emoji covering its mouth. I checked when we became contacts – 2019. Four years, and this was the first message he ever sent me. For this. I laughed bitterly. Ethan's friends had always been cold to me. I wasn't part of their circle. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fit into their social class. So eventually, I just politely declined all their invitations to gatherings. Ethan asked me to come along once or twice at the beginning, but when he saw I kept refusing, he stopped asking. I stared at the text for a long time without replying. A moment later, another message came through. "Some people will really sleep their way up just for money!" Maybe the words were too vulgar. My head started buzzing, my breath caught, and the phone screen swam before my eyes. My hand holding the phone trembled uncontrollably. So, his friends knew all along. It wasn't that I couldn't fit into their circle; it was their blatant mockery and contempt. Even when I deliberately tried to stay away, they still chased me down to throw this ugliness in my face. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing back the tears that threatened to spill. With trembling hands, I found the picture of our marriage certificate in my photo album and sent it to him. I replied: "Did you teach yourself English? Do you even know what 'placeholder' means? Calling you clueless would be an insult to clueless people. If the 'placeholder' managed to snag the spot, why would she give a damn about the 'real one'? Are you trying to be funny?" Then I blocked him. I opened my social media feed. The third post was another short video of Ethan, captioned: "My boy's childhood sweetheart is finally back home! Congrats, man! " In the video, the man's eyes held a depth of emotion I'd never seen directed at me. He was smiling, happy and doting, carefully fastening a ruby necklace around a woman's neck. That necklace was an heirloom, passed down from his grandmother to his mother, and then to him. Yesterday, when I was tidying up his study, I saw that necklace box on his desk. I actually thought he was planning to give it to me for our anniversary. How stupidly sentimental of me. It was always meant for her. He looked at Olivia like she was a precious treasure. After fastening it, he gently tucked her hair behind her ear. He said, "Welcome back!" Olivia smiled softly and hugged him. Cheers erupted around them. Olivia, nestled in his arms, lowered her head shyly. My fingers tightened around my phone. So, that's what being loved looks like. 4 Restless, I got up and went downstairs, letting the night swallow me whole. The city's neon lights flickered, the streets noisy and bustling, just like they were seven years ago when I first arrived here. Back then, I had just started college. Money was tight at home, so I applied for a work-study job as a stocker at the campus convenience store. My family lived in a small town, way out in the sticks. My dad died from carbon monoxide poisoning when I was in third grade. My mom raised me alone. After I finished my college entrance exams, it was like she suddenly let go of all her burdens, and her health just collapsed. Relatives helped scrape together my first year's tuition. I had to rely on work-study to cover living expenses and my mom's basic medical bills. That's where I met Ethan, working part-time at the store. That day, I was wearing a white dress. It was one my cousin gave me because it was too small for her – one of the few decent things I owned. I was wiping dust off some slow-moving items on a shelf. When I stepped back, I accidentally stepped on some guy's shoe. I quickly looked down and apologized. He muttered "It's fine," but when he turned and saw me, there was a flicker of surprise in his eyes. The moment I looked up and saw him, I froze too. I knew him. Probably everyone at our university knew Ethan from the business school. He gave a speech as the student representative at the freshman orientation, and all the girls were swooning. His family was loaded, he got great grades, and he was handsome – the total package, a campus heartthrob. Yet, this amazing guy started pursuing me after meeting me just once. Unsurprisingly, I fell hard. I remember when Ethan started chasing me; it was summer then too. He stopped me while I was walking on the track field and asked, "Can I ask you out?" I looked into his deep, dark eyes, and in that one glance, I was lost. I still clearly remember the joy and shock of that moment. His words were like brilliant fireworks, illuminating my somewhat gray existence, making my heart pound. I told him, "You don't have to." His star-like eyes dimmed slightly, and he started to turn away. I quickly added, "I mean, you don't have to chase me. I'm already willing!" I greedily wanted to hold onto that light, throwing myself headfirst into being by his side. But back then, I didn't know that fireworks, no matter how beautiful, are fleeting. They eventually turn into choking white smoke, burning embers, and a mess on the ground. After we started dating, he wasn't very affectionate. When he looked at me, it always felt like he was looking through me, towards some unknown distance. He loved seeing me in beige, so almost every piece of clothing he ever gave me was that color. He also loved it when I smiled. Whenever I did, his eyes would sparkle like stars. I used to think that was love. Only after seeing Olivia today did I realize these past seven years were just my one-sided affection. A valley where my calls echoed unanswered, yet I'd blindly leaped into it for seven years. I tilted my head back, covering my eyes and face with my hands. Pressing my cold palms against my eyes to stop the tears.
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