1 For the three years I was with Devin, my entire calendar revolved around our anniversary. I waited for it with a knot in my stomach, because that was the day he handed down my annual score. Our first year, he cupped my cheek in the dim light of his bedroom, his voice soft and melodic. "Summer, you’re wonderful in every way. You just don’t have that effortless, sexy silhouette." So, I got an eight. Our second year, he gifted me a silk slip dress two sizes too large. When I went to bed angry and turned away from his touch, he sighed and said I had an exhausting habit of making mountains out of molehills. My score dropped to a six. Our third year, his college sweetheart, Serena, returned to the States. Devin started spending his nights at dive bars, drinking himself numb. When I finally confronted him, he accused me of being petty, narrow-minded, and utterly incapable of empathy. That year, I plummeted to a four. For three years, I genuinely believed I was the broken one. I thought if I just cooked better, shrank myself smaller, and loved him with enough devotion, I could finally earn a passing grade. Until tonight. Serena got married today. Devin came home completely obliterated, collapsing into my arms and slurring that I was the only woman he truly loved. But when his phone fell from his coat pocket and unlocked on the duvet, I saw a photo pinned to his Notes app—a woman with high cheekbones and dark, expressive eyes who looked eight-tenths like me. Beneath the picture, he had typed a single sentence: True love has no rubric. In my heart, Serena will always be a perfect ten. Standing by the edge of our bed, the truth struck me with the force of a physical blow. The perfect score I had nearly killed myself trying to reach wasn't something I had failed to earn. It was a prize that had been given away years before I ever walked into the room. I swallowed the burning bile in my throat, opened my laptop, and quietly clicked Accept on the job offer waiting for me in Chicago—eight hundred miles away. Then I turned back to the bed, shoved his drunken weight off my hip, and whispered into the dark: "Devin, from this second on, your score with me is zero." The screen of Devin’s phone lit up against the sheets in relentless, erratic pulses. A group text from his fraternity brothers: You had the balls to corner Serena and kiss her outside the alumni bar last month, but you didn't have the guts to object at the altar today? Weak, man. A cold spike drove straight through my chest. So that was what happened that night three weeks ago. He had come home with swollen, raw lips, swearing he’d had a sudden allergic reaction to the cilantro in his takeout. I had thought it was strange—he’d never had a herb allergy before—but I loved him, so I believed him. I had even opened my Notes app and typed Devin: severe cilantro allergy! into my phone so I’d remember when ordering groceries. There were thirty-two entries in my Notes app, every single one of them dedicated to Devin’s preferences, his shoe sizes, his migraine triggers. In Devin’s phone, there were sixty-four entries. Every single one was about Serena. The screen buzzed again. Back in college, none of us thought anyone would ever replace Serena. Life's wild. Summer’s nowhere near Serena's league, obviously, but she’s obedient and takes care of him. Good enough to settle down with. I closed my eyes. I remembered the first time Devin introduced me to those friends. While I was in the bathroom, I had overheard them laughing, comparing me to his ex. Back then, Devin had cut them off sharply: Summer is my girlfriend. If you guys actually respect me, you won’t say another word about her. After that night, his friends had always been polite to my face. But now I realized that politeness was just a courtesy they extended because Devin had asked for it. And if they were talking like this again behind my back, it meant Devin had stopped defending me a long time ago. I looked down at him sprawled across our mattress, my vision blurring with hot, stinging tears. "Devin." He let out a low groan and rolled over, his heavy arm blindly wrapping around my waist. "Who's better?" I asked, my voice cracking before I could stop it. "Me or Serena?" The question sounded pathetic even to my own ears. I hated myself for asking, hated that I was still begging for a comparison. Devin buried his face into my stomach, inhaling deeply, and mumbled into the cotton of my shirt: "Serena..." The fragile tether holding my sanity together snapped. A wave of profound nausea washed over me, and I shoved him away so violently his head bounced against the headboard. His phone buzzed again. This time, it wasn't a standard alert. It was a customized chime I had never heard before—soft, bright, and deliberate. I looked down at the notification banner. Serena. Devin, I was going through our wedding registry deposits tonight. Someone sent a cash gift of $1$10,240.00 directly to my account. Was that you? I knew it was. You’ve always been entirely too generous with me. I know I broke your heart when I left for London without saying goodbye. And I know I hurt you by coming back and going through with this marriage. It was a family arrangement my mother set up years ago, and I couldn't get out of it. But please believe me—my heart has always belonged to you. My blood ran cold. Thirteen thousand, one hundred and forty-five dollars and twenty cents. It wasn't a random number. It was an old romantic code, but more importantly, it was the exact balance of our joint savings account—the "Future Home Fund" we had spent three years building twenty-dollar transfers at a time. Half of that money came from my overtime paychecks. And for three years, the most expensive thing Devin had ever bought for me was a thirty-dollar canvas tote from a farmers market. Wiping the wetness from my cheeks, I picked up the phone and hurled it squarely at his chest. "You absolute bastard!" The impact jolted him awake. He blinked up at me, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused, completely blind to the tears pouring down my face. Or maybe he saw them and simply didn't care. He tried to pull the duvet over his shoulders, but when he realized he was still wearing his suit jacket and oxfords, he frowned in annoyance. "You didn't undress me or wipe me down?" he slurred. For three years, in my desperate pursuit to be the perfect ten, I had nursed him through every hangover, stripping off his muddy clothes, pressing warm washcloths to his face, and leaving electrolyte water on his nightstand. A bitter knot formed in my throat. "Why don't you call Serena to play maid for you?" Devin’s brows knit together. Through the haze of bourbon, he let out a scoff. "As if she’d ever do something like that." A dry, hollow laugh escaped my lips. Of course. I had forgotten the note in his phone: Serena is meant to be worshipped like a queen. I was just the domestic help he slept with. "Devin, look at me," I said, my voice rising in pitch. "I’m your girlfriend. You swore to me there was nothing left between you two, but everyone knows you’re still obsessed with her. Am I an idiot to you? Have I just been a joke this whole time?" The raw anger in my voice finally pierced through his stupor. He picked up his phone, glanced at the open screen, and let out a long, exhausted sigh. "There really is nothing going on, Summer," he said, his tone infuriatingly level. "She’s a married woman now. What could possibly happen between us?" "Nothing? You sent her thirteen grand of our house savings! Most of that was my money! What right did you have to give it to her?" His eyes shifted away for a fraction of a second before hardening into defensive irritation. "Summer, you’re overreacting again. Keep this up, and I’m taking points off your score. You hit zero, and we’re done." In three years, no matter how bad our fights got, neither of us had ever uttered the word breakup. He used to hold my face and tell me, Once you say that word, it’s a dagger you can never pull out of the wall. I’ll never say it to you. And yet, here it was. Broken without hesitation for a woman who wasn't even his. I stared into his eyes, searching for a single trace of the boy who used to look at me like I hung the moon. I looked for a long, quiet minute. There was nothing there. Three years, and the love I thought we built had evaporated into thin air. Or perhaps it had never existed at all. I had simply been a warm, convenient body filling the vacancy left by someone else. Seeing my silence, Devin seemed to realize he had pushed too far. His expression softened into a rehearsed gentleness. He reached out and brushed a tear from my cheek with sickening tenderness. "Hey. I didn't mean it. No deductions. I know you’d never actually leave me. Don't cry, baby." I jerked my face away from his palm. Fresh tears spilled over. "I want to break up, Devin." His hand froze mid-air, a flicker of genuine irritation crossing his features. "Stop throwing a tantrum. Yesterday you were talking about booking our wedding venue, and now you want to break up? I’m not buying it." He was right. Twenty-four hours ago, I had been curled against his side on the couch, happily scrolling through rustic barn venues on Pinterest. Then his phone rang. The display flashed with a customized pink heart emoji. My contact in his phone was just my full name: Summer Reynolds. The caller was Serena. Devin answered immediately, putting it on speaker without even thinking. Serena's breathless, frantic sobs poured through the speakers. "Devin... please, you have to come get me. He’s trying to touch me... I told him I wasn't ready for our wedding night, and he got aggressive. I’m so scared..." Devin shot up from the bed, panic written all over his face. "Serena, stay where you are. Lock the bathroom door. I’m calling an Uber right now." I lunged forward and grabbed his forearm with both hands. "Don't you dare go. She has a husband. Legally, morally, emotionally—it is not your place to go there." Serena’s crying grew louder through the receiver. Devin lost his mind. With a vicious shove, he threw me off him. "Summer, you’re a woman too! How can you be so heartless?" My balance gave out. I fell hard against the corner of the heavy wooden nightstand, the sharp edge slamming directly into my forehead. A flash of white light blinded me, followed by a throb of agonizing pain. I sat on the floor, clutching my temple, watching his silhouette vanish through our front door without a single backward glance. The questions died in my throat. My head throbbed, but the pain in my chest was infinitely worse. The next morning at ten, the HR director from the Chicago firm called to finalize my relocation package and start date. After hanging up, I sat on the edge of the mattress, staring blankly at the framed photo on my nightstand. It was from the night he asked me out. We were at an outdoor beer garden with friends, and he had suddenly produced a single red rose, his face flushed red. I hadn't known back then if the blush was from the alcohol or from genuine nervousness, but the sight of it had permanently etched itself into my heart. I wiped my dry eyes. I had loved the ghost of who he was. But that ghost was gone. I walked into my current office downtown and submitted my immediate resignation. As I packed the last of my desk into a banker's box, my coworker, Megan, stopped by my cubicle. "Summer? What happened to your forehead? That’s a terrible bruise. Did you fall? Do you need to go to urgent care?" I caught my reflection in the glass partition. A dark purple knot had blossomed above my left brow. "I'm actually on my way to the clinic right now," I murmured, forcing a tight smile. Megan, who knew Devin and I were together, nudged my arm gently. "Devin must be losing his mind seeing you like that. Go get it checked out." A hollow, self-deprecating smile touched my lips. I checked my phone. From the moment he walked out last night until now, he hadn't sent a single text. Not one missed call. Instead, his best friend had posted an Instagram story an hour ago: Backing up my boy no matter what. In the background reflection of a glass doorway, Devin was holding Serena in a fierce, bone-crushing embrace, burying his face into her hair like a drowning man breaking the surface. A lone tear splashed against the screen of my phone. My forehead began to ache with a dull, rhythmic pulse. I dropped the phone into my purse, hailed a cab, and headed to the university hospital clinic. "Devin, this is all my fault," a woman's trembling voice drifted through the corridor as I approached the minor trauma unit. "If you hadn't come to protect me, you wouldn't have gotten into a brawl with him. Look at all this blood..." I stopped outside the half-open door of the examination room. Through the glass, I saw Devin sitting on the exam table. A nasty gash ran along his hairline, dried blood streaking down his jaw. Serena was leaning over him, delicately dabbing the wound with an antiseptic wipe. Around the ends of her dark, wavy hair was a small, dusty-rose velvet scrunchie. My scrunchie. Two years ago, Devin had taken it from my wrist during a road trip, laughing and calling it a silly accessory, but insisting on wearing it around his own wrist like a promise. He had sworn he would never take it off—that it was his lucky charm, that he only slipped it off to shower and put it right back on. Now, it sat in Serena’s hair. The sight burned my eyes worse than any open flame. "Did you... just run out on your girlfriend last night?" Serena asked softly, tilting her head with calculated innocence. "Is she going to be mad at you?" Devin seemed to drift for a second, a faint, condescending smile playing on his lips. "Summer? No. She’s gentle. Her whole world revolves around me. She’s probably sitting at home right now making dinner, waiting for me to walk through the door. She won't stay mad." Then he suddenly flinched, reaching out to gently take the cotton swab from her fingers. "Wait—you're allergic to iodine. Don't touch the solution. Let me do it myself." Three years apart, and he remembered her contact allergies down to the chemical compound. Yet in the three years we lived together, I had told him at least ten times that I was severely allergic to cephalosporin antibiotics. Once, when I had severe strep throat, he bought me a generic cephalosporin prescription from the pharmacy, and I ended up in the emergency room in full anaphylactic shock. Every time, he promised he’d never forget again. And every time, he forgot. A metallic taste filled my mouth. I realized I had bitten through my lower lip. The pain shocked the tears out of my eyes, clearing my vision just as Serena turned and saw me standing in the doorway. "Oh," Serena said smoothly, stepping toward the door with an air of delicate triumph. "You must be Summer." Devin spun around on the table. The moment his eyes landed on me, his face twisted into an immediate barrage of defensive anger. "Are you tracking me now? Seriously? I told you there’s nothing going on between Serena and me! Why do you have to be so paranoid all the damn time?" The metallic blood sat heavy on the back of my tongue. Devin, I thought, staring at him, if you had looked at my face for even a single second, you would have seen the purple swelling across my forehead. Where was the boy who used to panic when I got a tiny paper cut opening a package? Serena stepped between us, playing the gracious mediator. "Devin, don't yell at her. She’s just insecure. It’s understandable. After all, you and I were together for ten years. We’re practically family." Ten years. She emphasized the words with surgical precision. The room seemed to tilt. Ten years. Devin had told me they dated for two years in college. His friends had backed up the lie. They had all conspired to keep me in the dark, treating me like a naive clown dancing for their amusement. My heart crumbled into dust. "How many other things have you lied to me about?" Devin’s breath grew heavy with impatience. "I lied so you wouldn't spiral! Look at how hysterical you’re being right now. You should be thanking me for protecting you from your own overthinking." The cold, self-righteous arrogance in his voice pushed me past my breaking point. I lunged forward, slamming my fists into his chest. "You coward! You don't have a shred of human decency!" In the scuffle, Serena suddenly stepped into the fray, and before I could even register her movement, she threw herself backward onto the linoleum floor with a dramatic, piercing shriek. I froze. I hadn't even brushed her shoulder. It was an embarrassingly cheap parlor trick. But Devin bought it instantly. He shoved me backward, his eyes wild with venom. "Summer, I swear to God you’re turning into your psychotic mother!" The words hit me like an executioner’s blade. My entire body went completely numb. He knew. He knew that when I was sixteen, my father’s shameless affairs had driven my mother into a severe psychological breakdown, landing her in a permanent psychiatric care facility. He knew how the kids at school had ostracized me, whispering that I was born from 'crazy blood.' It had been the deepest, most suffocating trauma of my youth. I had wept in his arms late at night, peeling back my deepest scars, and he had kissed my forehead, swearing, No one will ever hurt you like that again. I’ve got you. And now, he had taken that very blade and twisted it into my heart. The tears stopped. The pain receded into a vast, terrifying hollow. On the floor, Serena curled into a ball, clutching the hem of Devin's jacket. "Devin... my stomach hurts..." Without another glance at me, Devin swept Serena into his arms bridal-style and sprinted down the hall, shouting frantically for a doctor. As the sound of his footsteps faded, my phone vibrated in my palm. An unknown number. It was a text message from a man identifying himself as Serena's new husband. Attached was a photo of an ultrasound report showing a four-week pregnancy. Underneath, a short message: I haven't touched her since she got back to the country. I think you and I both know whose child this is. A dull, thudding ache hit my chest, but alongside the ache came an overwhelming sense of liberation. I turned around, walked up to the pharmacy window to collect my burn ointment, and took a cab back to our apartment. I pulled my two large suitcases from the closet and began methodically packing my life into them. My flight to Chicago was originally scheduled for tomorrow evening. I opened the airline app, paid the fee, and moved it to tonight. I was done playing a bit part in someone else’s tragic romance. Your score with me is zero, Devin. Forever.
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