Part 3Echoes of Tomorrow: Loving You Was Just a Detour

The person who walked through the door wasn’t Ethan, but Seraphina’s young assistant. She had been sent to deliver a container of fish chowder to me.

As it turned out, Ethan had accompanied Seraphina to the neighboring city to scout locations for her new boutique bakery franchise.

I hated seafood. Ethan, on the other hand, loved it. They really were thoughtful, always remembering each other’s favorite things.

The rich, fishy aroma drifted up to my nose, and a wave of nausea hit me instantly. I lurched toward the sink, dry-heaving as though my stomach were about to turn itself inside out.

I glanced out the window. Dark, heavy storm clouds blanketed the sky, threatening a massive downpour.

By the end of the afternoon, every single item in the bedroom belonging to me was completely packed away. My phone remained dead silent; neither of them had sent a single text.

However, Ethan did post an update on his social media feed.

In the photo, he was sitting in a café, looking down as he sampled a pastry, while Seraphina leaned into the frame, flashing a peace sign at the camera.

The caption read: Chef Seraphina’s homemade pastries really hit the spot.

Just the day before yesterday, I had begged him to go with me to the new bakery that had opened down the street, but he refused, claiming he needed to restrict his sugar intake for his workout routine. At the time, I had actually praised him, thinking he possessed incredible self-discipline for turning down his own girlfriend’s request.

Reflecting on it now, it wasn’t that the food was wrong. The person asking was wrong.

Lost in a daze, my finger accidentally tapped his profile picture, opening his private feed.

His background image was still the photograph from our graduation year, featuring him standing right behind me with a bouquet of flowers in his hands. It felt as if the old graduation song was echoing in my ears all over again. Back then, that boy in the crisp white shirt had eyes for absolutely no one but me.

I scrolled down, but his privacy settings only permitted me to view his last ten posts.

Six of them featured Seraphina.

Three of them were group photos of the three of us.

The last one was a belated birthday post dedicated to me, uploaded only because he had completely forgotten the actual date.

Yet, I distinctly remembered a time when this digital space held absolutely nothing but photos of the two of us.

Outside, the sky had turned pitch black. I locked the front door behind me, leaving the hollow, echoing apartment. I began to walk aimlessly down the sidewalk.

My phone buzzed with a text from Ethan.

“Liv, we just finished sorting out the issues with the storefront lease. I’m back at the hotel now.”

“It’s too late to catch a decent train back tonight, so we’ll head home tomorrow right after the ribbon-cutting ceremony.”

In the five years we had been together, Ethan had always been meticulous about reporting his whereabouts. In the past, I would have instantly smiled, teasing him about what a fiercely loyal and perfectly behaved boyfriend he was.

Now, I simply realized that his heart had slipped away a long time ago.

Huge, heavy raindrops began pounding the pavement, as if a massive wound had suddenly torn open across the sky. I stood frozen in the downpour, staring blankly ahead. Even the heavens seemed to be weeping.

Suddenly, the torrential rain no longer pounded against me. A large black umbrella appeared overhead.

For a fleeting second, I foolishly thought Ethan had come for me, just like he did back during our senior year of college.

“Why are you punishing your own body like this?”

A crisp, cool voice cut through the sound of the storm. It sounded nothing like Ethan’s usual warm, gentle tone.

I tilted my head up to look at him. His face seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place where I had seen him before.

“I’m Lane Walker,” he said softly. “The rain is getting worse. Let me walk you home.”

As I reached the lobby of my building, Ethan called me, though Lane had long vanished into the storm.

“Liv, you didn’t reply to my messages for hours. I was terrified something happened to you!”

As he looked at my completely drenched frame, his eyes instantly filled with a sharp, anxious distress.

“Liv, Seraphina and I were only gone for half a day, and you somehow managed to get caught in the storm?”

“Yeah, Liv,” Seraphina added, stepping out from right behind Ethan. She was wearing one of his oversized button-down shirts, casually using a towel to dry her damp hair. “You really had us worried sick.”

I looked at them and asked directly, “Why are the two of you together right now?”

Both of them froze.

Ethan was the first to recover, his expression shifting from confusion to a hint of irritation. “The shower at her sister's place broke, so she came over to use mine. Liv, what is wrong with you today? Haven’t the three of us always done everything together?”

I forced myself to remember the past.

There was a time when a hotel ran out of rooms, and Ethan had casually suggested that the three of us could just share a single king bed. At the time, I had felt incredibly blessed, thinking how wonderful it was to have my boyfriend and my best friend filling my life.

Looking back on it now, it was a tragedy far more dramatic than any movie.