Part 1The Seven Year Breakup

Seven years together.

Every time I brought up marriage, my boyfriend suddenly developed hearing loss.

That is, until the day I was scrolling through a local Reddit thread.

“Deliberately giving my girlfriend the cold shoulder so I can surprise her with a proposal on her 30th birthday. Any advice?”

The location tagged was the exact restaurant we were currently sitting in.

The next second, the lights went out.

My boyfriend took two steps forward and dropped to one knee.

My breath hitched in my throat.

The words I do were already trembling on the tip of my tongue.

Then, a three-tiered cake fell from the sky, smashing directly over my head.

My boyfriend’s female best friend leaped out from the shadows.

She giggled, a sharp, piercing sound.

"Happy dirty thirty, future wifey!"

"Love the little surprise your good boy and I planned for you?"

* * *

The crowd erupted in cheers. Confetti cannons blasted overhead.

Glitter mixed with thick, sugary frosting, sliding down my face in clumps.

The "effortless, no-makeup" makeup look I had spent three hours perfecting was, in an instant, reduced to a total joke.

But Blair wasn't done.

On the restaurant’s projector, she threw up a slideshow of my most tragic high school photos.

The girl on the screen had her head bowed timidly, her frame frumpy and her face violently broken out in cystic acne.

Blair let out a bark of laughter and slapped Cameron hard on the shoulder.

"Damn, Mommy's little boy, am I seeing things? Is that your gorgeous future bride on the big screen? I thought it was a before-picture for a tragic makeover show."

Cameron’s frat brothers exchanged glances, snickering behind their hands.

"That's brutal, man," one of them muttered.

Cameron kicked the leg of Blair’s chair.

"Who told you to dig up these photos?"

Blair put her hands on her hips, looking entirely unbothered.

"Oh, so we're getting an attitude now? You're yelling at your creator?"

"I seem to recall a certain someone who couldn't aim straight into the toilet when we were kids. I basically had to potty-train you. Now you get a girl and suddenly you forget who raised you?"

Cameron slipped one hand into his pocket and flicked her forehead with the other.

"Are you insane?"

The words were a reprimand, but the trailing edge of his voice dripped with an undeniable, sickening indulgence.

"Where's the lie?" Blair twisted her head to look at me. "Seriously, Jo, you don't believe me? When we were kids he used to see who could pee the farthest—"

Before she could finish, Cameron clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Will it kill you to shut up for two seconds?"

"Mmph! No!"

They were practically tangled up in each other’s arms, half-wrestling, half-embracing.

Bickering back and forth.

The body language was electric, intimate.

Anyone walking into the room would have assumed they were the couple.

"Cameron! Let me go, or I'm suing for harassment."

"With that flat chest? Please, who'd want to harass you?"

"Yeah, yeah, go touch your ugly bride."

"Watch your mouth."

"Blah blah blah~"

I stood there, staring at the absolute absurdity unfolding in front of me.

My chest felt like someone had pressed a heavy, scalding wet towel over my lungs.

Suffocating. Humid. I couldn't drag in a breath.

I grabbed my purse.

"You guys have fun. I'm done."