My eyes drifted to the cup in his hand, a faint ache stirring in my chest.
“Why… did you suddenly think of using that?” I asked, my voice quiet but firm.
The cup he held wasn’t just any cup; it was part of a pair of Disney couple mugs I’d gifted him long ago for Valentine’s Day. Back then, he claimed to adore them, yet they’d been left untouched, hidden away in the cabinet.
I had once asked him why he never used those mugs.
He laughed softly, wrapping me in his arms from behind.
“You silly girl,” he teased. “We’re saving these for when we get married.”
At that moment, my heart felt wrapped in the sweetness of honey. I thought he was dreaming of a future with me, a future where we’d stand side by side as husband and wife.
But later, an accidental glance at Kaia’s social media shattered that illusion.
It was there I discovered the truth: the one who adored Disney ceramic cups was Kaia. The one Kael had envisioned sipping from those mugs with on their wedding day wasn’t me.
Now, as my gaze lingered on the cup in his hand, Kael spoke with casual indifference. “Kaia doesn’t have a proper cup to drink from, so I gave her this one. She happens to like it.”
His words struck like a gust of cold wind, snuffing out the faint embers of those long-forgotten promises. The future he had once painted so vividly had been discarded, left to fade like an old photograph.
I swallowed the bitterness, letting the ache settle in the pit of my stomach. A thought lingered in my mind like a quiet echo, ‘We don’t have a future together anyway.’
So I nodded, my voice steady. “Go ahead. Don’t keep her waiting.”
Kael blinked, caught off guard by my calm response. A flicker of surprise crossed his face before he stepped closer, ruffling my hair with an unfamiliar gentleness.
“Wait for me to come back,” he murmured softly.
That evening, as I sat in the study drafting my resignation letter, the door creaked open without warning.
Kael walked in alone, shedding his coat as if discarding the day’s burdens. He closed the distance between us and wrapped me in his arms. “Skylar,” he said quietly.
I stiffened, instinctively shutting my laptop and stepping back to create space between us. “Where’s Kaia?”
He sighed, weariness etched into his face. “Kaia was hospitalized today. The doctors want to keep her under observation.”