A Fabrication of Seven Years

Later on, my phone buzzed. A message from Quinn popped up on my screen: [Go back with my personal assistant first. I'll explain later.]

I stared at those short sentences and I could feel my heart tightening. In the end, I still could not stop myself from questioning her. [Why did you lie to me?]

Quinn's reply was cold. [Just head back for now. Don't embarrass yourself outside the company.]

I thought of every time I had wanted to come to Oceanton and how she had found one excuse after another to stop me. So this was what she had been afraid of. That if I showed up, I would embarrass her.

As soon as I looked up, I heard people whispering and taking pictures of me with their phones.

"A boy toy has some nerve showing up here. How shameless!"

"He's young and he could do anything, but he still chose to be a homewrecker instead."

I immediately raised a hand to cover my face. I tried to explain through a choked voice, "I'm not a kept man. Quinn lied to me..."

All I got in return was a burst of laughter.

The personal assistant came over and put my luggage into the car and nearly shoved me into the car.

Half an hour later, the car stopped in front of a villa.

Quinn lived in a huge villa, yet she had told me she was living in a cramped rental studio. I was so worried that she was not doing well in Oceanton that I sent her half my salary every month.

Her personal assistant pushed me into the villa. Then, locked the door behind me with a click. "Wait here until Ms. Summers comes back."

A faint scent of men's cologne lingered in the air. A few months ago, when Quinn came to Eastford, I had smelled the same scent on her.

I turned around and froze. A huge wedding photo was hanging on the living room wall. Hector wore a black suit and held Quinn, who was dressed in a white wedding gown, in his arms. The date in the lower right was especially painful for me.

The day they took their wedding photos was my birthday.

That was the first time Quinn had not spent my birthday with me. She said work was too busy, and she simply could not get away.

I rushed into the bedroom like I had lost my mind. The walls were covered with photos of Quinn and Hector together. In the closet, men's shirts hung beside Quinn's sexy nightgowns. The vanity was also littered with luxury cosmetics. The last shred of hope I had shattered when I saw the nearly empty box of condoms on the bedside table.

So when Quinn said she was busy, she had been busy building a family with another man.

I slid down onto the cold floor, held my head, and broke down crying.

I had come from a poor family. My parents were both from the countryside, and I studied like my life depended on it before I finally made it to a big city. Whenever I did not have class, I worked part-time off campus. That was how I met Quinn.

I was a poor student who had made it out of the countryside. She was an heiress who was down on her luck and had to make her escape to rebel against her family's arrangements. Neither of our families supported us, so we could only rely on ourselves.

A few months later, we got together, and our classmates teased us by calling us the broke couple.

After all, we really were poor back then.

But every birthday, Quinn would scrape together enough money to buy me a present I liked. She would eat only two meals a day just to save up and buy me a pair of limited-edition sneakers. She said that if other boys had something, I would not be the only one without it. No matter how hard things were for her, she would never let her boyfriend down.

After university, I stayed in Eastford while Quinn went to Oceanton.

I rented a cheap room in Eastford for eight hundred a month and Quinn would come back to Eastford every weekend. We would hold on to each other in the dark, the narrow old bed creaking beneath us.

Quinn kissed the corner of my eyes and swore to me in a hoarse voice, "Conrad, once my job is stable, let's get married."

To save enough money for our wedding, I worked hard and often stayed up doing overtime until two in the morning. In the end, I exhausted myself and collapsed at the office.

When Quinn learned that I was sick, she asked for leave that same day and rushed to the hospital in Eastford. She was so angry that she scolded me loudly for being stupid, then held my hand tightly the next second, her eyes red.

Quinn asked the company for leave because she wanted to stay in Eastford to take care of me, but her superior tore into her viciously. It was the first time I had ever seen her speak to someone so lowly, with a bitter smile on her lips.

I urged Quinn to go back to work and stop worrying about me, but she said to me with complete seriousness, "Nothing is more important than you in my eyes."

At that moment, I believed with all my heart that Quinn loved me. And because I believed so firmly in her love, I made it through the whole seven years.