Five Missed Vows, Then I Cut Her Off

Edna said I was handsome, clean-cut, and mild-tempered. She complimented me on my work and on matching her ideal type in every way.

Back then, I just found her impulsive acts interesting and casually accepted her request to exchange numbers.

After that day, she occasionally brought me homemade lunches and found excuses to meet up. Before long, we naturally ended up as a couple.

Two months into our relationship, I called her one day, but a man picked up.

For a second, I thought I had dialed the wrong number, until the man spoke with a casual, annoying familiarity and called out my name.

"You're Zackary Pratt, aren't you? I'm Nolan Page. Edna's in the kitchen cooking for me, but hang on. I'll have her call you back."

In the background, I could hear Edna humming lightly and the clatter of a spatula against a pot. That was the first time I learned of Nolan's existence.

At first, I assumed he was her relative, but she told me that Nolan was a neighbor she had grown up with. He had been studying abroad and recently returned after graduating from college.

Though she had said it indifferently, a man's sharp instincts set off alarms in my mind. Things might not be as simple as she made them out to be.

On our next date, I finally met Nolan in person. He was more than half a head taller than Edna, casually dressed yet with obvious effort. There was a touch of playful handsomeness in his eyes.

What irked me most was that his hand had never left Edna's shoulder from the moment he entered the restaurant until we sat down.

Throughout the meal, he and Edna kept feeding each other and sharing food. She completely left me on the sidelines and showered him with all sorts of attentive care.

As the two sat side by side, close and natural, they did not look like neighbors at all. Instead, they seemed like a couple, whereas I, the boyfriend, felt like an unnecessary outsider.

I suppressed the discomfort, maintained a polite smile, and observed Nolan. "You two seem closer than I imagined."

He chuckled and met my gaze without flinching. "Don't misunderstand, Zack. Edna and I grew up together, so we're naturally closer than outsiders."

The way he emphasized the word "outsiders" implied that, compared to him, I was the outsider.

As he spoke, he suddenly leaned closer to Edna. "I told you I shouldn't have come, Edna. See? Zack's getting jealous."

She frowned at his words and replied, "Don't talk nonsense. Zack isn't that petty."

Yet, her hands never stopped. She naturally placed a piece of cut steak on his plate.

After that, Nolan somehow managed to have an emergency whenever Edna and I had plans. One day, he had a fever and a cold. On another day, he would forget his keys or his stomach would hurt.

Every time his call came in, Edna would leave me and choose him without hesitation, no matter how much I needed her at that moment.

I disliked how overly intimate she was with Nolan and complained to her. "Can you keep some distance from Nolan?"

But she brushed it off and said, "He's been abroad for too long, so he's just more open than we are.

"Besides, we grew up together. If anything was going to happen, it would have happened years ago."

Though Nolan had provoked me several times and explicitly hinted that they didn't have a normal relationship, her straightforward attitude made it tough for me to say much more.