Chapter 8

The next morning, I made a public post on social media.

For the first time in seven years, I wrote out Hannah Levin’s full name.

I did not plead for sympathy or insult her. I simply laid out the timeline of everything.

Her confession in college. Our seven-year relationship. Moving in together. Our joint account. Meeting my parents. Her promises that we would marry.

Then, three years earlier, she had begun dating Josh. She publicly acknowledged him, introduced him to her friends and mother, and all the while told me she was traveling for work, that she was busy, and that she was waiting for the right time.

At the end of the post, I included the video I had taken at the hotel that night.

In it, Hannah said, “I’ll marry you, but I’m going to give him a wedding.”

After publishing the post, I turned off my phone and went with my mother to the farmers’ market.

She held my hand the entire way, just as she had when I was little, and she was afraid I might get lost.

She did not ask me anything. When we passed a stall selling warm cinnamon doughnuts, she bought

some for me.

“When you were little, these always cheered you up.’

I took a bite. The heat stung my fingertips.

As the warm sweetness melted on my tongue, tears suddenly pricked at my eyes.

It turned out that when someone really loved you, you did not have to keep proving that you deserved it.

When I returned home at noon, I turned my phone back on.

Messages poured in all at once.

Hannah’s friends had finally stopped attacking me.

Some apologized and said that they had thought Josh was her boyfriend.

Others insisted that they had not meant to attack me that night and had only done so because Hannah had lied to them.

A few quietly deleted the comments they had used to mock me, as though nothing had ever happened.

Josh sent me a long message.

He said Hannah had told him that she and I had broken up years ago.

He said the evidence had left him completely devastated.

Then he said he was sorry.

I stared at those words for a long time.

The truth was, I knew he was not necessarily innocent in all of this.

After three years, it was hard to believe he had never noticed anything was wrong, though none of that mattered anymore.

I no longer wanted to waste my energy deciding who deserved more sympathy or who deserved more of

my anger.

I only wanted to free myself from the entire mess.

That afternoon, Hannah’s mother called me.

It was the first time in seven years she had ever reached out to me on her own.

When I answered, her tone was stiff and uncomfortable. “This is Eric, correct? I didn’t know about you before. Hannah made some terrible decisions, but you were together for so many years. Airing all of this in public only makes everyone look bad.”

I asked softly, “Are you asking me to take the post down?”

She sighed. “You’re a guy. Do you really need to make such a public issue of what a woman did? What do you gain by turning it into a public scandal?”

At that moment, I understood why lying had always come so easily to Hannah.

Some people never believed that hurting others was wrong.

To them, the only shame lay in being exposed.

“Mrs. Levin, it’s true that reputation matters. That’s precisely why everyone needs to know that I wasn’t the one who came between Hannah and Josh.”

She fell silent.

A moment later, Hannah snatched the phone from her mother.

“Are you happy now, Eric? Josh broke up with me, my mom’s blood pressure has shot up, and my business partners are calling to ask what’s going on.”

Her voice was strained with barely contained anger and humiliation.

Hannah had always been polished and completely in control.

Even after I caught her, she had dismissed it all with a casual, “You understand, don’t you?”

Now, she was finally beginning to panic.

“Isn’t this the public acknowledgment you wanted?” I asked.

Her breathing faltered.

I continued, “You said that when you loved someone, you couldn’t help showing him off to the whole

world. Well, now the whole world knows.”

All I could hear from the other end was her ragged breathing.

After a long silence, she said hoarsely, “Eric, I really did love you.”

I closed my eyes.

If she had said those words three years earlier, or even one day earlier, they would have broken me.

At this moment, they felt like a letter delivered far too late, after the person it was meant for had already moved away.

“I really did love you too. That’s why this has to end here.”