His First Love or Me—Who Will He Choose? I Refuse Chapter 03
Tina’s anxious voice came from behind me.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have come today. Miss Jones looks like she’s really leaving. Go talk to her.”
Fred’s voice stayed calm. But he was already comforting her.
“Don’t worry about her. She’ll throw a fit for a couple days, then come crawling back. She always does.”
My chest felt like it was being wrung tight, raw and aching.
Nine years. He knew exactly how to control me.
Knew I’d soften. Knew I’d come back. Knew I’d swallow my pride for the bigger picture.
I passed by his office. His computer was on.
I walked in without thinking.
The login screen asked for a password.
Hint: [The most important person.]
I tried my birthday. Wrong.
I tried our anniversary. Wrong.
Finally, I typed the birthday from the lock screen. Tina’s birthday.
It worked.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
On the Instagram, I wasn’t pinned at the top.
But Tina was.
Chat logs going back years.
They were mostly one-sided all from Fred.
[Tina, I passed that bakery you used to like. The owner still remembers you.]
[You said you love the ocean. I bought a house by the beach.]
[My company was almost bankrupt. I wanted to see you so badly.]
[She reminds me so much of you. Sometimes when I look at her, I can pretend you never left.]
My fingers froze.
She reminds me of you?
That sentence was more disgusting than any proof of cheating.
I kept scrolling.
Fred had transferred a lot of money to Tina.
Always with proper notes.
Art exhibition sponsorship. Business startup fund. Rent help. Medical reserve.
And me? When his company was on the brink of collapse, I sold the tiny cottage my grandmother had left me, and poured every cent into covering his funding shortfall.
All he said was, “I’ll make it up to you.”
The company got successful later.
And he became Tina’s safety net.
While I couldn’t even get female owner access to our front door lock.
There was an encrypted file on his computer.
Name: [Wedding Vows Final Draft]
I opened it. The first version said:
[Tina. If you’re willing to come back, I want to give you all the love I was late for.]
The second version had edits.
“Tina” crossed out. “Lydia” written in.
“Late love” crossed out. “A lifetime together” written in.
My wedding vows were just the discarded leftover of a promise he’d first written for her.
Nine years of waiting. And what I got wasn’t a love letter.
It was an old letter addressed to the wrong person.
I laughed. Tears hit the keyboard.
There was a safe on the bottom shelf of his bookcase.
Password were Tina’s birthday plus Fred’s birthday.
Inside, there were a stack of letters, a ring, and a smart home permissions list.
Every single category — door lock, garage access, car navigation favorites, emergency contacts — Tina was listed first. I was nothing but the backup.
Tina was first for everything. I was listed as backup.
The funniest part? There was note at the bottom.
[I won’t change the female owner permissions yet. Tina will be happy when she comes home and sees it.]
I walked out holding the ring.
Fred was seeing Tina out.
When he saw what was in my hand, his face finally changed.
“Who said you could go through my things?”
I threw the ring at his chest.
“This is your ‘past’?”
“I started from nothing with you, Fred. I drank myself to the point of stomach bleeding.”
“Sat through investors yelling at us until three in the morning.”
“I thought I was your partner.”
“But I was just your rehearsal bride! Someone to practice the wedding with while you waited for her!”
Tina’s face went pale. “Miss Jones, you can’t calculate feelings like that.”
I looked at her. “Then how should I calculate them?”
“By counting how many houses he bought you? Or how many of his debts I paid off?”
Fred grabbed my wrist. “Enough.”
His grip was tight. My wrist bone ached.
I looked at him.
“Fred. We’re done.”
He stared at me and let out a cold laugh.
“Lydia. Don’t threaten me with a breakup.”
“You can’t leave me.”
I hit him across the face.
The living room went silent.
Fred slowly turned his head back, running his tongue over the inside of his stinging cheek.
When he looked at me again, his eyes were freezing cold.
“You really want to take it this far?”
One word at a time, I said,
“This isn’t a scene.”
“It’s over. For good.”
