One Night , Forever Yours

OLIVIA'S POV The dumplings were perfect. I stared down at the container in my hands, steam still rising from the edges where I'd just sealed it shut. Grandmother's recipe. The one she'd taught me when I was twelve, standing on a stool in her cramped kitchen in Chinatown while she showed me how to fold the edges just right. Marcus loved these dumplings. He had told me the first time I made them for him that they tasted like home, like everything he'd been missing his whole life. That was three years ago. Back when I still believed words like that meant something. Tomorrow was our wedding. Everything was ready. The dress hanging in my closet, the flowers ordered, the venue booked. Three hundred guests who'd be watching me walk down the aisle to marry the man I'd spent three years molding myself into the perfect woman for. I wanted tonight to be special. I wanted to remind him why we were doing this. I wanted to see that look in his eyes from three years ago when he said my cooking made him feel loved. So I'd spent the afternoon in my tiny kitchen making dumplings from scratch. Rolling dough, mixing filling. They were perfect. Just like everything else I did for Marcus, just like everything I'd become for him. I grabbed my keys and headed out the door. His apartment was only twenty minutes away. Close enough that I'd stayed there more nights than I'd spent in my own place over the past year. The building doorman waved me through without question. He knew me. Everyone here knew me. Marcus's fiancée. The woman who'd be moving in permanently after the wedding. I took the elevator to his floor. I walked down the hallway with the container warm in my hands. I used the key he'd given me six months ago to let myself in. "Marcus?" I called out. "Babe, it's me. I made your favorite." No answer. The apartment was quiet, too quiet. Usually he had music playing, or the TV on. Or he'd call back immediately asking what I'd brought him. But tonight there was just silence. Maybe he was in the shower, or on a phone call he couldn't interrupt. Or asleep already even though it was only nine PM. I walked through the living room. Past the couch we'd picked out together. Past the coffee table where we'd argued about whether glass or wood looked better. Past all the little pieces of our life that I'd helped him build. The bedroom door was half open. Light spilling out into the hallway. I could hear something now. Soft sounds I couldn't quite place. I pushed the door open wider. Stepped inside with a smile already forming on my lips because I was going to surprise him and we'd eat dumplings in bed and remember why we were getting married tomorrow. That's when I saw them. Marcus. In the bed, our bed. The bed I'd helped him pick out. The bed I'd slept in countless times. The bed where he'd proposed to me six months ago. And Sophia, my sister. My baby sister who I'd protected our whole lives. Who I'd defended against our mother's criticism. Who I'd loved despite everything. They were tangled together. Sheets twisted around their bodies. His hands in her hair, her mouth on his neck. Both of them too focused on each other to notice me standing in the doorway. The container slipped from my hands. It hit the floor with a crash that echoed through the room. Dumplings scattered across the hardwood. They broke apart. Marcus looked up. His eyes met mine. I waited for shame. For horror, for some sign that this was killing him the way it was killing me. But all I saw was annoyance. Like I'd interrupted something important. Like I was the problem here. "Olivia." My name came out flat from his lips. "What are you doing here?" What was I doing here? In his apartment. With the key he gave me. The night before our wedding. "I made dumplings," I heard myself say. The words sounded insane. "Your favorite. I wanted to surprise you." Sophia sat up. Made no effort to cover herself, just looked at me with eyes that held no guilt. No remorse, nothing but cold satisfaction. "Oh, Liv." Her voice was sweet. "I'm actually doing you a favor here. Showing you who he really is before you make the biggest mistake of your life tomorrow." A favor. She called this a favor. I looked at Marcus, waited for him to say something. To apologize. To show me this wasn't what it looked like even though I knew exactly what it was. "You should go," he said finally. "We'll talk about this later." Later, like this was a minor inconvenience. "How long?" My voice came out steadier than I expected. "How long has this been happening?" Sophia laughed. Goddamn the b***h actually laughed. "Does it matter? Come on, Liv. You had to know this marriage was never about love. It's about the merger. About connecting the Chen and Wright families. About business." Business. Three years of my life, three years of becoming exactly what he wanted. Three years of giving up my dreams because he said opening a bakery wasn't appropriate for someone of my status. All of it was just business. "Get out," Marcus said, not to Sophia but to me. "Go home, Olivia. We'll figure this out in the morning." Figure this out. Like there was anything to figure out. Like I hadn't just walked in on my fiancé screwing my sister in our bed the night before our wedding. I turned around. Stepped over the dumplings scattered across his floor. Walked back through his apartment with my vision blurring and my chest burning and my whole world crumbling. I didn't cry. Not where they could see me. Not where they could have the satisfaction. The elevator ride down felt like falling. The doorman wished me goodnight like everything was normal. Like my life hadn't just ended. I walked out into the Manhattan night with no destination and no plan. Just walking because if I stopped moving I'd fall apart completely. My phone buzzed. My mother, probably calling about some last-minute wedding detail, thing that didn't matter anymore because there wasn't going to be a wedding. I turned off the phone and kept walking. The streets were crowded. Friday night in Manhattan, people everywhere living their normal lives. I walked for hours, through neighborhoods I knew and ones I didn't, past restaurants and shops and all the places that made up the city I'd lived in for three years. Eventually I found myself in Brooklyn. In front of a bar with no sign and windows too dirty to see through. The kind of place I never went. The kind of place Marcus would have hated. I pushed the door open. The inside was dark and smelled like old beer and regret. Exactly what I needed. I slid onto a barstool, the bartender looked up. Took in my expensive coat and my designer purse and my face that probably screamed that I didn't belong here. "What can I get you?" "The strongest thing you have," I said. "And keep them coming." He nodded. Poured something brown into a glass and slid it across the bar. I drank it in one swallow. It burned going down, I liked it. I wanted to feel something other than the emptiness spreading through my chest. "Rough night?" the bartender asked. I laughed. It came out bitter. "You have no idea." He poured another drink. "Want to talk about it?" "My fiancé is sleeping with my sister. Our wedding is tomorrow. Or it was supposed to be tomorrow. I just caught them together in his bed. The bed I helped him pick out. In the apartment I helped him decorate. With my sister who I've protected our whole lives." The words spilled out. I couldn't stop them. Couldn't hold them back anymore. "Damn," the bartender said. "That's rough." "Yeah." I downed the second drink. "So keep them coming. I want to forget tonight exists." He poured a third, I drank it. Then a fourth. The alcohol was finally starting to work. Blurring the edges, making everything feel distant and unreal. I was reaching for the fifth drink when I noticed him. A man sitting few stools away from me, dark hair, expensive suit. Untouched glass in front of him. He was staring at me. His eyes held sadness. Our eyes met and something passed between us. Recognition maybe. Of pain, of two people drowning in their own separate hells. "Whatever it is, alcohol won't fix it.”