Chapter 4
1136 Words
The rental apartment was eerily silent.
Larry stared at me with dark, heavy eyes, his jawline taut as a bowstring.
After a long moment, he parted his lips and spoke softly, "I don't know how you found out about my background, but I stopped being the heir of the Lockwood family a long time ago. The moment I decided to open my own law firm, I cut ties with my family entirely."
"And I've never made fun of you either. We've been living the exact same life all these years."
"There's no need to take out your anxiety over being unemployed on me and pick a fight."
That's the eloquence of a top lawyer. I could never win an argument against him.
Seeing that I had fallen silent, Larry tossed out a casual "Get up and have breakfast" as if nothing had happened, then turned and headed for the kitchen.
I had learned my lesson from the last go-around.
I had already thrown that cheap, forgettable tie in the trash ahead of time.
When Larry reached out to ask for his gift again, I kept my expression perfectly neutral. "I didn't prepare a gift for you. You must be mistaken."
Larry frowned, his gaze sweeping over the empty TV stand, and his eyes turned icy in an instant.
I also skipped the birthday party held for him this time.
I had no interest in going to the party just to be humiliated all over again.
Larry gave me a long, sharp look and then left, slamming the apartment door so hard it rattled in its frame, but I felt wonderfully relieved inside.
Who cares? It'll just reset, and I can do it all over again.
But when I woke up, the reset I had been expecting never came.
The day just kept going as normal, and by then it was already 2 in the afternoon.
Before I could figure out what was going on, my phone rang. It was an unknown caller.
"Ms. Lambert, this is the manager of the handmade cake shop. The ingredients for the cake you pre-ordered have arrived. When do you think you'll be able to come over?"
That was when it came back to me.
Three years ago, besides preparing a gift, I had also planned to make a birthday cake from scratch to surprise Larry.
Just thinking about it made me furious—I gave him everything I had, every bit of my heart, completely and genuinely.
But he was just a heartless, two-faced jerk!
I couldn't remember what had happened to that cake three years ago, but I was absolutely certain I never gave it to Larry.
Snapping back to my senses, I sighed. "Cancel the order."
There's no need to save money when I'm stuck in this time loop anyway.
After hanging up the phone, my stomach rumbled loudly with hunger.
I treated myself to an expensive seafood buffet and only left when I was completely stuffed.
When I checked my phone, there was still not a single message from Larry.
It was always like this every time we fought—he would never take the initiative to reach out to me.
On my way home, the street corner across the road was crowded with people, their chattering mixed with the low drone of police sirens.
I heard a passer-by who'd just come from the scene saying with a sigh, "What a tragedy! A rooftop billboard fell down and killed someone."
"I heard he died saving a little kid. He was so young; what a shame."
My stomach dropped when I heard that, and my curiosity got the better of me—I wanted to head over and see what was going on.
I had just taken two steps forward when someone suddenly yanked my wrist hard.
When I turned around, I saw Larry's grim face; his voice was packed with suppressed anger. "Quincy, why are you stopping to gawk at a scene like this? Aren't you afraid it'll give you nightmares?"
He was gripping my wrist so tightly that it started to hurt.
I couldn't break free, so I had no choice but to let him drag me back home.
As soon as we walked in the door, I noticed his hands were completely empty.
I couldn't help asking, "Where's the tie your fiancée gave you?"
At that, Larry frowned and froze for a moment. "What fiancée?"
Before I could reply, he quickly realized what I meant. "You mean Michelle? When did you meet her?"
Huh, I didn't even have to mention her name. He had already automatically equated the word "fiancée" with Michelle.
Anger welled up in my chest, and I couldn't help sneering, "So she really is your fiancée. Larry, why are you still messing with me when you already have a fiancée? What do you take me for? Some plaything for you to mess around with while you're slumming it?"
Larry was stunned for a moment.
Then he pressed his thin lips together slightly and sighed, "Michelle did give me a tie, but I didn't accept it."
"As for the fiancée you mentioned, that's just a joke between our two families. You don't need to take it seriously."
Right after that, Larry actually pulled the tie I thought I'd thrown in the trash out of his pocket.
He gave me a side-eye. "A tie worth a few hundred bucks, and you just threw it away like that?"
I froze.
This was the first time he had taken the initiative to explain so much to me.
I guess I'm just hopeless when it comes to him. With just those words from him, I actually started to waver, wanting to believe him.
But before I could speak again, Larry's phone rang once more.
I caught a glimpse of the caller ID on his screen: Mom.
Larry glanced at me, then walked to the balcony before answering the call.
It felt as if all the blood in my body had frozen in an instant, because this was the exact call I had overheard on the balcony three years ago.
During that call, Larry had told his mother that I was just a casual distraction.
Through the glass door of the balcony, I couldn't hear what the caller was saying, but his brows were furrowed the entire time.
He didn't seem to agree with what the other party was saying.
Staring at Larry's back, I thought of trusting him just this once.
Trust that his love for me over these past five years had been no less than mine for him.
This time, I chose to walk toward the balcony.
Then, under Larry's astonished gaze, I took the phone from his hand and spoke up before he could say anything.
"Hello, Madam Lockwood. I'm Quincy Lambert, Larry's girlfriend."
- Writer
