I received the wedding invitation after work.

For a moment, my heart seemed to stop.

I stood in the crowded subway carriage, holding my phone, staring at the chat window until my eyes began to ache.

Please.

Let this be a joke.

Maybe he was only messing with me. Maybe he was angry and wanted to scare me. Maybe this was just another one of his childish ways of forcing me to lower my head first.

I waited.

And waited.

Finally, three words appeared on the screen.

Are you coming?

My breath caught in my chest.

We had only broken up half a year ago.

How could he be marrying someone else already?

I had always thought we were just not speaking for a while. A cold war, that was all. In the past, no matter how badly we argued, he would always compromise first. He would come back, coax me, make peace, and pretend nothing had happened.

This time, I had been waiting for him to do the same.

But instead of an apology, I received his wedding invitation.

I shoved my phone back into my handbag and leaned against the subway seat. The carriage swayed forward, full of tired office workers and the faint smell of perfume, metal and rain.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

But the wedding photos kept flashing through my mind.

Again and again.

The bride had studied design in Paris. She had a heart-shaped face and long, straight brown hair. When she smiled from a certain angle, she looked a little like me.

And the man standing beside her was someone I knew too well.

Someone I had loved for four years.

Someone I had once believed would eventually marry me.

My eyes grew hot.

All the good and bad memories from those four years rushed back at once, tangled together until I could hardly breathe.

How could this happen?

We were only taking a break.

The woman standing beside him in those photos should have been me.

It was all because of that stupid long-distance relationship.

All because we had been too proud to bow our heads.

All because I thought there would still be time.

I opened my eyes.

The subway window reflected my pale face back at me.

No.

I could not let it end like this.