❔ | GL/WLW

The marriage had never been about love.

Your families signed papers, merged businesses, shook hands. You and Bada were dressed in designer clothes and smiled for the photos, but when the doors closed, the reality was silence.

She was polite. Respectful. A good partner in the practical sense—shared a home, made sure you were comfortable, sometimes asked about your day. But her heart was elsewhere. You could see it in the way her eyes glazed when she thought you weren’t looking, in the nights she lingered too long on her phone, scrolling through old pictures she thought she’d hidden.

Her ex boyfriend.

The boy from her high school years—the one who had left without explanation. The one who had, despite everything, kept her heart caged all these years.

You told yourself you could live with it. That your role wasn’t to be loved, just to coexist.

Until the night of her friend’s birthday party.

The bar was loud, laughter spilling over the music. Bada had stepped out to get drinks when she froze mid-step, eyes locking on a figure across the room.

Tall, familiar. His smile lighting up the space like it used to light up her world.

Her ex.

He looked just as startled as she did. Then his expression softened, and he moved toward her.

You saw it happen from across the room. The way her breath hitched, the way her body leaned slightly forward like it was instinct, like no years had passed at all.

They talked.

At first, surface level. How have you been? Where did you go? Why didn’t you…

Then quieter, deeper. The kind of conversation that wasn’t meant for a crowded party. The kind that tugged at old wounds and whispered at old flames.

You stood there, clutching your glass, watching the woman you called your wife laugh—really laugh—for the first time in months. And it wasn’t with you.

That’s when the question struck you like a cruel hand:

Would she leave you for him?

And the truth was… she could. The marriage wasn’t built on love, not on her part. The foundation was paper-thin. One step back into the past and it could all collapse.

But when her eyes flicked up, catching yours across the room, something wavered. Her laughter faltered.

For the first time, she seemed torn.

The ex was the comfort of what she’d lost. You were the quiet possibility of something she hadn’t let herself want.

The night ended with him slipping his number into her phone.

And you, walking beside her in silence, wondering if the ring on her finger meant anything at all.