Chapter 1
It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed her changes. We’d been together for eight years, over two thousand nine hundred days and nights. We knew each other inside out, so close we were practically one person. I could spot her abnormal reactions instantly. Back then, a new employee, a pretty handsome guy named Leo, joined her team. Only our Chairman shared the surname “Eleanor” in the entire company. And coincidentally, when Leo filled out his personal information, he listed Eleanor as his mother, Eleanor Smith. At first, Chloe would explain to me that she was taking care of Leo because he was young, just graduated, and the Chairman’s son, so she had to look after him carefully. She even told me not to worry, saying she wasn’t into that puppy-dog type. But Chloe didn’t know that the “puppy-dog” she claimed was young and just graduated was actually three years older than me. Later, I needed a video for work. My laptop wasn’t handy, so I borrowed Chloe’s. But to my surprise, her password had changed. I called her to get it, and that’s when I found out her password was Leo’s birthday. Just as I was naively thinking it was a coincidence, her wallpaper had changed too. It was a photo of a bar, and the main subject in the picture was clearly the hand of some guy making a heart shape. I remembered, she used to be super bossy, telling me not to change my wallpaper, and she promised she wouldn’t change hers either. So for years, my computer wallpaper was her photo, and her computer wallpaper was my photo. I also remembered she hated places like bars. Perhaps Chloe belatedly remembered this, because just after I opened her laptop, she immediately called me back. “Alex, that wallpaper? An old employee accidentally changed it for me.” She told me not to overthink it. I believed her, but after that, she never let me touch her computer again. I don’t know if she changed it back. But she also didn’t know that I actually knew who that man was the whole time, because his hand was too distinctive. There were many similar incidents after that, like the celebration dinner the company held when she landed a big deal. I was working on another project at the time, so I didn’t go to that party. That day I was so busy I couldn’t even eat, but I still called Chloe right away to congratulate her. I even had a surprise planned for her. But she didn’t answer the phone. Maybe she was busy. I sent her a text, but she didn’t reply to that either. Until I saw her post on Ins: she was holding a bouquet of roses, smiling so sweetly. I’d sent her Lisianthus, her favorite. Leo also posted on Ins that day, and he too was holding a bouquet of roses, grinning widely. Their photo location and poses were identical. At first glance, it looked like they were about to go public. Chloe even left a comment on his post: Don’t forget to grab dinner. I can’t remember how I felt then, only that the day after that happened, I saw the flowers I’d sent her in the trash can outside the company. And in her office, there was that bouquet of roses. She once told me she hated roses, calling them tacky. But it turns out, people eventually become tacky.