Chapter 5: The Truth Comes Out

When did things start to change?

Probably when I saw that photo.

It was our fifth month together. Caleb had a million friends, and on his birthday, everyone wanted in. Party planning started ten days out, and I was on break, so I tagged along.

The more I hung around, the more I realized—no one bothered to hide anything from me. That’s when I learned: Caleb had once been all-in on love. He’d proposed, picked out rings, even picked the venue. But after some fight, the girl said he didn’t love her enough. She left, he didn’t chase. That was that. They almost got married.

Someone pulled up a photo, not even trying to hide it. “You know, you look a little like Lillian. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have started that bet because of you.”

Lillian, in the photo, smiled like the sun. She looked exactly like the girl in Caleb’s sketch under the maple tree.

At first, I thought the bet was just boredom. Now, I realized I’d been the fool all along.

Everyone knew he couldn’t move on from his first love. He still followed her Instagram, sent her jewelry every year on her birthday, made sure someone told him if anything ever went wrong for her. If it did, he’d go and quietly fix it—never letting her know, never reaching out, but never letting go.

Only I was dumb enough to think I was different.

Someone joked, “After Lillian left, Caleb just kept dating. We always figured he was trying to make her jealous.”

Everyone laughed. Caleb came back from a call, sat next to me, squeezed my palm, smiling. “What are you guys talking about? Sounds fun.”

I looked at him, feeling cold all over. “Talking about your first love.”

He froze. Rare for him. Then, quietly, “What’s the point of bringing her up?”

That’s when I first thought about ending it.

Weirdly, I should thank his friends for being so blunt. They didn’t care about my feelings, so they told the truth. That’s how I finally woke up—realized I was just another girl passing through Caleb’s life, a stand-in for someone else.