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I am Nancy Schultz. Five months into my relationship with Jere Lloyd, I had prepared two surprises for him.
The first was that I had decided to stay in the country for him.
The second was that I was pregnant.
But when I arrived at the parking lot of his company, I saw Jere, my tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend, being cornered in his sports car by Nina Saunders, the most delicate-looking, beautiful woman in our company.
Nina said to him, "I know I was wrong. I regret it.
Jere, you said you would only ever love me for the rest of your life. How could you give someone else all the love that was supposed to be mine?"
My heart abruptly clenched.
Before I could react, Jere coldly pushed her hand away.
I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this really was just a misunderstanding and that I should trust him.
But the next second, Jere said in a cold voice, and his words stopped me from immersing myself in my illusion. "1, 000 drones for a birthday celebration, a fireworks show cost a million dollars, jewelry of a seven-figure price... You really should regret it, Nina. You should have regretted it the moment you started dating two people at once! Because all of those things were supposed to be yours!"
I froze where I stood.
I realized there was no need to tell him about the two surprises after all.
We Were Simply A Transient Presence In Each Other's Lives Chapter 1 Leftover Scraps
I am Nancy Schultz. Five months into my relationship with Jere Lloyd, I had prepared two surprises for him.
The first was that I had decided to stay in the country for him.
The second was that I was pregnant.
But when I arrived at the parking lot of his company, I saw Jere, my tall, broad-shouldered boyfriend, being cornered in his sports car by Nina Saunders, the most delicate-looking, beautiful woman in our company.
Nina said to him, "I know I was wrong. I regret it. Jere, you said you would only ever love me for the rest of your life. How could you give someone else all the love that was supposed to be mine?"
My heart abruptly clenched.
Before I could react, Jere coldly pushed her hand away.
I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that this really was just a misunderstanding and that I should trust him.
But the next second, Jere said in a cold voice, and his words stopped me from immersing myself in my illusion. "1, 000 drones for a birthday celebration, a fireworks show cost a million dollars, jewelry of a seven-figure price... You really should regret it, Nina. You should have regretted it the moment you started dating two people at once! Because all of those things were supposed to be yours!"
I froze where I stood.
I realized there was no need to tell him about the two surprises after all.
...
For a moment, I thought I was having a hallucination.
Unfortunately, I had just had a physical examination that morning.
And it showed that my body was perfectly healthy, and my hearing was fine too, so I had not misheard him.
He continued, "Nina, do you not like settling just for someone? Do you not like seeing me go crazy over you? Do you not like being a serial dater, juggling several men at once just to show off your charm? Then why are you crying now? I'm telling you that there are plenty of women in this world who would love me wholeheartedly and be devoted to me forever!"
Nina was crying so hard her makeup was streaked with tears. "You mean Nancy, don't you? She is not even close to being as good as me! She cannot compare to me at all! Of course she is devoted to you. She will never meet another man better than you! If you were not trying to make me jealous, why would you pursue her? Why would you make such a huge spectacle of it? You knew she worked for the same airline as me, so you deliberately made your pursuit of her known to everyone! She was just an intern with nothing to her name, yet you told the whole world you fell in love with her at first sight! You did so many grand, dramatic things, turning an ordinary ground crew employee into someone everyone envied. Was that not all just to make me regret leaving you?"
Jere clenched his jaw and said nothing.
Nina's voice softened as she continued to sob. "Okay, you won. I regret it! I really do! Can you please stop trying to hurt me like this? You used to say you would never let me be unhappy for the rest of my life. Can you really bear to see me beg you like this? Jere, let us stop being angry with each other. Let us get back together."
Nina threw herself into his arms and wrapped both arms tightly around his waist.
I stared blankly at Jere from behind the pillar.
His back was rigid.
He was over six feet tall, standing ramrod straight like a wooden stick.
But he did not push her away.
He stood completely still and let her hold him tightly.
"You cannot keep doing this to me," she sobbed. "Do you know what I was thinking when you sent 10, 000 roses to the office for her birthday and everyone was envying her? Jere, how could you hurt me like this?!"
She suddenly clenched her fists and pounded his chest. "You bastard! You bastard! You swore you would love me for the rest of your life! You listened to everything I said growing up. You always did whatever I wanted, but you don't anymore. How could you? Do you remember what you said when you were eight?"
Jere remained motionless and let her beat against his chest.
Nina's makeup was completely ruined.
She, the most beautiful flight attendant at Exavia Airlines year after year, looked absolutely miserable now.
But somehow, that only made her look more pitiful.
She sobbed hysterically as she pounded his chest again and again, as if she were the one who had suffered some terrible injustice and who had been betrayed.
After a long while, Jere finally moved.
He opened his mouth, his voice dry and hoarse. "I sent 11, 615 roses."
I froze.
Nina froze too.
She lifted her tear-streaked face and looked up at him.
She looked awful, but her eyes lit up.
"June 15, 2011." Jere's voice was low, with a trace of exhaustion and an indescribable sense of relief in it, as if he had finally revealed some enormous secret. "That was the day we had our first kiss!"
Nina suddenly cried out and spoke rapidly. "That was the day I had my first kiss with you! In the school nurse's office!"
Then she added with a hint of shyness in her voice. "You kissed me so urgently and hungrily that time, like you wanted to devour me. You even said it was your first kiss, but you were already that good at kissing the very first time..."
Jere did not say anything else.
I did not know if he was reminiscing about it.
In the corner, I suddenly shuddered for no reason.
Then a strong wave of nausea came over me.
Bent over, I braced myself against the wall and kept dry-heaving.
My mind was hazy, and my ears were ringing.
Nina and Jere's voices sounded both close and distant, repeatedly stabbing at my eardrums and pounding inside my head.
She asked again, "What about the drones you sent for her birthday?"
After a pause, Jere's voice came out hoarse and quiet. "It was 1, 533 drones."
"March 3, 2015..." Nina murmured the date, then suddenly smiled. "That was our first time doing it! You used three condoms that day!"
She finally broke into a smile through her tears.
After that, Jere stopped hiding anything. He confessed everything to her naturally, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
She asked, "What about that fireworks show?"
He said, "At the end of the fireworks show, the fireworks formed the words 'I LOVE N.S.'"
Of course the "N.S." stood for Nina Saunders, not me, Nancy Schultz.
What Nina could not get over was the $3 million emerald necklace Jere had given me in front of everyone.
She said the amount of money a man spent on a woman showed how much he loved her.
So now she demanded to know whether he had truly fallen for me and whether his act had become real.
This time, Jere remained silent for even longer.
Finally, he said, "When we went to buy the rough stone, we cracked it open and discovered that the emerald inside was worth $50 million. The most perfectly cut part of it was used to make two necklaces."
He paused before adding, "One was for my mother. And your name was after the serial number on the other one. The emerald necklace I gave Nancy was made from the leftover scraps of that stone."
We Were Simply A Transient Presence In Each Other's Lives Chapter 2 The Stepping Stone
Long after Jere's sports car had driven away, I still did not come out from behind the pillar in the corner.
I lowered my arm. It was covered in many teeth marks, all of them from when I had bitten myself just moments ago to keep from making a sound.
My body felt unbearably heavy, yet my soul felt weightless, as if it were about to float out of my body.
I knew I was dissociated from reality again, which meant that I was in depression now.
When Jere was pursuing me and learned about my past, his eyes had reddened with sympathy.
He had taken me to see therapists again and again, never growing impatient because of it, and repeatedly told me that everything in the past was over.
Back then, he had said that the future would only get better.
He had even promised that as long as he was here with me, he would never let me get worse.
Suddenly, I thought it was ironic.
The man who had repeatedly promised that he would never let me get psychologically sick again had been doing things that were driving me toward a breakdown all along.
He knew what I had been through.
He knew how difficult it was for someone with severe trauma to climb out of it and learn to trust and love the world again.
He also knew that once I learned the truth, my condition might worsen, that I might fall into complete despair and never be able to get back on my feet.
But he did it anyway.
He had used me, a patient, and my sincere love for him, as a stepping stone toward his great love.
It suddenly rained, and I did not know when it had started.
But I was completely unaware of it, wandering dazedly through the downpour.
My hair hung loose, and rainwater streamed down my face and neck.
I could not even see the traffic lights or hear the honking, and I finally came back to my senses when the sound of an emergency brake and a chorus of angry curses rang out.
Someone said, "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Not here, okay?!"
And someone said, "Can't you watch where you're going when crossing the street?"
I turned around sluggishly and saw a middle-aged man gripping my arm tightly.
He had saved me.
With his other hand, he held an umbrella over my head, then pushed the handle into my hand and said earnestly, "Young lady, no matter how hard things get, you can always get through them."
I stared blankly at him, unable to tell whether the water running down my face was rain or tears.
He waved at me and walked toward the crosswalk in the rain.
I had not cried at the parking lot.
But now, with the kindness of a stranger, I finally couldn't hold back my tears anymore.
I lowered my head and suddenly crouched down right there in the middle of the crowded, rain-soaked street and sobbed, breaking down.
There were more than a dozen missed calls on my phone.
Some were from my mother.
Others were from Jere.
I deleted my phone records with Jere with a single tap.
We had so many calls that I could no longer find our very first call.
I had once thought that was proof of how much we loved each other.
We had been so close that neither of us could bear to be apart for a minute.
Even being separated for a little while, we would always have endless things to talk about, from something as trivial as the black-and-white cat by the roadside giving birth to kittens to something as important as what style we wanted for our future home.
Now I realized that all those things he had said were just lies for me, a gullible fool.
I wondered what he had been thinking while talking to me.
Then I thought he probably believed he would never find someone more gullible and useful to his stepping stone than me.
I called my mother back and said, "Yeah, it is raining really hard. I did not hear my phone ringing.
My voice?... It's fine. I just have a little cold. My nose is stuffed up, so my voice sounds a little hoarse, right? Do not worry, Mom. I'll be okay."
I truly believed I would be okay.
I tightened my grip around my phone until my knuckles turned pale. "Mom, actually, there is something I want to tell you. I changed my mind. I have decided to settle in Hispania with you and Callum."
I forced my lips to lift upward, putting on a smile. "I might not be the flower girl for your wedding with Callum, but I can at least be a bridesmaid, right? I am really fine, Mom. I will resign from my job and pack my things for shipment right away. Wait for me."
I went home to pack my things.
I assumed Jere would definitely not be there. After all, he had already gotten what he wanted.
Nina, the woman he had always longed for and truly loved, regretted leaving him.
I imagined they were probably busy getting back together, lost in their reunion.
At the door of our home, I had just entered the password, and I had not even had time to open the door when it was suddenly pulled open from the inside.
Jere stared at me, soaked from head to toe, breathing heavily.
His brows immediately and evidently knitted together, as if he were deeply worried about me.
He quickly pulled me inside.
Ignoring my struggles and resistance, he pressed me down onto the couch and wrapped me tightly in a wool blanket with practiced ease.
I was bundled up like a moth trapped inside its own cocoon, unable to move.
He took a large towel and gently dried my hair and face.
As he dried my hair, he kept reproving me. "Where did you go? Why did you not answer when I called you so many times? It was raining hard. Why did you not call me and ask me to pick you up? You had me searching everywhere for you. What if you catch a cold or come down with a fever after getting soaked like that? Nancy, do you know how much effort it took me to make you this beautiful and radiant? And this is how you treat yourself? Are you trying to drive me crazy?"
I felt dazed.
And I started to wonder if my condition had gotten worse, and if I was hallucinating something that had never happened before.
I even wondered if what I had seen in the parking lot that afternoon had really just been a nightmare, and if he had just been playing a wonderful boyfriend like this.
His phone rang.
Jere glanced at his phone and stopped drying my hair. He looked at me awkwardly.
In that instant, I knew I had not been dreaming.
And everything that had happened in the parking lot was real.
Jere turned his back to me and hid in the study to take the call.
I stood silently at the doorway in my bare feet, watching him cover the microphone with his hand and speak in a low voice, his lips curling into a doting smile.
He said, "I am glad you like it. When I had it cut, I was thinking about how happy you would be when you received it. I even found the jewelry designer you like."
He casually turned his head and met my calm gaze. His entire body froze.
"Nancy?" he said with a slightly panicked voice.
We Were Simply A Transient Presence In Each Other's Lives Chapter 3 Bubble Gum
"I came to get something," I said calmly as I walked past Jere.
He let out a sigh of relief. "What could be so important? Never mind. I will run you a bath first. Getting soaked in the rain like that, do you not worry about catching a cold?"
I turned and looked at his back.
The more I had once loved listening to him nag me, the more ridiculous it seemed to me now.
I loved his nagging because I used to believe it showed how much he cared about me.
After we were officially together, I could not resist showing off our relationship either, like taking pictures and posting them on social media.
I once posted a photo of him wearing an apron as he stood in the kitchen, taken from behind him with a caption that read, "Three dishes and a soup made by someone. What a feast! Is this what they call husband energy?"
In that photo, his shoulders were broad and his waist slim, while the diamond cuff links on his sleeves glittered.
I had also posted a photo of the flan he had made, captioned, "I never knew the flan he made could be so sweet. It is sweet enough to melt my heart!"
I posted plenty of things like that, and Jere always encouraged me to share more on social media.
He said he wanted the whole world to know what an amazing boyfriend I had.
Back then, I thought he was just as unable as I was to contain his joy about being together.
Only now did I realize that he had probably wanted me to keep telling everyone things about our relationship as he did, preferably so Nina could see every single post clearly enough to get jealous and regret leaving him.
I looked at the framed photo of Jere and me on the desk.
He had his arm around my shoulder, smiling with restrained, noble elegance.
But even someone as distinguished as him could become a pitiful person unable to be with the one he truly wanted.
I admired how infatuated he was with someone, but he should not have used me as a stepping stone.
I looked at myself with a sweet, happy smile on my face in the photo and suddenly found it a painful sight.
I pulled the photo out of the frame and tore it in half expressionlessly.
I had thought the sweet moments and happiness we had were real, but that was just something I believed.
While I had been happily believing that this was what love felt like, the truth was that all the sweet moments and happiness he had given me were fake.
It was simply what had been left over for me after he had given them to someone else.
It was like a piece of bubble gum.
I put it in my mouth and thought it was sweet, only to find out that someone else had already chewed it and spit it out.
There was another framed photo on the desk.
It showed a group of people, young and old, standing together in a courtyard.
I remembered asking Jere who the girl with the ponytail standing beside him, with her arm linked through his, was.
Maybe it really was because of a woman's intuition; the moment I saw her, I felt something weird inexplicably.
Maybe it was because Jere was holding her hand so tightly in the photo, and the way he looked at her was so intensely focused.
At the time, Jere had casually told me that she was his neighbor during childhood.
In reality, Jere had placed that photo of Nina on his desk and looked at it every day.
I simply had not known.
Jere's grandfather was also in that group photo.
I looked at his face in it, and my eyes began to sting.
I lowered my head, and a tear fell onto the desk.
Jere had pursued me relentlessly for three whole months, making such a grand spectacle of it that everyone knew.
But I had never accepted his confession at that time.
I knew my place.
The gap between our backgrounds was simply too great.
I was afraid he was only interested on a whim, and that the moment he lost interest in me, he would simply break up with me.
I never imagined the truth would be even more frightening and humiliating than his passing whim.
I began to see Jere differently the day his grandfather was hospitalized because he was seriously ill.
That night, he appeared in front of me in the rain and pulled me into his arms.
Choking back a sob, he buried his face against my neck and said, "Nancy, I am scared."
He looked like a stray huge doggy caught in the rain, homeless, worth a great fortune, yet heartbreakingly vulnerable.
They said that going soft on someone was the beginning of falling in love with them.
And that was the moment I fell.
After that, I often made all kinds of nutritious food for him to take to the hospital for his grandfather.
I would make the same food for him and his grandfather to eat together.
Every time, he would smile and say, "Babe, you're the best!"
The day the doctor told him that his grandfather was in critical condition, I cried with him.
I held him and repeatedly told him that his grandfather would get better.
That night, I fell asleep in the hospital hallway. Half-awake, I felt someone watching me.
I opened my eyes and glanced around.
I thought I was dreaming, so I closed my eyes again.
In my eyes, Jere had always been passionate, cheerful, and considerate, so I never thought he would look at me with such a complicated, unreadable expression.
Now that I thought back on it, my heart only ached.
I wanted to know whether Jere had felt even a trace of guilt that night.
But I supposed I would never know the answer.
I finished gathering all my identification documents and walked out of the bedroom.
Jere was hurriedly walking toward the door with his phone in his hand.
When he saw me, he paused. "I ran a hot bath for you. I left your pajamas on the rack beside the tub. Your skin has been a little sensitive lately, so you can only wear cotton and silk. Throw out all those polyester clothes later."
I stood there without moving or saying anything.
"Something urgent came up at the company. I have to deal with it. Take a nice bath and go to sleep, okay? Do not run around. Since you got soaked in the rain, drink plenty of warm water and wait for me to come back," he said as he changed his shoes by the door.
The moment the door closed, I heard his helpless, resigned voice coming from outside. "God. Can you just call a delivery service when you ran out of tampons? Did you really have to make me go buy them? Okay, fine... I will bring you some flan."
I suddenly gagged.
I felt like Jere was disgusting. And I decided I did not want him anymore.