My boyfriend Chen Yubai kept his world in perfect order. His contact names read like a filing system. Colleagues were "Zhang San + Marketing + colleague." Clients were "Li Si + project + client." His mother was "Chen Meifeng + family + mother." Even I, his girlfriend of eight years, was saved as "Shen Tinglan + family + fiancée." Then, the night before our engagement party, his screen lit up with a work message from a sender saved as a string of soft, ridiculous emoji. I stared at it. I did not unlock the phone. Chen Yubai had never kept secrets from me. He said he did not need privacy. I had been proud of that. I believed trust was stronger than any vow. It was only a contact name, I told myself. Perhaps he had forgotten to change it. The next afternoon his car pulled up downstairs on time, but the driver was not Chen Yubai. It was his intern, Xu Nian. When she saw me, she turned to get out and sit in the back with me. "Brother Xiaobai!" She leaned out and stopped him. "You have to watch the road for me. I am a new driver. I panic when you are not beside me." She looked back at me with a sly, innocent smile. "Sister-in-law, I just got my license. You do not mind, do you?" I smiled and got into the back seat. The car smelled unfamiliar. Chen Yubai, who was usually cold to women and stingy even with eye contact, was laughing. "You do not check the mirror. You just turn your whole head. Impressive." "You changed lanes without signaling. Are we communicating with our eyes?" "Brother Xiaobai, look, am I improving?" "You are." "I knew it!" "This time I only thought about my will once. Last time it was three times." I looked out the window and said nothing.0

I knew something was wrong. I kept telling myself that eight years could survive it. Chen Yubai and I had sat at the same desk in high school, hiding our feelings until the college entrance exam ended. Then we were together. Four years of long distance, endless temptation, and neither of us crossed a line. We never let an argument last overnight. The hardest year was our third in university. My father had an affair and left. My mother fell into depression and lost her job. His parents demanded that he break up with me. He refused. He stood beside me and swore he would marry no one else. For years he lived like a monk, taking odd jobs to send me living money so I would not feel poor in front of my classmates. Could an intern he had known for a few months really outweigh that? I forced myself not to overthink. I decided to talk to him, to clear the knot between us. But the timing was never right. The new apartment was being renovated. The engagement party was being planned. His mother called every day to discuss the guest list. And every day Xu Nian sent another message with those ridiculous emoji. He laughed at his phone in the kitchen. He stopped telling me about his day. When I asked, he said I was imagining things. "She is a kid," he said. "Do not be jealous of a kid." I was not jealous. I was watching a door open in a house I thought was closed.0

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