He Wears Boundless Glory, I Quit Our Years of Love

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On the day of the awards ceremony, the first thing Sebastian Mason did after winning Best Actor was announce his retirement.

The trending list exploded in seconds, but inside the agency group chat, it turned into a full-blown party.

Can't wait to see how Bonnie Stephens cleans up this one.

Wasn't she dying to make Sebastian a Best Actor? And now he retires for Alice Summers's sake. That's what I call devotion.

A new intern asked timidly,

"But if Sebastian retires, doesn't that mean we're all out of a job?"

Sebastian's longtime friend and bodyguard sent a grinning emoji. "You're new, so you wouldn't know. Bonnie's spent a good ten years circling Sebastian, fawning over him like crazy. No matter what mess he makes, she always mops it up. Worst case she drinks a couple more rounds with the backers to smooth things over."

"This time Alice got jealous, said she didn't like all those female fans crazy about Sebastian, so he put out the statement just to make his girl happy."

"What I'd really love to see is the look on that old woman Stephens's face right now. Probably about to blow a gasket, hahaha."

In the middle of all the flashing messages, a voice note suddenly popped up.

It was Sebastian, his voice low and hoarse,

"Knock it off, all of you. I'm busy handling something and you're driving me nuts."

That only got them more worked up, and they started demanding a title for Alice,

"The girl just graduated college, Sebastian. You can't keep sleeping with her with no name to it. Hurry up and break it off with Bonnie so we can rightfully call Alice the boss's wife."

"Do it while that old woman's swamped fixing your PR. She won't even have time to make a scene. She'll nod before she even catches what you said."

"Catches it? At her age she's just going deaf."

Everyone howled.

I opened my social media, drafted a separate statement under the agency account, and hit send.

01

"MO Agency is dissolving effective today. Its signed talent, Sebastian Mason, will no longer take part in any performance work as of this date."

"To compensate fans for all financial losses, the agency is opening a refund channel. We will fully refund and reimburse every ticket and piece of merchandise our fans have purchased over the past three years."

I pinned Sebastian's personal bank account number in the top comment under the post.

He wanted to retire, break it off, and find someone new. I would give him all of it.

Once it was sent, I closed the page and booked myself a flight to the Maldives for the next day.

In the fifteen years I dated Sebastian, I poured everything I had into his career, gave it every ounce of myself, and never took a single day off.

I lifted Sebastian into the industry, into films, all the way to Best Actor, and along the way every one of his friends got a job at the agency pulling five figures a month.

And what I got in return wasn't gratitude. It was being called a desperate simp throwing herself at him.

To get Sebastian better opportunities, I drank until my stomach bled, and got groped at those dinners.

In their mouths it was nothing, just "a couple of drinks."

They fell all over themselves to call the girl Sebastian cheated with the boss's wife.

But I'd told them so many times I hated that mocking "Old Bonnie" tag they'd stuck on me, and not one of them cared. If anything, they only said it more.

I'd told Sebastian countless times, and all he ever did was flick my nose, not caring at all, laughing that I was an old cucumber painted green, an old woman playing at being a young girl fighting for a man's favor.

While I was packing, my phone rang.

It was a snippet of an English song he'd sung himself, set the year we first got together.

"Bonnie, I wrote this song myself. I won't release it. It's just for you."

"Use it as your ringtone. From now on, when you hear it, think of me."

That boy from that year, smiling with his eyes curved soft and bright, the cleanest, clearest thing.

I picked up, and the man on the other end was breathing hard, impatient, his voice cold.

I thought he was calling to confront me about the refund post.

Or maybe he'd finally realized the chat he'd been joking around in with his friends wasn't their private group but the big one with me in it, and he wanted to explain.

But what he said was,

"Bonnie, buy a bouquet and send it to the Starlight Hotel. Pink roses."

"She's young, she wants the romance. No flowers, no touching."

I held my phone, silent for a long moment, and then, out of nowhere, I laughed.

I thought of our first time. No flowers, no protection, no five-star hotel.

Just sweat-damp school uniforms and a filthy abandoned restroom.

That was the year Sebastian's grandmother died, the grandmother who had raised him, the only family he had. He fell apart, told me he wanted to break up, skipped class to get into fights, acting like he'd given up on everything.

So I gave him everything I had, trying to fill the hole inside him.

I used my holiday money to cover his tuition. I kissed his tears away without being asked. I held him and told him again and again, close against his ear, that we would be together forever.

Later we got into the same university, and Sebastian worked a whole summer job to buy me a three-thousand-dollar diamond ring for my birthday.

He said, Okay, Bonnie. We'll be together forever.

More than ten years have passed.

Sebastian has everything now, but he can't remember my birthday anymore.

I glanced at the time. Twelve o'clock.

The first hour of my thirtieth birthday.

My voice was calm when I agreed. "Sure, I'll send them over."

But Sebastian went quiet.

"Forget it. I'll get Harvey to do it. Your eyes are bad, don't drive in the middle of the night."

I made a small sound of agreement and was about to hang up.

Then, on the other end, Sebastian suddenly said, "Bonnie, everybody likes something new. I'm no different."

"Whatever happens, I'm going to marry you in the end. So having a little fun before the wedding, it's not a big deal, right?"

Any other time, hearing that, I would have cried my heart out and demanded to know how he could say such a thing.

But today, all at once, I was tired.

Too tired to even bother saying the words to break up.

I made that same small sound again. "Understood. Go have your fun, then."

I hung up and left a message for the broker I know, handing her full authority to list this apartment for sale.

This was the place we rented the year we first came to New York.

At our poorest, Sebastian and I were crammed into this one-bedroom, splitting a single serving of instant noodles between us.

Later he made it big and moved to a big open-plan place.

But I couldn't bear to give this up, so I just bought the apartment and have lived here alone ever since.

After tidying up, I sat down on the couch, ready to check how the fight was going on my social media.

The next second, someone unlocked the front door from the outside with a key.

Sebastian walked in and pressed a small case into my palm.

"Birthday present."

"I saw everything they said in the group chat. They really went too far this time. I'll set them straight later."

I opened it and glanced inside. A necklace. Ordinary-looking, the kind that shows up most often as a bundled add-on in luxury boutiques.

And three days ago, I'd seen Alice, Sebastian's assistant, carrying a brand-new bag from that same label.

It wasn't hard to guess where this necklace had come from.

I closed the case again. "Thank you."

Sebastian looked a little stunned, not expecting my reaction to be so flat.

The year before last, he said he was going to propose on my birthday, so I spent two hours getting ready and waited for him at a restaurant he'd booked out, waited until the waitstaff started looking at me with pity, only to get one line in the end: "Alice isn't feeling well, it's her time of the month. I'll take you to dinner tomorrow."

We had a huge fight afterward and didn't speak for half a month.

Last year on my birthday, he stood me up again. I cooked the whole meal myself, then sat alone with a full table of food and a cake until the middle of the night, and he never came home.

That fight was worse. It got bad enough that everyone around us came to talk us down.

This year, he probably assumed I was just the same as always, throwing a fit because my birthday got forgotten.

Which was why he'd grabbed some random thing and rushed over to give it to me.

He reached out to pinch my cheek. "All right, stop being mad. I didn't stand you up this year. I even won Best Actor and brought it home for you."

"I know you get possessive. From now on I'll tell them all to be careful, not to bring up Alice in front of you. Good enough?"

I dodged his hand. "Sebastian, haven't you looked at your social media?"

Sebastian stared at his hand hanging in the air, his movement freezing for a second, his expression turning ugly.

"You mean that refund notice? Another one of those PR tricks you picked up somewhere."

"That's just your job as a manager. What, you want to be praised for it?"

I nodded, understanding now. So that was it.

No wonder the dissolution-and-refund statement had been up all this time and Sebastian and everyone else at the agency hadn't reacted at all.

It wasn't that they were slow to see things online, and it wasn't that they didn't care about this business.

It was that they were certain I would always, always chase after Sebastian.

No matter what outrageous thing Sebastian did, I would find a way to clean up his mess, and I would never leave him.

Not wanting to waste any more words, I gave a small smile and simply nodded.

"You're right. It's a PR tactic."

Sebastian watched my expression, silent for a moment, before he said, "...Once this all blows over, how about I take you on a trip? We can call it our proposal trip."

All these years, the word proposal had come out of Sebastian's mouth more times than I could count.

The first time was right after he landed his first leading-man script, when we tasted fame and money for the first time and sat there counting the balance on the bank card, giddy out of our minds.

The great joys of life: a wedding night, a name on the honor roll.

Sebastian said right then that he wanted to propose, that he wanted to build a family with me, that we'd never be apart.

But soon he met the new assistant on set, Alice, and Alice cried that she had a gambling father and a gravely ill mother and a younger brother in school, and an assistant's salary was only three thousand a month, nowhere near enough to keep the whole family fed.

Sebastian's heart softened, and he brought Alice onto his own team right away, paying her far above the industry rate.

Only then did he come to me, deal already done. "Bonnie, Alice really has it rough. She reminds me so much of myself back then. I want to help her."

"If we get married now, it'll definitely hurt our careers, and then I won't even be able to pay her that much anymore. Let's wait a couple of years. Once I've made more money, I'll make it up to you with a castle wedding."

After that, every single year, he said he wanted to propose.

He said it when he won an award, said it on my birthday, said it when I got pregnant by accident.

But every time, in the end, either Alice had cramps and he couldn't get away, or Alice's cat wouldn't sit still for a nail trim and needed his help.

Even on the day I'd scheduled my abortion, Sebastian never showed. He just sent me some money.

"I want to go with you, I really do, but it wouldn't look good for someone like me to be seen at an OB-GYN."

"Besides, the plush doll Alice just bought still hasn't shipped, and I'm in the middle of arguing with customer service for her. Be good, don't make a scene."

"Once this is behind us, once you've recovered, I promise I'll give you a grand proposal."

Maybe the same memories surfaced for him too, because something uneasy crossed Sebastian's face.

He cleared his throat. "This time it's for real. I've already got the ring ordered. We'll go to that island you love and I'll propose there."

I hadn't wanted to bother arguing with him anymore.

But watching him now, lying without a flicker, trampling other people's real feelings underfoot like it was nothing, I felt a sudden flare of resentment.

Resentment on behalf of the girl who once split her living money in half, scrimping and saving just to cover Sebastian's tuition.

So I held out my hand. "Show me."

"Show you what?"

"The ring order. You said you had it ordered, didn't you?"

Sebastian went quiet.

I just took his phone, opened his transfer history, and pulled up his recent statements.

Eight hundred thousand, women's luggage.

Five hundred and twenty thousand, transferred directly to Alice Summers.

Three hundred and ninety thousand, couple's bracelets.

And one order for a hundred and twenty dollars.

I tapped into it.

Sure enough, a plain women's ring, and in his chat with the seller he was still asking, can you engrave it? Engrave a "B."

Then I found his chats with Alice and searched for the island.

Sure enough, last week Alice had thrown a fit at him, saying she was sick of this hiding-in-the-shadows affair.

Sebastian booked the island on the spot to smooth her over.

"How about I take you to the island next month?"

"We'll just have to bring Bonnie along too. She is still my agent, after all, and if she doesn't come and the two of us get photographed together, people are bound to start talking about you."

I couldn't help it, I started to laugh, laughed until the tears came.

"Sebastian, this is the grand proposal you were going to give me?"

"A hundred-and-twenty-dollar ring. A three-person island trip tacked on to make up with your mistress."

"Fifteen years with you, and I'm worth a hundred and twenty dollars."

Sebastian snatched the phone back, furious.

"Bonnie! Can you stop being so unreasonable? You wear everyone out when you act like this."

"You know we've been together fifteen years. Ordinary couples would've split ages ago. I've kept you by my side all this time. Doesn't that prove I love you?"

"So I loved someone else for a little while. That's only human. Who in this industry isn't juggling a few people at once? Compared to them, I'm practically a saint. At least I didn't dump you the second I got famous. Don't be so ungrateful."

Somewhere in the argument, someone's thumb hit the call button.

Sebastian's phone dialed Alice, and a familiar melody started to play.

Except it wasn't the same as mine.

Mine was a boy's shy, unpolished singing.

The ringtone he'd set for Alice, spilling out of his phone now, was a duet.

A man's low, warm voice led a soft, fragile female voice through the words, one line pouring into the next.

The air went still for a second. Sebastian looked at me, and something guilty flickered across the face that had been all anger and impatience a moment ago.

The next second, Alice picked up.

"Sebastian, didn't you say you were just going out to buy some flowers? Why's it taking so long? I'm about to fall asleep."

He lunged forward and clamped his big hand over my mouth and nose, as if terrified I'd suddenly cry out and lose my mind, and make Alice jealous and upset.

His grip was hard, but the voice he answered her with was gentle. "Not many flower shops are open this late. If you're tired, don't wait up. I'll come back as soon as I've bought them."

Alice whined and cooed on the other end. "I'm not sleepy anymore. I want the crab-roe soup dumplings from that place on East Street. Go get some for me, okay? I can't sleep without them."

Sebastian answered softly, "Okay. Wait for me, then."

By the time they finally finished and hung up.

My tears had already smeared all over his hand without my noticing.

The silence turned heavy. I grabbed a couple of tissues at random and wiped his hand.

Even the calluses on his palm were exactly where they'd been when we were young. But his heart had changed a long time ago.

Once, he'd used these hands to hold me, to carry my school bag, to slide a ring onto my finger.

Now they only covered my mouth to shut me up.

Sebastian frowned, and looked like he wanted to say something.

I cut him off. "That dumpling place on East Street only stays open till three. You've got half an hour. Go now or you won't make it."

Sebastian dropped his head, silent for a long moment, then said, "Bonnie, give me a little more time. I just don't know how to bring up a breakup with her."

"Either way, I promise you: no matter what, the only person I'll ever sign a marriage license with is you."

He hurried out to buy the soup dumplings and the roses.

I sat on the couch.

After I wiped the tear tracks off my face one last time.

I went back to the bedroom, pulled out the two suitcases I'd packed long ago, went downstairs, got in the car, and drove to the airport.