You Said I Was Wonderful, But Then She Came Back

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The night I found out I was pregnant, Jeffrey called me.

My dear wife, do you want to come catch us in the act?

I was still in a daze, thinking I was dreaming, when he sent his location straight to my phone.

Along with it came a photoa girl, her cheeks still flushed pink.

The truth is, she's the one I was supposed to marry, and now she's back...

I stared at the face that looked seventy percent like mine, my voice trembling. "So I've just been her stand-in this whole time?"

A soft laugh came from the other end. "She only looks like you. In bed she's nowhere near as good as youshe doesn't even count as a stand-in."

After a long moment, I finally choked out, "Then why did you insist on marrying me back then?"

Jeffrey was silent for two seconds. "Come see for yourself and you'll know."

------

I took a taxi to the location he'd sent, and from a distance I could see Jeffrey's car parked there.

Under the streetlight, June struggled to push out of his arms. "Don't think that just because it happened once, we can go back to the way we were."

"You have no idea what kind of life I've been living abroad all these years. All you cared about was your wife."

Seeing that she was about to leave, Jeffrey pulled her back into his arms and let her keep struggling, kicking him, hitting him.

"Feel better now?"

Jeffrey held her tightly. "Every single moment of these past three years, I thought of you. You were the one cruel enough to never look back."

June's eyes brimmed with tears, and she buried her face against his chest.

"But you've already married someone else. There's no place for me in your heart anymore."

Jeffrey rested his chin on the top of her head and looked in my direction.

"I'll prove to you exactly who's in my heart."

And with that, he pulled June along toward me.

Looking at that face that was seventy percent the same as mine, the tightness in my chest made it hard to breathe.

Only then did I remember why Jeffrey's friends had frozen for a second when he first introduced me to them, before they started teasing.

"Oh, oh, oh~ We get it, we get it!"

So back then, everyone already knew I was just a stand-in. I was the only joke.

Jeffrey pointed at me. "See her? This is my wife."

The moment June saw me, tears spilled over and she threw herself into his arms.

"Why are you only telling me this now?"

She understood why I had been able to become Jeffrey's wife, and she understood who he truly held in his heart.

But those words had once been my favorite thing to hear.

When we first got together, to make me feel secure, he brought every girl who chased after him right in front of me.

"See her? This is my wife."

Every time I heard it, I was so happy, so proud.

But now, those same words grated painfully.

I stood in the cold wind, tears blurring my eyes.

I used to ask Jeffrey why he was so good to me, and he could never give me a reason.

I just assumed he was clumsy with words and didn't know how to sweet-talk.

But now it seemed that all those moments when I thought he loved me maybe weren't about me at all.

Jeffrey held June and gently soothed her, but his eyes watched me with an unreadable look.

"It's not too late to tell you now."

In that instant, I suddenly understood why he'd called me out here in the dead of night.

I gently stroked my belly. Baby, it seems like Daddy really doesn't love Mommy.

After seeing June off, Jeffrey finally said to me, "Get in the car."

He patted the passenger seat, where the traces they'd left were still there, yet he acted as if nothing had happened at all.

"You saw it. The two of you look alike, but she's radiant and captivating, and I can never help myself when I'm with her."

"But June is a free-spirited woman who won't be tied down by marriageotherwise we'd have married long ago."

I clutched my skirt, fighting to keep my emotions in check. "If she's the one you love, why did you marry me in the first place?"

Back when he was pursuing me, he picked nine thousand roses with his own hands and spread them across the whole hall.

He designed the engagement ring himself, and my name was even engraved inside it.

He even broke with his family and set out on his own just to marry me.

But however passionate that love had once been, it looked just as ridiculous now.

After a long silence, Jeffrey said flatly, "Because you look a lot like her, and you're a qualified wife."

What a fine word, "qualified."

I never imagined that what I'd seen as three years of a loving marriage was, in his eyes, nothing more than a stand-in, a qualified wife.

The little figurine swaying at the front of the car was especially glaring. He'd made a point of taking me to have it carved for our wedding anniversary, saying one figure was me and the other was him.

Back then I'd even asked him why the doll he carved had curly hair when my hair was clearly straight.

He only said he wanted to see what I'd look like with big waves.

But I had just seen what June looked like, and only then did I understand that person may never have been me at all.

He gave a soft laugh. "There's no need to overreact. Don't worry, your place as Mrs. Harding won't be shaken."

As he spoke, he lit a cigarette with practiced ease, and the smoke filled the whole car.

I stared at him, tears spilling out.

"Then why tell me all of this?"

I thought that if he'd been willing to hide it all, given how he loved me, I never would have noticed, and I wouldn't be hurting like this.

He sighed and said flatly, "Because she's back. I don't want to have to hide it every time I see her."

For her again.

The whole thing was absurd and laughable.

I looked at the deep kiss marks on his neck and shut my eyes numbly.

"Since I'm only a stand-in to you, and she's back now, let's get a divorce."

Jeffrey irritably stubbed out the cigarette and said coldly, "This is the first time you've brought up divorce. I'll forgive you, but I hope it's the last."

He turned and fastened my seatbelt for me, just like he always had.

We drove in silence until the car stopped at a breakfast shop, and only then did Jeffrey look at me.

"This is June's favorite breakfast place. I'll buy some and bring it over to her. You take a cab home for now."

There was a smile on his face, but his words stabbed at my heart.

I used to not understand why, as busy as he was with work, he would come here every day to buy breakfast, bring it back to the villa, and only then head off to work.

Later, when I really couldn't stand eating it anymore and complained to him, he only said this place had the most nutritious food, and I had to eat it even if I didn't like it.

But now, standing at the door of the shop, he only remembered June, and didn't ask me a single word.

I blocked his car. "Can you not leave? I have something very important to tell you."

Before he could say anything, a WeChat notification came through first.

After reading it, he anxiously started the car. "June's hungry. Let me take this to her first. Come back and tell me if anything's wrong."

Before he left, he added, "Remember to text me when you get home. Don't make me worry."

I watched the car speed off and pushed the pregnancy test results back down.

I still couldn't understand why the one he loved was June, yet the one he married was me.

Even less could I understand how he could have just slept with her and then turn around and put on this act of caring about me.

I held back the pain and didn't cry out loud.

I took out my phone and sent a text to my lawyer friend: Help me draw up a divorce agreement.

When I came back to the villa with the agreement, Jeffrey and his friend Albert were lounging on the sofa, talking.

"I'm telling you, Jeff, June's back. What are you going to dodivorce your wife?"

He was silent for a moment at Albert's question.

"No divorce."

"June's flighty. She'll probably take off somewhere again before long. She's never going to marry me."

"Once she's gone, having my wife by my side counts as something to remember her by."

I stood outside the door, my heart stopping for a second, and I stumbled without meaning to.

Albert noticed me first. "Mil Milly, you're back."

Seeing that something was off with me, he all but fled.

Jeffrey never moved from his spot the whole time. Only when I sat down across from him did he look up.

"Didn't I tell you to go home? Where did you run off to?"

He casually handed me a ring box. "Open it. It's the one you always wanted."

Inside was a diamond ring I'd always wanted. The ads called it one of a kind in the whole world, but the one he was giving me was only a bonus item that came with something else.

Just then a friend request popped up on my phone.

The moment I accepted, a message came through from her: "Do you like the ring? A bonus piece suits a stand-in perfectly."

I opened her social media post. The latest one was a photo of two hands folded together, and on the ring finger of one of them was that one-of-a-kind ring.

I recognized the other hand too. The scar at the base of the thumb was from two years ago, when Jeffrey burned himself making soup for me.

I held up my phone and put it in front of him.

"Three years, and all I'm good for is a bonus piece June didn't want?"

My voice shook as I stared hard at him.

But Jeffrey just looked annoyed. "It's only a ring. You never used to care about this kind of thing. What, has life been so good for so long that you've started comparing yourself to others?"

"If you don't want it, throw it out."

He tossed the ring into the trash without a second thoughtforgetting that this was the one he'd promised me for Valentine's Day.

My hand dropped limply. It didn't matter anymore. I was leaving anyway.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught the wedding portrait on the wall, and I couldn't help a bitter smile.

"No wonder."

No wonder he'd never hung the perfectly good photos we took, insisting instead on having a painter turn them into a sketch.

He said it stood for pure love, but really, it just looked more like June that way.

I stood, took the frame down, and looked at him. "Jeffrey, so you never loved me at all, did you?"

Jeffrey frowned slightly. "Can you stop making a scene? It's not that I have no feelings for you. June and I just missed each other for too long. It's only right that I make it up to her."

"Once she's gone, we'll go back to living well, just like before."

I dodged his hand as he reached for me. "I don't want to spend my whole life living in another woman's shadow."

That set Jeffrey off completely. He snatched the album and hurled it down.

"Ever since I told you the truth, you haven't stopped making a fuss."

"Is it too much to ask you to stay by my side and be a proper wife?"

The frame hit the floor, and shards of glass spattered across my calf. Blood started flowing at once.

But he only frowned and watched.

Once, the smallest scratch on me would have had him crying harder than I did. Now he could stand there completely unmoved.

Tears slid down without a sound. I already knew the truth, yet I'd insisted on hearing the answer, bringing this on myself.

Only when my leg gave out and I dropped hard to the floor did Jeffrey come to his senses.

"I'm sorry, I lost my temper just now and hurt you. I'll take you to the hospital."

Before he could even help me up, his phone buzzed.

He glanced at the screen and his face changed completely. "June's hurtit's serious. I have to go see her."

Eyes red, I tested him one last time. "Jeff, it hurts so much. Please stay with me, okay?"

Jeffrey's face was impatient. "Milly, don't be difficult. I won't be able to rest until I've seen her. Go to the hospital and get it bandaged yourself."

He grabbed his coat and hurried off.

"Jeff."

I called him back and took the agreement out of my coat.

"Didn't you promise to open a pet shop for me? I found a storefront I like. Sign this for me before you go, okay?"

Jeffrey was in too much of a rush to see June. He signed it without so much as a glance and walked straight out.

"Goodbye, Jeffrey."

I was saying my last farewell, but he never looked back.

And he had no idea that what he'd just signed was a divorce agreement.

After I don't know how long, June updated her social media post.

"Love is what's eternal, what can never be replaced."

Just a few words, and I read them over and over.

Below it was July 20th, five years ago, Jeffrey kissing June by the lake.

The caption read: The first day we fell in love.

But that day was also my wedding anniversary with Jeffrey.

My hands wouldn't stop trembling, until my phone buzzed and June sent me a recording.

Millicent's skills are god-awful. She's practically an idiot, not even fit to be a stand-in.

Even if she wears the clothes you like every single time, I still have to picture her as you.

Good girl, hang on a little longer, it'll be over soon.

The endless panting in the audio made the string I'd been forcing myself to hold together snap completely in that one second.

June kept sending messages.

"I crook my finger and he comes rushing to my side without stopping. What do you have to fight me with?"

"If you didn't look a little like me, do you think he'd have ever spared you a glance?"

"Have you ever seen the real one come back and the stand-in still hang around?"

I slumped against the doorframe, drained, and sent her a message.

"A scumbag deserves a dog. May the two of you last forever and stay locked together."

I turned off the phone and started packing my things.

Before I left, I took one last look at the nursery Jeffrey had built with his own hands.

Once, he had wanted so badly for me to have a child. Not only did he fill the nursery balcony with all my favorite flowers, he even came up with dozens of names, saying it was better to be prepared.

But now, this child I'd waited three years for, I didn't want anymore.

On the operating table, the lights shone down on my face, and countless memories flashed before my eyes.

After today, we were completely over.

My room was at the very front, and the moment I opened my eyes I heard a familiar voice.

"Don't go handling something that dangerous next time."

June said with a pout, "It was just peeling an apple. It's all my fault for being so clumsy. From now on, you can peel them for me, okay?"

Through the crack in the door, I could see Jeffrey gently ruffle her hair.

"Okay."

And on June's hand there was only a small spot covered with a Band-Aid.

After the assistant paid the fees, he reported back to Jeffrey.

"Mr. Harding, the hospital staff said they think they saw Mrs. Winfield here too. Should we call and ask?"

This hospital belonged to the Hardings. One question and he'd know the truth.

But Jeffrey glanced at June beside him and refused. "No need. She probably just came to get a wound bandaged."

As he spoke, he picked up his phone and sent me a message.

"June's hurt. I'm taking her home to stay a few days. Remember to clear out those flowers you keep, she's allergic. And make some iron-rich broth for her."

"June's leaving in a few days. Just put up with it, we'll be back to the way we were before soon."

Too bad I'd already booked a flight for tonight. There was no way I was going back.

I looked at the pregnancy test slip and the miscarriage form and gave a bitter laugh. But I could give you a parting gift.

That evening, Jeffrey brought June back to the villa.

The moment the door opened, the air was thick with the scent of flowers, and June covered her mouth and nose in an exaggerated way.

"Jeff, your wife doesn't seem very happy to see me. She knows I'm allergic to pollen, and she still"

Jeffrey quickly pulled her back outside the door. "Don't worry, I'll have her take the flowers away."

Furious, he searched the whole villa but couldn't find any trace of me, and the call showed the line couldn't be connected.

He had no choice but to keep sending me voice messages.

"Millicent, you've gone too far. I clearly told you June is allergic to pollen, and you deliberately left the flowers here anyway. Get back here right now and move them."

He'd barely finished speaking when the delivery man knocked on the door.

"Hello, are you Mr. Harding? I have a package delivery for you, it needs a signature."