Elle stood in front of the mirror, armed with a toothbrush in one hand and two glittery eyeliner pens in the other, like she was about to perform emergency surgery on her face. Her hair was in a semi-coherent bun that defied the laws of gravity, and her bathrobe looked like it had survived a hurricane, barely. Her eyes sparkled with that dangerous cocktail of sleep deprivation, romance, and caffeine-induced hope.
"I'm going to be a fiancée," she whispered to her reflection. "A real, live, diamond-wearing goddess of love."
The reflection stared back at her.
Exhausted. Unhinged. Slightly foaming at the mouth.
From the doorway, Luna appeared like a crypt keeper on her fifth consecutive sleepless night, clutching a coffee mug that read "Die Mad About It."
"Are you possessed?" she asked flatly.
Elle spat toothpaste into the sink like she was in the middle of a Shakespearean meltdown. "No, I'm in love."
"Same thing," Luna muttered.
Dragging her sock-covered feet into the bathroom, Luna looked her best friend up and down like she was evaluating a crime scene. "Elle, babe, at least wear something that doesn't scream 'escaped from a cult.' Should I do your makeup? Or... exorcise you?"
Elle struck a pose—one arm up like Sailor Moon mid-transformation, the other dangling like a dislocated flamingo. "This is my origin story, Luna."
"You look like a raccoon who tried meth and lost custody of its trash."
"And yet, love conquers all," Elle replied, swiping on glitter liner with the confidence of a sleep-deprived maniac.
Luna groaned and plopped on the edge of the bathtub. "Okay, don't bite my head off, but... Calen hasn't called, texted, or even sent a pigeon in a month. That's four weeks. 30 days. 720 hours. Don't you find that, oh, I don't know—sketchy as hell?"
Elle shrieked and launched the toothpaste tube like a missile. It bounced off Luna's shoulder and landed in the sink with a sad splat.
"STOP CORRUPTING MY BRAIN!" Elle howled. "My boyfriend is loyal, emotionally constipated, but loyal as hell."
Luna raised her hands like she was talking someone down from a ledge. "Alright, alright—keep your delusions. I'm just saying, if he turns out to be a catfish or secretly married to a goat, don't come crying to me."
Elle pointed the eyeliner at her like a wand. "You're just jealous because I'm about to live your favorite fanfic trope. Proposal before breakfast."
Luna rolled her eyes. "I feel like, you're about to live a Netflix true crime documentary."
"And yet," Elle said, spritzing perfume with the force of a fire extinguisher, "he's gonna say yes. I'm bringing cake. No man has ever rejected cake and commitment at 7 A.M."
Luna blinked. "That sentence alone is grounds for institutionalization."
"Goodbye, non-believer," Elle declared, grabbing her purse and the cake box like a woman on a mission.
"Good luck with your proposal," Luna called after her. "Tell your fiancé I'll need three forms of ID and proof he's not a cardboard cutout!"
SLAM.
A long pause.
Luna took a sip of coffee, stared into the abyss of the bathroom mirror, and muttered, "That man is either the love of her life... or a fugitive."
***
[Later…]
PIT-PAT-PITTER—PATTER...
The rain wasn't falling. It was waging war. The thunder roared like the Rain God was having an MMA cage match with a weather demon, and Elle? Elle was the unlucky civilian caught in the crossfire.
She stood outside a massive luxury apartment building, looking like a half-drowned street magician. Her soggy bun had completely surrendered, her mascara (which was definitely not waterproof like that lying shopkeeper swore on his mother) was streaming down her cheeks like a gothic waterfall, and her oversized sunglasses were fogged to hell.
But worst of all…
She looked down at the cake box in her hands.
It was carnage.The icing had melted into a Picasso of despair.The strawberries floated like survivors of a pastry shipwreck.
"It was supposed to be the brightest day of my life," she whimpered, staring dramatically at the sky like a jilted cheap soap-opera heroine. "Why must the Rain God fight demons on my special day?"
She didn't even notice a security guard rushing toward her. "Oh, Miss! Are you okay?!"
Elle turned slowly, blinking mascara-dribbled raccoon eyes. He paused mid-step and handed her a towel, saying, "You...you can dry yourself with this."
Elle then whispered with wild gratitude, "I knew... good people still exist in this cruel world."
The guard took one cautious step back. "Uh… thank you? I... I think I need to go now."
He tossed a towel in her direction like he was feeding a zoo animal and bolted back to the guardhouse at a full sprint.
Elle stood there, dripping and wrapped in a towel that smelled like cheap detergent and moral support, looking down at the soggy mess in her hands. She sighed and whispered like she was sending her child off to war.
"I guess... I can't take you inside anymore, buddy."And with one final glance at the puddle cake, she dropped it into the nearby trash bin like a scene from Titanic. "Goodbye, my sweet sugar love. You died for a greater cause."
Then came the moment of glory.
She dug into her purse like a rabbit in a vending machine and pulled out a tiny velvet box.
TA-DA.A shiny, sparkly, soul-stealing diamond ring. The kind that made insurance agents sweat.
Elle held it to her chest like it was a relic from the gods. "I sacrificed my soul for you, my darling. I wrote smut...smut… for those perverts on the internet. I endured office drama. I smiled at Karen from HR. I gave up bubble tea for a month. But now... now, you're mine."
She kissed the ring dramatically like it was the lead actor in a period drama and then took off toward the elevator like a glittery freight train, mumbling under her breath:
"I'm coming, my fiancé. Prepare your fingers, your life, and your soul. We're getting engaged today."
Ding.The elevator doors opened.
Elle stepped inside, soaking wet, holding her ring like a weapon of mass emotional destruction.
***
[Fourteenth Flour]
Ding.
The doors opened. Elle stepped out, soaked, frizzy, mascara-streaked, still wrapped in the towel like a tragic Disney princess gone rogue.
She walked up to Calen's apartment, trembling with hope, and pressed the doorbell.
DING-DONG.
Nothing.
She frowned.
DING-DONG. Again.
Still nothing—except the thunder playing backup vocals.
"Maybe he's sleeping," she muttered and typed in the passcode. Her fingers didn't hesitate.
Click.
She stepped inside, hopeful.
And then she saw them.
Heels.Not hers.Not even in her size.These were spiky, glittery, and bright red, and judging by their placement—directly beside the couch—very recently kicked off in haste.
Her heart did a triple backflip and then dropped straight into her stomach.
Suddenly, Luna's voice echoed in her brain like a Greek chorus of doom:
"Calen hasn't called, texted, or even sent a pigeon in a month. That's four weeks. Thirty days. Seven hundred twenty hours. Don't you find that, oh, I don't know—sketchy as hell?"
Elle laughed. It was the kind of laugh that sounded like it might evolve into a sob at any second. "Pfft... nonsense," she whispered. "I trust him. He's loyal. He probably—maybe—has a perfectly reasonable explanation why a random pair of size-zero stripper heels are here—"
Then she heard it.
"Ohhh, Calen…"Giggle.
She froze. Her eyes slowly turned toward the bedroom door.
The voice giggled again, higher this time. Dripping in honey and betrayal. And possibly lip gloss.
Elle, like a woman possessed, tiptoed forward and peeked inside.
And there he was. Her boyfriend — scratch that, ex-boyfriend — had his shirt unbuttoned and his tongue halfway down some bleach-blonde bimbo's throat.
Elle blinked.
The girl noticed her first and let out a blood-curdling scream. "AAAAHHHHHHH!"
Calen whipped around like a deer caught mid-sin, rolled off the bed, and landed with a thud. And then....
"Elle?! It's not what you think—"
She looked at the girl, then back at him.
Her voice was ice, sarcasm, and heartbreak all wrapped in one."Oh? So you're not sucking the soul out of Barbie with your tongue?"
He flinched. "Okay. It's… a little bit what you think."
A little bit?
Elle went very still. The kind of still that usually ends with explosions in movies. Her mascara-streaked eyes went dead calm.
A beat passed. Then she laughed.
A small, broken laugh that didn't reach her eyes. "Ha… how funny."
Calen looked like a man preparing for death by lightning. And then Elle asked the question that shattered the last bit of oxygen in the room.
"Why, Calen?"
Her voice was soft. Too soft. The kind of soft people use right before they stab you in the chest with a decorative spoon.
And that's when he said it.
The line.The phrase that would burn itself into her memory and live there rent-free until she was eighty-five and throwing cakes at strangers in therapy.
"You… remind me of my aunt."
Elle blinked again. "Your... aunt?"
He had the gall to nod. "Yeah. The way you dress. You don't even make me feel like kissing you anymore."
. . .
. . .
He kept going. Like a man who didn't value his life. "I loved you... I did. At first. For your simplicity. And the effort you put into the relationship. But…"
He looked away. Coward."...I got bored. But hey," he added, now giving her that infuriating pity look, "we can still be friends."
...
There was silence.
And then—
WHAM.
She kicked him. Right where it counted. A clean, elegant, soul-satisfying hit to the family jewels.
Calen let out a noise that could only be described as a dying whale mating with a squeaky door hinge and collapsed to the floor in fetal position.
Elle flipped her wet hair back like a shampoo commercial, wiped her tears with savage grace, and glared down at him.
"Who wants to be friends with you, you spineless, emotionally bankrupt horcrux?"
The blonde in the bed shrieked.
Elle didn't care.
She turned on her heel and stormed out of the apartment like a wet, betrayed queen on a vengeance tour, slamming the door behind her with enough force to shake the chandelier.
Her final words echoed through the hallway like a war cry:
"F*ck off, bastard."
And she didn't look back.
Not once.