What the Game Revealed

At a college reunion, a few drinks turned into a game called the Best Wife Challenge. The rules were simple: each man had to call his wife and ask for $100,000 to buy a car. Whoever got the money first won. As expected, I was the first. "Gideon, we're seriously jealous of you. You've got money, freedom, and the perfect life." The table erupted in laughter, everyone quietly avoiding the memories we all shared. Like how Josephine Strickland and I had been together for eight years but never made it down the aisle. Like how she left for graduate school overseas, and I was the last person to find out. Trying to catch her before her flight took off, I got into a car accident that left me blind for three months. Even during the darkest period of my depression, it was my friend Brady Campbell—not her—who stayed by my side. I smiled and let the jokes continue. Then I noticed Brady gripping his phone so tightly his fingers had gone white. "I'll pass. She's busy with work, so she probably won't answer." The room fell silent. Everyone knew Brady had been secretly married for three years and had a three-year-old son. Yet not a single one of us had ever met his wife. Worried that he was being strung along, I snatched the phone from his hand and dialed the number myself. The call connected instantly. Then a familiar voice came through the speaker. It was Josephine. "Honey, I'm picking up our son from school right now." Chapter 1 The moment those words left the speaker, the lively atmosphere around us died instantly. The room fell into a suffocating silence. Brady Campbell snatched the phone back and hung up immediately. His face had gone deathly pale, the look of a man who had no idea how to explain himself. Then his phone rang again. Whoever was calling seemed terrified that something had happened to him and kept dialing without pause. A chill spread through my entire body as I slowly lifted my head. "Are you going to answer it yourself, or should I do it for you?" Sensing the tension, the others hurried to smooth things over. "This has to be some kind of misunderstanding." "Come on, everybody knows Brady would do anything for you. Hell, he once took a knife for you." We had grown up together. Somewhere along the way, we'd become two of the most important people in each other's lives. When a gang of street thugs was extorting me, he was the one who came to save me. He was stabbed eleven times and came terrifyingly close to being paralyzed. For a while, we weren't even sure he'd wake up again. When I stood there with tears in my eyes, drowning in guilt, he had simply patted me on the shoulder without a trace of regret. "You're my best friend. I'll never let anyone hurt you." The friendship I had once believed was unbreakable, the bond I thought would last until death itself, was now splintering apart before my eyes. Under everyone's urging, Brady finally answered the call. But the voice on the other end remained painfully familiar. If anything, it carried a concern she had never once shown me. "Honey, what happened? Why did you hang up without saying anything? Where are you? I'm coming to get you." The room went silent. No one tried to defend him anymore. Sympathetic glances landed on me one after another, heavy enough to make it hard to breathe. I stumbled out of the private room and bent over against the wall, dry heaving violently. Then, through my blurred vision, I saw a figure I knew all too well. Josephine, who had told me she was overseas pursuing her studies, was standing right in front of me. She paused for a moment when she saw me, but her expression barely changed, as though I were nothing more than a stranger. Brady hurried out after me. He opened his mouth to speak, only to freeze when he saw her standing there. "When did you get here?" Josephine draped the jacket she'd brought over his shoulders. The gesture was effortless and natural. It was the kind of familiarity only shared by a couple who had loved each other for years. "I was worried about you, so I followed your phone's location." I suddenly laughed. There was nothing in my eyes but mockery. When I got into that car accident years ago, my phone had automatically sent her my location, too. It told her I was in danger, but she never came. Instead, she disappeared from my world completely, leaving behind nothing but a hollow promise. "When I come back from studying abroad, I'll marry you." And so, through the three years I spent battling depression, she never appeared once. She only transferred money on schedule, as though money could make up for the empty space she'd left behind. Only now did I realize the truth. The reason she hadn't been by my side during those three years was that she had been by his. She disappeared from my life. Yet somehow, she was everywhere in it. Every year on their anniversary, Brady would leave his son, Owen Campbell, with me for the day. Owen was still young and terrible at keeping secrets. He talked endlessly about his mom and dad. "Mom is so good to Dad. Whenever Dad says he misses her, she'll fly back overnight just to see him. "When Dad got sick, Mom stayed beside him the whole time, taking care of him. She even cried when she thought nobody was looking. "Even when I'm going to school, Mom doesn't want Dad waking up early, so she takes me to kindergarten herself!" Sometimes, when I looked at Owen's innocent face, I thought I could see traces of Josephine in him. My throat would tighten as I smiled and told him honestly, "Your dad is lucky. I'm jealous he's always had someone by his side." Now those words felt unbearably ironic. The friend who spent his days sitting beside my hospital bed while I fought my way through depression... spent his nights sleeping beside the woman I loved. Chapter 2 Brady pushed Josephine's hand away and stepped toward me. "Gideon Hurley, let me explain." "Explain what?" I let out a bitter laugh, even as my eyes began to burn. "Explain how she's not your wife of three years? Or explain how that child isn't yours?" The moment he couldn't answer, I understood everything. Why he had never introduced us. Why there was always something strange in his eyes whenever he talked about his wife. "It's my fault. If you're angry, take it out on me!" Josephine pulled him behind her and stepped in front of him protectively. The coldness in her eyes felt painfully unfamiliar. "He didn't do anything wrong. Don't hurt him." We had been together for eight years. This was the first time she had ever stood in front of me to protect someone else. No matter what happened before, she had always stood firmly at my side. The moment I frowned, she would cup my face in both hands, worry written all over her expression. "What's wrong? Who upset you? Tell me. I'll go deal with them right now." Yet in the end, the person who hurt me most... was the one I loved the most. I took a deep breath and forced myself to stay calm. But my fingers dug so hard into my palms that they left angry red marks behind. "When did it start?" Was it when she stopped coming home at night and hid her social media from me? Or when her attention drifted further and further away, no matter how much I tried to talk to her? Josephine shook her head. It was neither. It started during that trip the three of us took together. I'd gone to bed early with a cold. The two of them went out for drinks. One spark was all it took. After that, for a long time, she used visiting me as an excuse to see Brady. They exchanged glances filled with unspoken affection, burying their feelings deep inside their hearts. Until the day Josephine found out she was pregnant. Brady panicked and wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. Josephine refused, so she married him behind my back. The two of them built a family together. Josephine gave the future I had imagined countless times and dreamed of building with her to someone else, even after the eight years I had spent by her side. I had abandoned everything familiar and followed her to a strange city to help her build her business. We had struggled together, living in apartments with leaking ceilings and splitting a single loaf between the two of us when money was tight. Only after enduring all of that did we finally achieve the success we had today. And still, she abandoned me without hesitation. The truth made the ache in my chest grow sharper and sharper. I closed my eyes as helplessness unlike anything I had ever known swallowed me whole. "Okay." Just one simple word, yet it carried more emotions than I could ever put into words. I turned to leave, but Brady suddenly dropped to his knees in front of me. "Gideon, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I was shameless. I was the one who pursued her. "You can hit me. You can curse me. Do whatever you want. I'm begging you... please don't be this calm." His eyes were frantic, and his voice shook with emotion. During the years I struggled with depression, he had been the only one who stayed beside me. Countless times, I calmly told him to go home, only to hurt myself the moment he left. Even after he hid every sharp object he could find, I still found new ways to hurt myself. He would pound his fist against me in fear, crying as he begged me to stay alive. Nevertheless, all of that pain paled in comparison to what he had done to me today. Josephine frowned as she watched and tried to pull him to his feet. He refused to move. Still kneeling on the ground, he reached out and grabbed my hand. "Gideon, I don't want our friendship to end like this after all these years. You're my best friend. "I'll divorce her immediately. I'll take Owen and leave. I'll give everything back to you. Please?" The sincerity in his eyes reminded me of the day he had told me I deserved to be happy, but some things could never simply be undone. Slowly, I pulled my hand free. "From this day forward, we're no longer friends. "And as for Josephine, I have nothing to do with her anymore." Chapter 3 I kept my expression calm, preserving the last shred of dignity I had left. It wasn't until I climbed into the taxi that the mask finally cracked. Tears fell onto my knees one after another. Curled up in the corner of the backseat, I wrapped my arms around myself. The condition I had thought I finally had under control came roaring back, pushing me toward the edge once again. The moment I got home, I started smashing everything in sight. Even as shards of glass sliced open my hands and blood stained the ground beneath me, I couldn't stop. It felt as though only pain could keep the terror inside me at bay. Then I found the knife Brady had hidden away from me and raised it toward my arm. The front door suddenly burst open. Josephine rushed inside, breathing hard as she snatched the knife from my hand. Her eyes were frighteningly red, her face twisted with anger. "Have you lost your mind? Gideon, when did you become like this?" When did I become like this? Maybe it was when eight years passed, and she still refused to give us a proper ending. Maybe it was when she lied and told me she was leaving to study abroad, and I was the last person to find out. I had just woken up in the hospital after the car accident. Desperate, I had called her and begged her not to leave me behind. But I still remembered her cold response. "Gideon, it's time for you to grow up. What, are you going to die without me?" Before I could tell her yes, she had already hung up. She forgot that my parents were gone. Other than Brady, she was all I had left. However, Brady was busy taking care of Owen and the wife he couldn't speak of. So who did I have left? In those endless, lightless days, I became little more than a shell of myself. Every time I wanted to talk to Josephine, she pushed me away with the excuse that she was too busy with work. Only now did I realize that her busyness had simply been an excuse to avoid me. She already had a happy family and a three-year-old son. Meanwhile, I had been living inside a fantasy. A fantasy that Josephine would keep her promise and come back to marry me. "I don't need you to take care of me." Once I pulled myself out of those memories, the pain only became clearer. I walked past Josephine toward the bedroom. She followed me inside. "I wronged you, and I know that. But Brady is innocent. There's no need to push things this far with him. You know better than anyone how much he values your friendship." Values it? Enough to share a bed with her and have a child with her? To keep me in the dark while sitting beside me as I waited for a tomorrow that was never going to come? I opened my mouth to speak, but Josephine had already lowered her head and started bandaging my wounds. Just like before, afraid I might be hurting, she gently blew on the cuts. She looked exactly the same, and yet she wasn't the same at all. Maybe she simply didn't love me anymore. "I never meant to hide it from you. I just never found the right time to tell you." She set down the gauze, her voice softening. "Gideon, just wait a little longer. When Owen grows up, I'll divorce Brady. "The marriage I promised you... I'll give you that too. It's just..." Just not now. Right now, she still couldn't come back to me. She had to be a good mother and a good wife. All she could offer me were empty promises. For the first time, I thought maybe I was pathetic. After losing my parents, I lived by clinging to friendship. After meeting Josephine, I lived by clinging to love. I'd spent half my life relying on other people, and somehow I'd become the very person I despised most. So this time, I wanted to be selfish and live for myself. I booked a one-way ticket to New Zealand, the place I'd always wanted to visit the most. Once upon a time, Josephine had promised we'd have our wedding there. So I waited and waited until I got sick, and she grew tired of me. Still, that day never came. This time, I was going alone. Chapter 4 I didn't tell Brady or Josephine either. I packed my things in secret. Brady came by often after that, guilt written all over his face. "Gideon, I'm sorry." I sighed. I couldn't bring myself to curse him, but I couldn't forgive him either. What we had shared in the past had been real, and so was the betrayal. So all I could do was sit quietly on the couch without saying a word, waiting for Josephine to arrive with Owen and take him home. Whenever that happened, Owen would throw himself into Brady's arms and excitedly tell him about whatever surprise Josephine had prepared this time. Like the bottle of champagne Brady had casually mentioned wanting or the watch he'd wanted for ages but couldn't bring himself to buy because it was too expensive. Listening to the familiar pattern, I couldn't help but laugh. After all these years, the way she loved someone still hadn't changed. Once they left, the apartment became quiet again. The matching couple's mugs I couldn't bear to throw away, the sweaters we'd bought in the same colors... They all seemed to mock how blind I'd been. My chat history with Josephine still contained nothing but bank transfers. Somewhere along the way, she'd gone from telling me everything to not even sending a simple good morning message. Every text I sent disappeared into the void without so much as a reply. The day I was supposed to leave, someone started pounding on my door. I opened it to find Owen standing there alone. "What's wrong—" Before I could finish, Owen's fists slammed into my leg over and over, forcing me backward. "It's all your fault! You're the bad guy! You're bullying Mom! Mom and Dad fight because of you every day! Mom cries because of you every day!" I froze. I couldn't understand how I'd already given up everything and was still somehow the villain. I tried to explain things to him, but the little boy had completely lost control. He grabbed a glass from the coffee table and threw it at my face. "Ah—!" I wasn't fast enough to dodge, and the glass pierced my eye. The pain brought tears rushing to my eyes, but what flowed down my face was blood. Still, he didn't stop. He sank his teeth into my hand. With all his strength, he tore away a piece of skin. "Get out!" I shoved him away as all the anger and humiliation I'd been suppressing finally exploded. He hit the floor hard, landing directly on the shattered glass beneath him. "I'm bullying your mother?" I laughed, but my tears only fell harder. "Owen, you're a bastard. You're the illegitimate child your shameless mother had with another man!" Immediately, the front door flew open. Josephine rushed over and slapped me hard across the face. "Gideon! He's just a child! How can you say something so cruel?" The blow was hard enough to snap my head to the side. Her fingerprints remained clearly visible on my cheek. Then she saw my bloodshot eyes and the blood running down my face. She froze. Fear flashed across her expression. "Gideon, what happened to you?" Brady pulled Owen into his arms. Glass shards were embedded all over the boy's arms and legs. His eyes reddened with distress, his voice trembling. "Gideon, you can do whatever you want to me. I owe you that. But Owen is innocent! "What gives you the right to treat him like this? From this day forward, we're not friends anymore." He ripped the watch I'd given him from around his wrist and threw it onto the floor. Before leaving, he deliberately stomped on it several times. Only after it was completely destroyed did he finally leave with Owen in his arms. Josephine hurried after them, leaving me alone in the wreckage. After getting my injuries treated at the hospital, I finally boarded my flight. Before takeoff, I looked one last time at the city I had once called home, at the eight years I had let slip away. From this day forward, both love and friendship would remain buried in the past.