My Father Died as She Toasted Her First Love

When my dad, Jake Snow, is on his deathbed, his final wish is to meet my girlfriend of eight years. I call Nancy Miller 67 times, but she doesn't bother picking up. Only after Dad passed away did she finally send a half-hearted text message. "We're in lockdown mode for the project. I can't leave now. Once things ease up, I'll definitely visit Mr. Snow." I hold Dad's hand that has gone cold. My fingers tremble as I type, "Sure." That very night, I come across a video. Nancy is clad in a red dress at a riverside restaurant overlooking the river. She is holding a cake, standing beside another man. The caption reads, "Four years after graduation, I finally get to stand beside you again. Happy birthday, Sean." Everyone is busy congratulating them in the comment section. I even recognize some of the names. Someone asks, "Are Nancy and Sean finally getting their happy ending?" I stare at the screen, my heart clenching like someone's squeezing it from the inside. Then I reply, "Yeah, I guess so. I just didn't know I was the one left out until now." Chapter 1 When Nancy Miller's call came through, I was standing at the entrance of the funeral home. The staff was asking me if I wanted to edit the memorial portrait. Right then, my phone vibrated. Nancy's name flashed across the screen, but I didn't pick up. Soon, her texts arrived. "Hugo Snow, what was that comment supposed to mean? "What did you see? "Didn't I tell you I can't leave because of the project lockdown? "Can you stop being sarcastic in front of my friends?" I stared at the last message for a long time. So it wasn't that she didn't see my calls at all. She just didn't find them important enough to answer. Yet, she had time to scroll through comments and to worry about what her friends thought. When the third call came through, I answered it. Nancy's voice was low, laced with impatience. "Hugo, where are you?" I glanced back at the brightly lit farewell hall behind me. "I'm at the funeral home." She fell silent for a moment, but quickly replied, "I know you're upset about your dad, but can you not take it out on someone else?" I let out a short, dry laugh. "Someone else?" Her voice grew visibly impatient. "It's Sean Doyle's birthday today. He just got back to the country, so we're having a little gathering." "Project lockdown, huh? Lockdown by a riverside restaurant?" Silence ensued at the other end of the line. "I called you 67 times," I said flatly. "You never answered." She lowered her voice as she replied, "My phone... was on silent." There was a guilty pause in her words. I opened my mouth to speak, but then I heard the muffled sound of clothes shifting on her end. And then came Sean's laugh—that condescending, mocking chuckle. He took the phone from Nancy. "So you're Hugo. Let me introduce myself. My name is Sean Doyle. I'm Nancy's senior in college. If you're a real man, learn to be gracious. Nancy's here with me tonight, talking a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars. What's the point of your frantic calls? And from now on, quit pulling that low-class crap to mess with her. Got it?" From the other end of the line, I caught Nancy's teasing reply. "Sean, stop teasing him." Turning to look at Dad's portrait in the funeral hall, I suddenly found the situation pretty ironic. "Nancy, my dad passed this morning. And you know what his last words were? He asked me when you were coming to see him." Then the line went completely silent. I went on, "You don't have to come. Don't bother showing up, ever." Nancy finally panicked. "Hugo, what's that supposed to mean?" I said nothing because my eyes had landed on a fresh post from her alternate account. There was a picture of Sean slipping his jacket over her, and the caption read, "One day, some people will figure out that the ones who stick around are the ones who really matter." Someone commented, "Don't tell me your boyfriend's upset." Nancy replied, "He's too busy for this now." I stared at her reply, my smile fading away. The staff was asking again, "Mr. Snow, is the portrait okay?" I nodded. "It is." After ending the call, I changed her contact name from "Darling" to just "Nancy Miller". Chapter 2 For eight years, I had given Nancy every ounce of my patience. I was done waiting. When Dad's body was wheeled into the morgue, I didn't cry. I'd already drained every drop of tears I had, right there in the hospital hallway, over five sleepless nights. The memorial candle flickered, casting an unsteady glow over Dad's memorial portrait. In his final moments, he had gripped my hand tightly and asked, "When is Nancy coming?" That question stayed with me like a blunt, rusted knife, sawing back and forth through my chest. The corridor was dead quiet, like a tomb. My phone suddenly buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from an unknown number. I numbly swiped the screen open and tapped the image. The moment my eyes landed on it, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The photo was sharp and painfully clear. In it, Nancy was holding Sean's arm, a faint blush coloring her cheeks, her gaze soft with a love she made no effort to hide. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the night sky over the river blazed with fireworks, set off in celebration of his birthday. Beneath the photo, two lines of icy text followed. "Check the cloud backup account you two used to share. The password is the birthday of her first love, Sean Doyle. You'll find everything you want to know there." I had no idea who sent it, but my gaze was fixed on Nancy's smile in the photo. Having just gone through the raw agony of loss and farewell, I had somehow settled into a strange sense of calmness. Instead of replying to the message, I turned, walked toward the family waiting area outside the morgue, and pulled my laptop out of my bag. Nancy and I had been together for eight years. She knew every single one of my passwords, and her cloud drive used to be linked to my laptop. I typed in Sean's birthday. The password worked, and I was in. The cloud system had automatically synced everything—her entire chat history, her hidden photo albums, and every purchase record she'd ever made. My fingers found the search bar. I took a deep breath before typing Sean's name. The very first search result was her chat history with Lily, her college friend. They had this conversation roughly two weeks ago. Lily asked, "So what's the deal with you and Sean? You two went pretty wild in Manta Coast previously. How are you going to handle things with Hugo?" Nancy replied, "Hugo's a nice guy, but he's way too boring. It's pretty embarrassing to be seen with him. Sean promised to make it official once his project secured Series A funding. I'm just stringing Hugo along now." My hand froze for a moment. Each breath I took felt like a needle in my chest. Scrolling down, I found a private group chat Nancy had with her coworkers. Her colleague had asked, "Nancy, is that devoted backup boyfriend of yours from your hometown still waiting to marry you? When are you going to tell him the truth?" Nancy replied with an exasperated sticker. "Soon. I'll make my move once he's paid the down payment on that place downtown and added my name to the deed. I'm not in a rush, but he is." So all along, her friends and coworkers had known. To them, I was nothing more than the backup boyfriend she could discard whenever she wanted. The only one in the dark was me, the clown who never saw it coming. But what truly sent a chill through me was the chat history between her and her own mother, Martha Hopkins. Martha told her, "Nancy, Sean might have a bright future, but his startup has too much risk. Listen to me. String Hugo along first. He's honest, dependable, and most importantly, he listens to you. That's your best safety net. You can make up your mind when your name is on the deed. A woman always needs a backup plan, right?" Nancy replied, "I know, Mom. Don't worry. He's foolish enough to believe anything I say. I even got him to tell me his debit card's PIN yesterday." Backup plan? Foolish? I gritted my teeth, my eyes burning and swollen. My fingers were trembling slightly over the keyboard. Chapter 3 I opened the synced bank records and started going through every single transaction. Test prep course for grad school: 80,000 dollars. Graduate school tuition and dorm fees: 120,000 dollars. Four years of rent on that upscale apartment in Sandling: 160,000 dollars. Four years' worth of bags, cosmetics, and living expenses: 240,000 dollars. The down payment I'd set aside for Nancy's and my wedding apartment: 300,000 dollars. And last month, I just transferred her the money for our wedding: 300,000 dollars. The grand total was 1.2 million dollars. Eight years. That was how long I'd been grinding my bones and bleeding myself dry just to give Nancy the "security" she wanted. I traced the 300,000 dollars I had transferred to her for our wedding to find out where the money had gone. Dad had given it to me before he was diagnosed with cancer. I had refused to take it at first, but he insisted, wanting to make sure that our wedding would go ahead without a hitch. The bank records didn't lie. That money never went into any savings account, despite everything she'd told me. The day after she received the money, she transferred it into a corporate account registered under the name "Doyle Tech", claiming it was for "working capital for a personal investment project". I stared at the endless transaction records and transfer receipts on the screen, then suddenly burst into laughter. The more I laughed, the harder it became to hold back my tears, until they finally fell onto the keyboard. She wasn't just using my money to support herself. She and her whole family had been scheming against me, using my money to support her first love! I captured screenshots and downloaded everything I could find, including her chat logs, bank transfers, hotel bookings in Manta Coast, and records of her stays in other cities. I then connected my device to the shared printer in the lounge next door. It hummed to life and began spitting out page after page of evidence. I stood there watching the black-and-white sheets stack up. Without warning, it hit me that Dad might have been lucky not to have lived long enough to see her. Just as the printer spat out the final page, a new email suddenly popped up in the bottom-right corner of the screen. It was from that mysterious anonymous account again. This time, it didn't come with any text. There was only a video attachment titled "Graduation". The video was shot in June four years ago, showing the backstage area of Nancy's graduation hall. Nancy wore her gown and cap, while Sean stood beside her in a well-tailored suit. They were locked in an embrace in a deserted hallway corner, kissing each other deeply as if no one else existed. The video was filmed secretly, but it showed Nancy wrapping her arms around Sean's neck, her gaze filled with adoration and worship. My eyes locked onto the timestamp flickering in the bottom-right corner of the video. All the blood in my body drained out in an instant, and my fingertips turned cold. What was I doing four years ago on that day? I soon remembered. That day, Dad had just been diagnosed with a liver tumor and was in the hospital undergoing his first lesion removal surgery. I was sitting by myself on that freezing plastic bench outside the operating room. My eyes were fixed on the glowing red sign that read, "Surgery In Progress". I couldn't help trembling, feeling like the world was going to collapse on me. Desperate and terrified, I typed out a message to Nancy. "Nancy, the surgery has just started. I'm a little scared. Can we talk?" What had been her reply? "Hugo, graduation is really hectic. My advisor and all the deans keep pulling me around to socialize. I'll call you later. Your dad will make it through. Don't worry." Turns out, her "hectic" meant kissing another guy passionately backstage. Her "socializing" meant giving herself completely to her first love, Sean. For eight years, I wasn't just a constant source of money she could turn to whenever she needed it. I was also nothing more than a convenient distraction she used to fill the gaps whenever Sean wasn't around. With a blank expression, I closed the video file and placed all the printed evidence into a brown paper envelope. I stood and placed a hand on Dad's framed portrait. For a long moment, I just looked at his kind face, letting the silence settle around me. I decided to visit Dad's grave two days later. I pulled out my phone to text Nancy. "I'm going to the cemetery two days from now. Bring your parents to the Snow residence. We'll settle the wedding money and the apartment downtown once and for all." Less than ten seconds after my text was sent, Nancy's reply arrived. Chapter 4 Even through a screen, I could practically hear the glee and enthusiasm from Nancy's words. "Hugo, you've finally come around? This is amazing! "I swear, I didn't answer your phone because of the project lockdown. The security team confiscated all our phones. "Don't be mad at me. I'll bring Mom and Dad around then. Hey, I'm sorry about your dad, but life has to go on for the rest of us, right?" I locked my phone and didn't bother typing out a reply. Two days later, at 10:00 am sharp, the front door of the Snow residence burst open. Nancy stepped inside with light, flawless makeup, while her parents followed behind her, strutting in with smug, entitled expressions. As soon as they stepped inside, Martha pinched her nose in disgust. She fanned the air and frowned unhappily. "Good grief, Hugo. Why on earth did you drag us here at this hour? And what's that stench? It's so depressing in here!" She plopped herself down right in the middle of the living room couch, without so much as a glance at Dad's portrait. Then she launched straight into a lecture. "Nancy was up the entire night working that day. Don't you know how tiring that is? How could you blow up her phone with 60-something missed calls? Do you have any idea how that makes her look in front of her bosses? Grow up, won't you?" Her husband, Jay Miller, followed suit, his expression hardening as he slipped into his usual insufferable elder persona. He let out a theatrical sigh, then said, "Hugo, I'm not trying to lecture you or anything, but your dad had terminal cancer. There was nothing anyone could've done. Even if Nancy were to rush back, there was nothing she could do. You shouldn't have taken your temper and your failures out on her. Be a man and have some perspective. Focus on the bigger picture." I stayed seated on the armchair across from them, my fingers tight around the bulky brown envelope in my lap. I watched coldly as the three of them put on their little performance, like clowns on a stage. "Done talking?" My voice was hoarse and stripped of emotion. Noticing my unusually cold attitude, Nancy bit her lower lip. Her eyes turned red as she fixed a wounded look on me. "Hugo, what is wrong with you? I've explained that I was working. Why can't you trust me? If you keep acting like this, how are we supposed to get married?" "Exactly!" Martha slammed her hand hard on the coffee table, making the cup shake. "Well, since we're on the subject of marriage, let's get everything out in the open! Now that your dad is dead, you don't need this house anymore. List it with an agent right away and sell it. The money from the sale can help cover our son's down payment on his own place. "Now that Nancy's social status has changed, the wedding needs to be on a much grander scale. We'll need at least 500,000 dollars for the wedding. If you sign the property transfer agreement today, we'll overlook how rudely you behaved." The hollow living room echoed with nothing but the sound of their greedy scheming. To them, Dad's death wasn't something to be sad about, but a leverage to squeeze more out of me while I was still reeling. They were certain that I'd cave as I had done for the past eight years whenever Nancy cried or proclaimed our love. I slowly got to my feet and walked over to the coffee table, towering above them. "You want me to sell the house and spend more money on the wedding, right?" A cold grin curled at the corners of my lips. Believing that I'd cave in, Martha perked up and lifted her chin smugly. "Yes! That's the attitude a man should have…" Ignoring her, I walked straight toward the door, then locked it from inside without hesitation and pulled out the key. The air in the room seemed to freeze solid in that instant. The Millers stared at me, dumbfounded. I turned to them, then brandished the brown envelope I was holding the entire time. Pulling out all the printed evidence and photos, I announced, "Time to settle another score."