Hiding Me in the Name of Love

I have a possessive boyfriend. After seven years together, Jared Jackman's favorite thing to say is, "Do you know how cute my girlfriend is? If you do, you're in trouble." "Babe, you're so beautiful. Whoever sees you will fall for you. If someone looks at you for even a second longer, I'll get jealous." That's why he never lets me step into his world. Until one day, I use an alternate account and stumble upon his social media. Three years, and over 600 posts. Every single one is about his moments with another woman. They stroll through Pilton Palace, make wishes atop snowy mountains, and kiss on the streets of Sidwell City. His latest post shows him kissing that woman on the beach while their friends cheer and shout around them. The caption reads, "Loving someone means you can't help but show them off to the world." My fingers tremble as I quietly close the page and book a flight to Northram. It turns out that after seven years of love, letting go only takes a moment. Chapter 1 The moment the flight confirmation appeared, Jared Jackman started a video call with me. On the screen, he was standing in front of the hotel's floor-to-ceiling window. With a smile, he asked, "Tasha, why are you still awake?" If I hadn't just seen those 600-plus posts on his social media, I probably would have melted when he called me that. I didn't say anything right away. Jared coaxed me the way he always did. "Did you miss me? Be good. My project is almost done, so I'll be back in three days at most. I'll bring you a gift when I get back." I asked him, "Are you alone at the hotel?" There wasn't the slightest change in his expression. If anything, his smile looked even more natural. "Of course. I'm alone. Didn't I promise you I wouldn't go anywhere while I'm on business trips?" As soon as he finished speaking, a woman's laughter came from the other end of the call. The smile on Jared's face faltered for a split second. The next second, he angled the camera away. Pretending to sound annoyed, he said, "My coworker is having a meeting next door. She's so noisy. I'll call you back later." As I stared at the dark screen, my fingers went numb from the cold. He never let me be part of his world, saying he was afraid someone else would fall for me. So I never went to gatherings with his friends, and I never attended any of his company's annual parties. Even when one of his closest friends got married, he only said, "Babe, you're too beautiful. I don't want them seeing you." My eyes started to sting. I couldn't stop myself from using my alternate account to open his feed and look closely at that one photo. Jared was wearing a white shirt, his hair messy from the sea breeze. He lowered his head to kiss the woman, smiling like someone who had finally gotten what he wanted. Yet, after seven years together, he still refused to post even one photo of us. He had said, "Babe, I just don't want anyone bothering us. Love is between two people. There's no need to show it to outsiders. "I'm possessive. I don't want others to know just how amazing you are." I believed him back then. Only now did I understand. It wasn't that he didn't like making his love public; he just didn't want to show me off. Someone commented under the post, "Jared, you're a solid one. You made it public from the moment you got together. It's been three years already, right?" Jared replied, "I couldn't stand the thought of her being with me without anyone knowing who she is to me." I stared at that sentence for a long time. In our seven years together, he never made our relationship official. We lived together, had a cat, and shared all of life's joys and hardships. But there was no sign of me on his social media. His friends didn't even know about me. The love he showed everyone belonged to someone else. I was just someone he kept hidden away, out of sight, and only there when he needed me. My phone buzzed again. It was a message from him. "Babe, the signal was bad just now," he wrote. "Go to sleep early. Don't overthink things. I love you the most." I didn't reply. I opened the closet and pushed his shirts aside one by one. At the very back was the white dress I bought last year. It was the one I wore on his birthday while waiting for him to come home for dinner. He didn't come home that night. He told me he had to work overtime at the last minute. But that same day, his posts showed him at a concert at the opera house with that woman. The caption read, "I remember everything she likes." I took the dress and threw it in the trash. Then I packed my documents, bank cards, laptop, and a few changes of clothes. After seven years, there was so little I could take with me. And whatever I couldn't take, I no longer needed. Chapter 2 Following the location Jared shared on his social media, I took a cab to a seaside hotel. After getting in the car, I received a notification from our shared bank account. Jared had spent a five-figure amount, and the merchant was a jewelry store. At the same time, he updated his feed again. The woman had her hand held out, a diamond bracelet shining around her wrist. The caption read, "A woman should be treated like a princess." I looked down at my wrist. There was a faint scar on it. Last winter, Jared had a stomachache. I got up in the middle of the night to make him chicken soup and accidentally burned myself on the edge of the pot. He felt terrible seeing me hurt. Holding my hand, he gently blew on it for a long time. He had said, "Tasha, I'll handle things like this from now on." Later, he really did learn how to make chicken soup. But it wasn't for me. On his social media, there was a photo of him sitting by that woman's bedside when she was sick. He fed her chicken soup himself. The tenderness I thought I had lost never actually disappeared. It had just been given to someone else. Right after I got out of the cab, Jared sent me a photo of a teddy bear. He wrote, "Babe, isn't this cute? I'll get it for you." I opened the picture. In the glass display beside the teddy bear, half of the woman's face was reflected. She was leaning against Jared's shoulder. Her hair blew in the wind as she smiled sweetly. I put away my phone and walked into the hotel. A private party was being held in the hotel ballroom, with white roses and champagne towers arranged at the entrance. A banner read, "Happy Third Anniversary to Mr. Jared Jackman and Ms. Yvette Lane." A screen displayed photos of Jared and that woman on repeat. In every one of them, he was smiling happily. I stood frozen at the entrance. I felt like an intruder who had stumbled into someone else's happiness. I suddenly remembered that last month, I had asked him to do a couple's photoshoot with me. "Babe, I don't like having my picture taken," he had said. But now, every photo on the screen showed him smiling directly at the camera. Just then, a woman in a white dress burst out of the elevator, with Jared right behind her. She held a crooked birthday crown in her hand and laughed as she dodged him. "Don't come any closer! You'll ruin my makeup." Jared caught up to her and fixed the crown with practiced ease. "Jared." My trembling voice carried across the ballroom with the sea breeze. The moment Jared saw me, panic flashed across his face. He immediately dropped Yvette's hand. Yvette glanced at me and asked, "Jared, who is she?" She spoke softly, sounding almost frightened. Jared looked down in an instant to comfort her. "She's just a friend," he said. We had spent seven years together—sharing more than 3,000 days and nights filled with countless arguments and moments of finding our way back to each other. Yet in the end, all I was to him was a friend. I thought I would cry. But strangely, not a single tear fell. Maybe when the pain became too much to bear, people didn't even have the strength to make a sound. I took out my phone and opened my camera roll. "I'm Jared's girlfriend of seven years," I said, holding up the screen. The first photo was from our college orientation. Jared stood on stage playing the guitar, and the moment he finished singing, he confessed his feelings to me in front of everyone. The second was from the year we graduated, when he spent his entire first paycheck on a necklace for me. He had fumbled as he put it on me and promised me he would give me the life I deserved. The third was when I had a 104-degree fever. He carried me on his back to the hospital, looking frantic with worry. The fourth was last New Year's Eve. He stood in my family's kitchen helping prepare dinner, his hands covered in flour. He told my parents, "Don't worry. I'll take good care of her for the rest of my life." The videos played one after another, and Jared's face grew paler and paler. Yvette was stunned too. She looked at the younger Jared on my phone with tears streaming down her face. "Didn't you say you broke up a long time ago?" she asked Jared. He swallowed hard, unable to say anything for the longest time. Someone nearby finally reacted and awkwardly tried to smooth things over. "Miss, relationships aren't just about who came first." "That's right. Jared and Yvette haven't had it easy these past three years. What they have is true love," another person added. "If you really love Jared, you should let him be happy," someone else chimed in. "So what if you've been together for seven years? The person he never made public is the third party, right?" Chapter 3 Jared's friends took turns blaming me while he quietly comforted Yvette, who was crying. A chill ran through me. The overwhelming humiliation became almost too much to bear. Just when I was about to break down, Jared finally let go of Yvette and walked toward me. He lowered his voice. "Tasha, how did you find this place?" I looked at him and forced a bitter smile. "So you're not asking why I came, but how I found this place?" His expression flickered, then he reached out to grab my hand. "Don't make a scene here. Let's talk outside." I pulled my hand away. "I'm making a scene?" I asked. "Jared, you've hidden me for seven years and her for three. Today, I just want to hear you say one thing in front of everyone. Who am I to you?" Jared's expression slowly hardened. He hated seeing me cry more than anything. When I had a stomachache, he would drive across the city in the middle of the night to buy me medicine. Whenever I was on my period, he'd get the heating pad ready and anything else I might need. But now, as I was shaking all over, he looked at me like I was nothing more than a clueless nuisance. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me out of the hotel. Seeing my red-rimmed eyes, he sighed. "Tasha, since you've already found out, I won't hide it from you anymore. Yvette and I have been together for three years. "But don't worry. I still love you the most. I'll marry you, but I'll have a wedding with her too. Just think of it as compensation to her. Yvette is just a simple woman. She can't live without me. You understand, right?" A wave of disbelief washed over me. I looked at the man standing before me as if I were seeing him for the first time. "Why?" Jared laughed softly and touched my face. His voice was gentle, but his words were cruel. "Tasha, we've been together for seven years. I know you can't live without me. Besides, we're practically engaged. Be good. Stop being difficult." It was the same nonsense again. Whenever I told him I wanted to make our relationship public, asked to meet the people in his life, or admitted how much his mixed signals hurt me, he'd frown and say, "Don't start." It was as if my pain, my insecurities, and every moment when I wanted him to choose me were all nothing more than me being difficult. I closed my eyes for a moment. After a long silence, I said softly, "Fine. I won't make a scene." I chose to walk away from this. Jared smiled in satisfaction and kissed my forehead. "I knew you'd behave. Go home first," he said. "I have to stay with Yvette tonight. She's got a bit of a temper. After what you said today, I need to go calm her down." I fought back the urge to throw up and turned to leave. After leaving the hotel, I called my best friend, Zoe Levine, right away. It hurt too much. I just wanted to find someone close and cry. The moment she answered and I called her name, my tears fell. I told her everything bit by bit, my voice growing shakier as I spoke. "Zoe, aren't I ridiculous? I've dated Jared for seven years, and no one even knows I'm his girlfriend. Even that woman doesn't know." There was a long silence on the other end. So long that I thought the connection had dropped. Then Zoe sighed and said, "So you still found out in the end." I froze. "What do you mean?" I heard her take a quiet breath. She said, "Yvette was my college classmate. She met Jared through me." In that moment, something inside me shattered. I remembered three years ago, when Zoe suddenly mentioned a college classmate who was overseas and had a great personality. She said Jared could contact Yvette if he ever needed help while traveling for work. Back then, I even laughed and said, "Don't introduce him to pretty women. I'll get jealous." Zoe had patted my shoulder and said, "Don't worry. I'll always be on your side." My voice trembled uncontrollably. "Why didn't you tell me?" Zoe sounded anxious. "Tasha, I wasn't trying to hide it from you. At first, I didn't know things would turn out this way between them. Later, Yvette really fell for Jared, and he started treating her differently too." I gave a small, empty laugh. "So?" She said, "So I didn't know how to tell you." I closed my eyes, my tears stinging as they fell. Zoe was my best friend. In high school, we had even shared a dorm bed. The first time I fought with Jared, she walked with me around the school field until dawn. The year Jared's business failed, she told me not to give up on him. She said a relationship that could survive hardship was the most precious kind. But now, it felt like I had been slapped across the face. The phone was pressed to my ear, but Zoe's voice sounded increasingly distant. "Tasha, I'm begging you. Please don't make a scene," she pleaded. "Yvette is a great person. She's very innocent. Everyone has seen what she and Jared have built these past three years. "They make a great couple. Even Jared's friends all like her. His mother has met her too." I stopped breathing for a moment. I had been with Jared for seven years, and he had never taken me to meet his mother. He always told me, "Babe, my mom has a bad temper. I don't want to see you hurt. When the time is right, I'll take you home to meet her." But he had already introduced Yvette to his family, while I was still foolishly waiting for "the right time". It was as if I were a secret he couldn't let anyone know about. He had blinded me with sweet promises and kept me hidden away where no one knew I existed. But Yvette didn't have to fight him, ask, or wait. She had everything. She had his friends' blessings and his family's approval. And now she even had Zoe, my best friend, speaking up for her. Zoe spoke in a quieter voice. "Tasha, please listen to me. Don't ruin this for them." I simply ended the call, unable to say another word. Chapter 4 I was standing on the street when my phone suddenly buzzed. It was a message from my dad. He wrote, "Tasha, when is Jared coming back? Your mom was talking about your wedding again today." I stared at those words, and my eyes finally started to sting. For Jared, I had lied to my family for too long. I told them he was busy, that he loved me, and that he was just a private person. I kept lying until I almost believed it myself. After a while, I called my mom. Her gentle voice came through instantly. "How is everything? Have you and Jared set a wedding date? When is he coming over?" "Mom, we broke up," I managed to choke out. There was a long silence on the other end. Long enough that I thought she would call me impulsive and tell me to give Jared another chance. But she merely sighed softly and asked, "Did he hurt you?" Those words almost shattered the composure I had been fighting so hard to maintain. "Yeah." My mom's voice grew thick with emotion. "Then come home," she said. "Your dad and I can take care of you." I couldn't hold back my tears. They started falling freely. … I went back to the place I shared with Jared and started packing the last of my things. In the early hours of the morning, Jared finally messaged me. "Babe, are you asleep?" I didn't reply. A moment later, he sent a voice message. His voice was soft, hushed, as if he were afraid of waking someone up. "I just finished handling everything. I'm so tired," he murmured. "I wish you were here. I want to hold you." I scrolled through our chat history, going all the way back to the beginning. Seven years of messages took up a huge amount of storage. There was a time he would buy medicine for me in the middle of the night, drive out to pick me up in a torrential rain, and search half the city just because I said I wanted strawberries. But those happy memories could no longer wash away the deep humiliation I felt now. I suddenly remembered what he had written on his feed. "Loving someone means you can't help but show them off to the world." I opened my own social media account. In our seven years together, I had posted so many things about him. I shared photos of the flowers he gave me, the movies we watched together, and the first pot of stew he accidentally burned. I had documented every sweet thing he ever said to me. But he had never liked a single post. He never showed up in the comments, and he never responded. It was as if he had already decided from the very beginning that this relationship was just my one-woman show. I began deleting the posts one by one. When I finally finished, my feed was so clean it looked like he had never existed in my life. … At first light, I took a cab to the airport. Sitting in the back row of the waiting area, I watched the sky turn bright gold outside the massive glass windows. Seven years ago, Jared held my hand for the first time, telling me he was possessive and would never let me look at anyone else. Seven years later, he hid me away like a shameful secret while proudly flaunting another woman to everyone he knew. This time, I wouldn't wait for him anymore. The boarding announcement echoed through the terminal. In the final moment before takeoff, I watched the city grow farther and farther away outside the window, then finally closed my eyes.