Chapter 8: The Promotion (Year 3)
Kelvin
The day I got the promotion, I didn't feel anything.
My boss clapped me on the back like I'd just won something big. "You're on track to be CFO in a couple of years if you keep this up," he said, grinning like he'd handed me a crown.
I nodded. Smiled. Said all the right things. Thanked the right people.
Then I went back to my office, closed the door, and stared at the city skyline for ten full minutes without blinking.
It was everything I'd worked for. The long nights, the burnout, the weekends I didn't take off—all of it had brought me here. I had the title, the office, the influence. I was only twenty-nine and being whispered about in investor meetings. My name was in the rooms I used to dream about.
But when I sat down behind my desk, it felt like nothing.
I still went home alone. Still kept a drawer full of takeout menus. Still checked my phone some nights without realizing what I was hoping to find.
Anna never reached out.
Not after the first year. Not when my name popped up in business publications. Not even when our mutual friends dropped hints on social media that I was "crushing it."
She was just… gone.
I should've been used to it by then. I told myself I was. But sometimes I'd be walking home late and hear footsteps behind me and hope—irrationally, stupidly—that it was her. That she'd followed me like in some movie, ready to explain everything. That she'd show up with tear-filled eyes and say, I was scared, kelvin. I didn't know what to do. But I never stopped thinking about you.
It never happened.
Instead, I dated Natalie.
She was smart, grounded, a consultant who understood 70-hour work weeks and didn't need constant attention. She liked red wine and deep conversations. She'd been through her own heartbreaks and wasn't interested in fairy tales—just something real. Something mutual.
And for a while, it was real.
She kept a toothbrush at my place. We planned weekends away. I almost gave her a drawer in my closet. But one night, over dinner, she looked at me like she saw straight through my skin.
"Do you still love her?" she asked.
I didn't answer.
She sighed and pushed her plate away. "It's okay if you do. It just means I can't be the one who stays while you wait for someone else to come back."
She left with grace, dignity, and a hand on my shoulder like she was comforting a man in mourning.
I didn't stop her. I didn't chase her.
Because she was right.
Anna was still there, in every quiet moment. In every girl who didn't touch the center of my chest. In every whisper of what might've been if she hadn't mistaken me for someone else and then decided I didn't matter once the truth set in.
Some days I hated her for it. For not fighting. For not choosing me again.
Other days, I hated myself—for wanting her anyway.
So I kept working.
I dressed sharper. Talked smoother. Made decisions that got me respect in rooms where emotions were liabilities. People started asking for my opinion like it mattered more than most. I was the up-and-coming name in finance.
But in the dark, when I let myself admit it—I wasn't doing it for legacy or money.
I was doing it to become the kind of man she might've stayed for.
And that haunted me more than anything else.