That same night, while Julián was helping Camila unpack in the guest room, I opened our joint account one last time.
2,184 yuan.
Seven years of savings.
Gone.
I downloaded every statement.
Then I packed.
Not dramatically.
No broken photographs.
No screaming.
I took my uniforms, certificates, personal documents, my mother’s jewelry, and the cheap silver ring I had bought for my first proposal.
At dawn, I submitted a transfer request.
There was an international defense research program recruiting officers with my specialty.
Months earlier, I had rejected the position because it required several years abroad.
I had thought Julián and I were building a life here.
Now there was nothing left to hold me.
My approval arrived nine days later.
Julián didn’t notice.
He was busy arranging Camila’s promotion paperwork.
Busy teaching her how to deal with her family.
Busy taking her to official dinners because, as his legal wife, people might find it suspicious if she never appeared beside him.
On my final night, he came home after eleven.
“Why is your closet empty?”
I closed my suitcase.
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
He stared at me.
“Where?”
“Overseas assignment.”
His face immediately hardened.
“You didn’t discuss this with me.”
I almost laughed.
“You got married without discussing it with me.”
“That’s different.”
“Of course.”
Everything involving Camila was always different.
He looked at the suitcase again.
“How long?”
“Seven years.”
His expression changed.
“You accepted a seven-year assignment?”
“Yes.”
“Elena, stop being childish.”
I zipped the suitcase.
“I’m not asking permission.”
He grabbed my wrist.
“What about us?”
For the first time in eight years, that question sounded absurd.
“There is no us.”
His grip loosened.
“You’re leaving me because I helped someone?”
“No.”
I looked toward the guest room.
“I’m leaving because when you had to choose whose future mattered, you spent mine without asking.”
His face went still.
“The money?”
“The money.”
“The marriage.”
“The house.”
“Eight years of waiting.”
I pulled my hand away.
“You made every decision assuming I would remain here afterward.”
Julián’s voice dropped.
“You said you loved me.”
“I did.”
“And now?”
I looked at him.
“Now I love myself enough to stop proposing.”
I left before sunrise.
He called.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Then Camila messaged me.
Please don’t misunderstand General Álvarez. Everything he did was to protect me.
I deleted it.
Seven years passed.
And now Julián was sitting beside me in that military conference room, apparently divorced, apparently alone, apparently convinced there was unfinished business between us.
When the meeting ended, I gathered my papers.
He spoke quietly.
“Dinner.”
I looked at him.
“That sounded like an order.”
“Then let me try again.”
Something unfamiliar appeared in his expression.
“Will you have dinner with me?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“You haven’t changed.”
“I have.”
I stood.
“That’s why I said no.”
He followed me into the corridor.
“Elena.”
Several officers looked away discreetly.
Julián lowered his voice.
“I divorced Camila six months after you left.”
I stopped.
Not because it hurt.
Because it surprised me.
“You said three or four years.”
“She got promoted early.”
“And?”
He stared at me.
“I realized the marriage had cost me you.”
I smiled faintly.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You realized what it cost only after you paid.”
His face darkened.
“I tried contacting you.”
“I changed numbers.”
“I wrote.”
“I didn’t answer.”
“I went to your family.”
“They knew not to tell you where I was.”
That seemed to hurt him.
Good.
Then he asked:
“Were you really able to forget eight years so easily?”
I looked at him for a long moment.
“No.”
His eyes changed.
I continued:
“It was extremely difficult.”
Hope disappeared again.
“But difficult things can still be done.”
Two days later, during the joint exercise banquet, Camila appeared.
I almost didn’t recognize her.
She was now a lieutenant colonel.
Confident.
Decorated.
No longer the frightened young soldier Julián had once needed to rescue.
She approached me alone.
“I owe you an apology.”
“I don’t need one.”
“I do.”
She lowered her head.
“The marriage may have been fake to me, but I knew it wasn’t harmless to you.”
That was more honesty than Julián had ever offered me then.
She continued:
“I also knew about the money.”
I looked at her.
“You accepted it.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
“I was desperate.”
She swallowed.
“But desperation doesn’t make what happened to you fair.”
I nodded.
“Thank you for finally understanding that.”
Then she said something unexpected.
“Julián never stopped waiting for you.”
I almost smiled.
“He should know waiting doesn’t guarantee anything.”
That night, Julián found me on the terrace.
He held something in his hand.
A ring.
Not the one from his marriage to Camila.
The cheap silver ring from when I was seventeen.
My first proposal.
I stared at it.
“You kept that?”
“For fifteen years.”
He stepped closer.
“Elena, I was wrong.”
I said nothing.
“I thought marriage was just paperwork.”
“I thought because you loved me, I had time.”
“I thought you would always understand.”
His voice cracked.
“Then you left, and I finally understood that I had spent eight years asking you to wait while giving another woman in one afternoon what you had asked me for ninety-nine times.”
For years, I had dreamed of hearing exactly that.
It arrived seven years too late.
Julián held out the ring.
“This time I’m asking.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
His hand froze.
“Elena…”
“You don’t get proposal number one hundred.”
His eyes reddened.
“Why?”
“Because the girl counting proposals disappeared a long time ago.”
I walked past him.
The following morning, the exercise began.
Julián returned to commanding his division.
I returned to mine.
Professional.
Calm.
Separate.
When the program ended, he waited beside my vehicle.
He didn’t try again.
He simply saluted.
I saluted back.
Then he said:
“I hope whoever comes after me doesn’t make you wait.”
I smiled.
“He won’t.”
Julián looked surprised.
I opened the passenger door.
Inside sat a man in civilian clothes who had flown in for the closing ceremony.
My fiancé.
The person I had met four years earlier overseas.
The man who had proposed once.
And received my yes the first time.
Julián looked at the ring on my finger.
For several seconds, he couldn’t speak.
I got into the car.
Seven years earlier, Julián believed I would wait while he saved another woman.
He had been wrong.
I had proposed ninety-nine times because I thought persistence could turn hesitation into love.
Then someone else asked me once—and showed me what it felt like to be chosen without begging.
