Five Years Together, Three Years Married… to Him

This is my 18th time coming to City Hall, yet Tessa's still nowhere to be seen.

Right as I'm about to call and ask her how much longer she'll be, her childhood friend's post popped up on my screen.

"Celebrating 1000 days of marriage with my wife. May we always be this happy."

The photo highlights a marriage certificate, and Tessa Cross' name is right there under "wife".

As for the license date, it shows February 14th, three years ago.

So this is why she hasn't shown up the last eighteen times.

It turns out that she's already somebody else's wife.

When I saw the name on that marriage certificate, my first thought was whether it was just someone with the same name.

However, the face in the picture shown in the video was the same one I'd woken up to for the past five years.

I couldn't lie to myself anymore.

My girlfriend of five years, Tessa Cross, was already married to someone else. Her legal husband was none other than her childhood friend, Kevin Miller.

What really knocked the air out of my lungs was the date they registered their marriage, February 14th, three years ago.

So she had lied to me for three whole years.

In those three years, she had wrapped her arms around my neck every morning before giving me a good-morning kiss.

Then, she would help me straighten my tie, smiling gently as she sent me out the door.

That was why I never suspected her, even though she couldn't make any of the last seventeen marriage registration appointments.

I had been so confident in what we had that I thought tying the knot was inevitable, so I hadn't felt any need to push for it.

I never imagined that the woman I'd been so affectionate with had long become someone else's wife.

Forcing myself to ignore the bitter feeling in my chest, I continued watching the video.

It went on for a full seven minutes.

Photo after photo showed Tessa and Kevin as kids, how reluctant she looked when he left the country at 18 years old, and how they had rekindled things when he came back three years ago.

Kevin's video painted him and Tessa as childhood sweethearts who had finally found their happy ending.

The video had gone viral, and the comment section was full of messages.

"My faith in love has been restored."

"Childhood sweethearts make the best couples."

"A long-time friend beats a perfect stranger any day."

"What a heartfelt story of a couple reuniting! I wish them the best!"

As I read all the comments filled with blessings and admiration, I couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh.

Yeah. If I weren't Tessa's boyfriend, if I weren't that "perfect stranger", I'd probably be touched by their story too.

As if I were torturing myself, I paused on every single photo shown and read every caption.

"The first thing I did after coming back home on February 14th