His Six Viral Vows Were Six Hidden Lies

§PROLOGUE

The notification for our marriage license glowed on my phone screen, a cheerful digital promise.

Right below it, another notification pulsed from TikTok.

It was a video from my fiancé, Alaric Langley.

His alternate account, the one he thought I didn’t know about.

“Six Vows to Myself,” the caption read, and it already had over a million likes.

His handsome face filled the screen, eyes glistening with what the world saw as devotion.

"First," he began, raising a glass of whiskey, "a vow to the five-year-old me, who stole his mother's gold ring to propose to her."

"Second, a vow to the high school me, who intentionally bombed a final exam so we could go to the same college."

"Third, a vow to the man I became, who worked three jobs to buy her the house of her dreams by thirty."

"Fourth, a vow to twenty-five years of knowing and loving her, of never, ever leaving her side."

"Fifth, a vow to a lifetime of promises I will never break."

A bitter smile touched my lips.

His childish sentimentality.

Then, he spoke his sixth vow.

"And sixth," he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "a vow to sharing a soulmate tattoo with the one I truly love. No regrets."

The world tilted.

The digital promise on my screen turned into a digital death sentence.

I looked across the table at the real Alaric, sitting in the sterile light of the Austin municipal clerk’s office.

The collar of his shirt was slightly open, and I could just make out the faint, dark lines of a hummingbird tattoo on his collarbone, its wings forever in mid-flight.

The other hummingbird, the one that completed the pair, I had seen it on his intern's shoulder.

§01

The comments section was a flood of adoration, tens of thousands of messages praising a man I no longer recognized.

【This man is a king. I believe in love again.】

【Twenty-five years devoted to one woman? My ex cheated on me in four months. I'm crying.】

【Where can I find a man like this? Is there a sign-up sheet??】

They didn’t know.

They didn’t know that the woman they envied was staring at her phone, her thumb trembling over the screen.

I swiped over to Instagram, my movements stiff, robotic.

I pulled up Daisy’s profile.

There it was, in her most recent story.

A picture of her laughing on a boat on Lake Travis, her shoulder angled toward the camera.

The hummingbird was perfectly clear, a delicate piece of art frozen in mid-air.

Her caption was a poisoned dart aimed directly at my heart.

【Sharing a soulmate tattoo with the one you love… isn't that what a lifetime together is all about? ;)】

A tear hit the screen, distorting her smiling face.

The dam broke.

A choked sob escaped my lips.

Alaric, who had been grinning at his own phone, finally looked up.

His expression soured when he saw my red-rimmed eyes.

"What now, Jules? Reading more of that toxic positivity nonsense?"

"I’m not being good enough for you? Is that what it is? Because I seem to recall moving your precious intern to our Tokyo division just to appease your jealousy."

"Poor kid, all alone in a foreign country, I wonder how she’s…"

My fingers tightened around my phone until the knuckles were white.

§02

I had never doubted Alaric's love.

Not until six months ago.

A welcome-home party for my best friend, Morgan, had run late, and I'd asked Alaric to pick me up from a bar on East Sixth Street.

I saw Daisy get out of the passenger seat as his car pulled up, a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos clutched in her hand.

When I slid into the seat, the car was a mess.

The acrid smell of artificial cheese and chili powder hung in the air, and orange dust coated the leather.

The foul, complex odor scratched at my throat.

I reached into my purse for a throat lozenge and began to unwrap the crinkling plastic.

Alaric's face instantly contorted with rage.

His eyes, which moments ago were soft, now burned with a terrifying intensity.

"How many times have I told you?" he roared, his voice bouncing off the windshield.

"NO EATING IN THE CAR!"

"You just never listen, do you?"

I flinched, holding back the anger in my own voice.

"The smell in here is overwhelming. My throat hurts."

"Then roll down the damn window," he snarled.

"Take one bite of that thing and you can get out and walk."

In the rearview mirror, Daisy smirked, a flicker of smug satisfaction in her eyes.

But her voice was pure, manufactured innocence as she crunched on another Cheeto.

"Oh, Alaric," she cooed, "you're so strict with Juliana. It's kinda scary~"

"I'll stop eating too. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me," she whimpered, her lower lip trembling just enough to be noticed.

Alaric's demeanor changed in a heartbeat.

He turned to her, his expression softening into one of doting indulgence, and handed her a bottle of water.

"You're different, Daisy. You're still a kid. You need to eat."

"Besides, you get carsick. A little snack helps. Don't choke now, drink some water."

In that moment, in my own car, next to the man I was about to marry, I was the outsider.

§03

Later that night, after he’d dropped Daisy off, Alaric must have sensed my silence.

He reached over and took my hand, his voice a soothing balm.

"Jules, don't overthink it."

"Her project mentor asked me to give her a ride home. She gets terrible motion sickness, so I let her sit up front and have a snack."

"She's just an intern, like a little sister. There's nothing going on. Seriously. To prove it, I'll have her assigned to the Tokyo project. She'll be gone for good. Happy now?"

He watched my face in the rearview mirror, searching for a sign of forgiveness.

When I finally managed a weak smile, he let out a sigh of relief.

Alaric had always been good at soothing me.

So I let it go.

Until a few days later, when I saw Daisy's Instagram post.

A photo of her, beaming, with a unique silver locket hanging around her neck.

【Leaving for Tokyo in a couple of days! My mentor still treats me like a kid, gave me this locket for good luck and protection.】

My blood ran cold.

That locket was the last piece of jewelry my mother, an amateur silversmith, had made before she died.

It was the only tangible piece of her I had left.

My hands shook as I dialed Alaric’s number.

"My mother's locket," I said, my voice dangerously calm.

"Who did you give it to?"

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