Chapter 1

The first card says: Forget your anniversary.

The second: Tell her another woman is prettier.

The third: Let your assistant wear your shirt. See how long it takes your girlfriend to cry.

I stop scrolling.

The livestream belongs to my boyfriend's company.

All three things happened to me this month.

Onscreen, the host fans out the cards from a pink box.

THE GIRLFRIEND CHALLENGE.

The comments fly past.

Someone behind the camera laughs.

"Blake, does Audrey seriously not know she's your test subject?"

My boyfriend answers from offscreen.

"If I tell her, it ruins the test."

Another laugh.

"What happens when she finds out?"

"She'll get upset. I'll buy her bubble tea. We'll be fine."

I sit up.

The host reaches into the box again.

"What about the breakup card?"

"Don't need to test that one," Blake says. "She's not going anywhere."

I recognize the confidence in his voice.

I used to love it.

Ten minutes later, I send him a message.

You got that one wrong.

We're done.

He replies with a voice message.

"Audrey, seriously? We're rehearsing the launch. I don't have time for this right now."

Someone in the background asks him to move closer to the lights.

Then he adds, "I ordered your usual. Large taro, less sugar."

A delivery notification appears.

Eight dollars.

I stare at it.

He hasn't asked what I saw.

He hasn't asked whether I'm hurt.

He's already paid to make it go away.

Blake gets home after eleven.

He carries his laptop beneath one arm, his jacket over the other.

The untouched drink sits beside the door.

He looks at it.

"You're really doing this?"

I'm at the kitchen table.

"How many times?"

He drops his keys into the little bear-shaped tray on the console.

I drew that bear four years ago, on the floor of our first apartment.

Blake couldn't afford a designer. I had a pencil, a secondhand camera, and a free afternoon.

By morning, he'd made it his profile picture.

Then it went on the company's first paper bags.

Then mugs.

Key chains.

Collectible figures.

Milo the Bear.

One ear has a tiny notch where I erased too much of the original sketch.

Blake wouldn't let me fix it.

"That's how we know he's ours."

Now his keys lie across its face.

"How many times, Blake?"

"Seven. Eight. I don't know."

"What did you do?"

"You saw the cards."

"I want the whole list."

He takes a bottle of water from the fridge.

"The anniversary. Not answering texts. Canceling plans. Saying Tessa looked good. The shirt thing. Getting you the wrong gift."

He shakes his head.

"Marketing got a little carried away."

He's almost smiling.

I dig my thumbnail into my palm.

"The hospital?"

His smile disappears.

"When Grandma had surgery. You got there, then said you had to go back to work."

He sets the bottle down.

"That was the canceled-plans test."

I remember sitting outside the recovery unit with my phone in my hands.

The update I couldn't understand.

The nurse asking whether someone was coming.

Blake came back after midnight with hot dumplings.

He crouched beside my chair and held out the container.

I was so relieved to see him that I cried.

"What about the food?" I ask.

He looks away.

His phone lights up on the table.

A notification from the launch team.

SUBJECT A: 8/10 complete. Subject initiated breakup. Revising Card 9.

Blake turns the phone facedown.

Too late.

"Two more?"

"I'll have them delete whatever bothers you after the launch."

"Whatever bothers me?"

"All of it. Fine. All of it."

He reaches for me.

I move back.

His hand hangs between us.

"Audrey, I just said I'd delete it. What else do you want?"

For one desperate second, I want him to say it wasn't planned.

That he forgot.

That he was selfish.

That when he left me alone at the hospital, he wasn't waiting for someone to mark a box.

"We broke up," I say.

He studies me.

Then he gives a small, indulgent smile.

"Okay."

"I mean it."

"When you're really upset, you go quiet. When you say things like this, you want a reaction."

He picks up the drink, pushes the straw through the lid, and sets it beside me.

"There."

I don't touch it.

At the bathroom door, he turns.

"Come to the launch Thursday. Front row."

"No."

"Afterward, you can watch me delete the files. Happy?"

The door closes.

His phone lights up again.

Another message.

Card 9 approved.