"Aiden just mistook someone else for you, didn't he? What are you nitpicking about? You've known each other for more than twenty years, you were just one step away from getting married, can't you forgive him?"

"Besides, even if Aiden was faking it and really cheated, that's because you're not good enough. Isn't there a saying online about why the newcomer ends up on top? Isn't that because you don't fight or compete!"

"Alright, you and Aiden just be good together. After a while, get married and then have a kid, and everything will go smoothly. I'm only advising you like this because I'm your best friend. Otherwise, who would even care about you!"

……

I turned off the phone that kept vibrating and stared blankly at the dried-up tree stump outside the window.

I thought about a lot.

From when we met to graduation to our almost-married life.

From blaming Aiden to blaming myself.

From being glued to him 24/7, to tailing him to the biggest singles bar in the city, where he casually pointed at a stranger and told me to get a marriage license with that man.

That night, they played games for hours.

The wildest one was making a random man and woman at the bar go get legally married.

I happened to be standing in the corner he pointed at.

He didn't recognize me.

I didn't move. Aiden pulled out a black card and gestured toward a man sitting alone in the shadows, pouring himself a drink.

"Go get a license, and all of this is yours."

Twenty million dollars for a marriage certificate.

Even split down the middle, it would be enough to pay back every cent my adoptive parents had spent on me over the years.

The table was covered with ID cards—everyone had tossed theirs in for the game.

Mine was tucked right under Aiden's.

He was too drunk to notice.

His assistant recognized me and hurried over, trying to smooth things over, tactfully explaining that Aiden was wasted and didn't mean it.

I nodded. Then, amid the cheering crowd, I reached my hand out to the man Aiden had pointed to.

"Want to get married?"

At dawn, morning light fell across the marriage certificate in my arms.

I blinked my dry eyes.

The bedroom door opened. Aiden walked in, sobered up now, a coat draped over his shoulders.

"Stop being mad. Those women mean nothing to me. If I hadn't mistaken them for you, I wouldn't have even looked at them."

"If you really don't believe me, let's go to the hospital for a premarital checkup, alright? Come on."

I agreed—but not for the reason he thought.

An abortion.

I was married to someone else now. I couldn't keep his child.

And while I was at it, I'd make things clear and cut all ties.

In the passenger seat, he'd prepared motion-sickness patches and hot water for me, like always.

Spare slippers sat in the trunk so I could change when my feet got tired.

Except the patches were all cutesy cartoon designs now, and the slippers were a size too small—like they'd been bought for some other girl.

We breezed through the hospital entrance without a hitch.

But when it came time to fill out forms, he hit a wall. He tried to write down my phone number.

After mumbling to himself for a while, he still couldn't remember it. He scrolled through his endless contact list for ages without finding it, and finally just wrote down his own number instead.

"Don't worry—as soon as the results come out, I'll show you!"

I didn't care. I wasn't even his partner anymore. He didn't need to show me anything.

"Aiden, I'm married. No need to show me."

By the time I finished speaking, he'd already turned and walked into the exam room. I don't know if he heard me.

Whatever. There's plenty of time ahead. He'll find out sooner or later.

My turn came.

Less than twelve weeks pregnant—I registered with gynecology.

The doctor looked at me, hesitating.

"Ms. Pruitt, I don't mean to overstep, but it wasn't easy for you to get pregnant. Are you sure you want to terminate?"

Ever since my miscarriage, getting pregnant again had been even harder.

But this child was the tie binding me to Aiden Henson—and it had to be cut.

After taking a number, on the way to the gynecology department, a completely unremarkable girl walked straight up to me.

"Isabel, do you have a pad?"

She covered herself with both hands, a spot of red showing through—her period had leaked.

Out of sympathy, I gave her a new pack. And because of that, I was targeted by a group of people.

They grabbed my hair and slammed my head into the wall, spewing filthy insults.

"Everyone, look! This old hag is jealous—she's practically menopausal herself, so she's tormenting a college girl!"

The girl who'd borrowed pads from me stood in the middle of the crowd, a trace of provocation in her eyes.

I remembered her. She was the college student in Aiden's bed last night.

People really can't be judged by appearances. Such a frail, gentle-looking girl—yet when she spread rumors, she was vicious.

"At a young girl's most vulnerable moment, this old woman put insect eggs in the pad!"

"Look, she even registered for gynecology—maybe she's got some dirty disease?"

"Strip her clothes off and let's see what she's hiding!"

They raised their phones, shutters clicking relentlessly at my face.

Two fists can't beat four hands. I curled up on the ground, clutching my clothes tightly. The medical staff didn't dare intervene, afraid of getting burned.

Right before my clothes were torn apart, a familiar figure squeezed through the crowd.

With me surrounded by everyone, he found that college student with perfect accuracy and pulled her out first.

He shielded her carefully. Only when someone called my name did he seem to remember something and squeeze back in. After scanning the crowd for a long moment, he finally pulled me out.

"Isabel, give me your hand!"

I'd barely caught my breath when his scolding crashed over me like a wave.

"Isabel! Why are you still using such despicable methods? Are you trying to ruin her?"

"What happened to you? Did getting older make your heart more vicious too?"

"If you keep this up, I won't marry you!"

I looked into his eyes. My throat felt stuffed with cotton, making it almost impossible to breathe. It took everything I had to stay standing.

I opened my mouth, but in the end, I only managed a flat "Mm." No explanation would work. He'd never believed me. He'd never been afraid of losing me.

But old?

I'd just turned twenty-five. Even if I wasn't as young as that college student, I shouldn't be called old.

That night at the bar, when I was taking the marriage certificate photo with someone else, the staff had even said I looked young.

Aiden reached out, frowning, a trace of regret flickering across his face.

"I'm sorry. I was too anxious. I spoke too harshly."

I curled my lips into a faint smile.

"It's fine." After crying too many times, his instinctive cruelty couldn't hurt me anymore.

One or two harsh words also made it easier to see him clearly.

He moved to hug me. I stepped back.

This wasn't behavior that should exist between us anymore.

Thinking that, I felt I should tell him about my marriage again.

"Aiden, actually, I've already—"

Behind me, Tessa spoke up, cutting me off.

"Aiden, it hurts... I think it's infected."

He let go of me instantly and turned to leave.

I watched his retreating back, and the last trace of attachment in my eyes disappeared.

This wasn't the first time he'd chosen someone else when given a choice between us.

From mistress number three to mistress number eighteen, to the college girl warming his bed now—whether his lies were clumsy or sophisticated, he never believed me. Never chose me. Not once.

After all those years together, I think I stopped loving him a long time ago. What remained was obsession. I was obsessed with becoming the first person his face-blind eyes would recognize, obsessed with making him choose me just once.

The first time he made me compete for his attention, he picked someone else. I gripped his sleeve and begged him to stay. He peeled my fingers off the fabric one by one, his voice cold as the wind slicing past us, so harsh I could barely make out the words.

"Who are you?"

Those two words shattered me.

I refused to accept it. I fought back, again and again. The first time—after he claimed he'd "mistaken someone else for me" and slept with her—I called the cops. They showed up, but he smoothed it over with excuses. The second time, I posted the photos online. His PR team scrubbed them within the hour.

I waged war using methods that hurt him by a thousand but hurt me by eight hundred. That was the only way I earned my adoptive parents' guilt money, the only way I got permission to marry. But revenge always came with a price.

The first time, Aiden ripped the down jacket off my back and draped it over his mistress's shoulders. I stood outside in nothing but thermal underwear, "reflecting on my mistakes," until I passed out from the cold.

The second time, under his special "care," I lost a child.

That day, Avalon City's winter bit deep. Snow blanketed everything, freezing into thick ice on the ground. I felt the warmth spreading through my lower belly, helpless, watching it bloom into little blood-red flowers beneath me.

I shut my eyes. Enough remembering. I stared at the gynecology department door and sighed.

It's not like every man on earth was dead—why had I spent all those years hanging myself on that crooked tree? At least now I was free.

When my number was finally called, Aiden was rushing past with Tessa in his arms, sprinting between exam rooms, terrified something might be wrong with her body. I couldn't remember the last time he'd looked that worried about me.

As they passed, Tessa's foot swung out—accidentally or not. I glanced down. A dusty footprint smeared across my white shirt.

Aiden noticed and quickly apologized, but when his eyes met my face, confusion flickered across his features. "Have we met?"

I pulled my lab coat tight, hiding the ruined shirt underneath, and shook my head.

Sometimes I wondered if Aiden was really face-blind at all. If he was, how could he punish me so precisely? If he wasn't, why did he fail to recognize me every single time he looked at my face?

Lost in thought, I walked into the room, changed, and lay down on the operating table. The surgical light clicked on. I clutched the edge of my gown, my mind dragging me back to the first time I lost a child.

Back then, they'd rushed me into emergency treatment. Doctors rotated in and out, grim-faced, speaking in clipped tones. A friend once told me that was a bad sign.

My uterine wall was thin. Getting pregnant had never been easy for me. Aiden once moved heaven and earth to help me—tracking down remedies, spending fortunes on treatments. He even crammed his schedule so tight he barely slept four hours a night, just so he could brew my medicine himself.

Was he good to me? He was.

But while I was hemorrhaging and being resuscitated, he was in the room next door, in bed with someone else. The sounds carried through the wall—even the attending physician's face went red with fury. And after my surgery ended, he never came to see me. Not once.

I still remember exactly what the nurse said.