He saw me come out and forced a placating smile onto his face.

“Wendy, I wasn't myself last night. Too tired—I let my temper get the better of me.”

“Go wake up our son for breakfast.”

Ethan came out after washing up, backpack slung over one shoulder, and sat down at the table.

He kept his head down over his congee and didn't give Jeffrey so much as a glance.

Jeffrey rubbed his hands together, visibly awkward.

“Son, eat up.”

“I'm absolutely not working overtime today. I'll drive you to the exam site myself.”

“It's still raining out there. You'll be more comfortable in my car.”

He thumped his chest, all confidence and guarantees.

Ethan's chopsticks paused for a beat. He still said nothing.

Jeffrey finished the last bite of his fried egg and went to the entryway for the car keys.

“Let's go. It's about time.”

The second his hand touched the keys,

his phone rang right on cue from his pocket.

One look at the screen and his whole expression tightened.

The call connected, and Monica Fox's tear-choked voice carried through the quiet living room with perfect clarity.

“Jeffrey, Marjorie's falling apart.”

“She's so anxious her stomach is cramping. She keeps throwing up and crying, saying she's too scared to go take the exam.”

“I can't handle her on my own. Can you please come help?”

“She always listens to you the most.”

Jeffrey's hand clenched tight around the phone.

He turned and glanced at me and Ethan, eyes shifting, unable to hold either of our gazes.

“Monica, hey, don't panic—get Marjorie some warm water, I'm on my way……”

He caught himself halfway through the sentence and swallowed the rest.

He set the car keys down and walked back to the table.

“Wendy, something urgent came up at the department.”

“A patient's family is causing a scene. I need to get over there and handle it.”

“Sorry to trouble you, but could you take him again?”

I set my glass of milk down and stared straight at him.

“Is it a patient's family causing a scene, or is it Monica Fox's daughter with stomach cramps?”

Jeffrey's expression froze solid on his face.

His mouth opened and closed. It took him a long time to squeeze out a single sentence.

“You heard the whole thing. What do you want me to say?”

“That kid Marjorie can't handle pressure. I'm a doctor. What am I supposed to do, just stand by and watch?”

“I have a duty to help. Can you stop being so selfish about this?”

The words “a duty to help” almost made me laugh out loud.

The memory hit before I could stop it—Ethan, the night before his high school entrance exam.

He'd spiked a fever out of nowhere, temperature shooting past a hundred and four, his face burning red and his whole body shaking.

I was out of my mind with panic, calling Jeffrey over and over.

I needed him to drive us to the hospital.

He didn't pick up once.

I called thirteen times.

When the last call finally connected, the background noise was the hum of equipment in a dental clinic.

Monica's sugary voice drifted through the line: “Jeffrey's with Marjorie at the dentist—she's getting a tooth pulled and she's so scared she won't let go of his hand.”

That night, I carried my son on my back, a boy already taller than me, and stood on the street trying to flag down a taxi for half an hour.

Ethan nearly missed his high school entrance exam—the fever had seized his whole body and wouldn't let go.

Afterward, Jeffrey knelt in the hospital corridor.

He slapped himself across the face, both sides, hard, more than a dozen times.

“Wendy, I was wrong. I swear I didn't know he was that sick.”

“I promise, no matter what happens from now on, our son comes first. Always.”

“If I ever break my word again, let God strike me down.”

Those vows were still ringing in my ears.

And now, he had broken his word again.

For Monica Fox's daughter and a stomach cramp, he walked out on his own son minutes before the college entrance exam.

I snapped back. Looked at the cold breakfast on the table.

I stood up and took the rain gear out of the closet.

“Put your rain coat on. We're going.”

My son nodded, pulled it on, and followed me out.

I got on the electric scooter and rode straight into the wind and rain, out of the complex.

This time, I didn't look back. Not once.

The afternoon of the second day of the college entrance exam.

While my son was still in the exam hall, I went home.

I found a few oversized plastic sacks.

Every designer dress in my closet, every brand-name purse, every piece of jewelry worth anything in the box.

I packed it all up and shipped it to my mother's old house in the countryside.

On the way back from the courier station, I checked the GPS on a whim.

Then I turned off-route and headed for Crestview High School.

That was the exam site for Monica Fox's daughter.

The test still had half an hour left, but the school gate was already packed with parents waiting to pick up their kids.

One thing, though, stuck out like a sore thumb.

Parked across the street was a massive luxury RV, impossible to miss.

A huge red banner hung across the side.

Gold-foil lettering read：Wishing Marjorie Fox top honors and a brilliant future.

Flowers and balloons were arranged all around the vehicle.

The parents nearby were whispering among themselves.

“That family's got money. Look at this whole production.”

“I heard it's the girl's stepfather who arranged all of it. He's so good to those two.”

“Even a real father might not go this far. That mother is one lucky woman.”

Jeffrey was standing right beside the RV.

He was holding a steaming cup of milk tea, which he handed to Monica with obvious tenderness.

She took it with a coy smile and leaned against his shoulder.

He didn't pull away. Instead, his arm went around her waist.

They looked at each other and smiled—for all the world, a loving married couple.

I took out my phone and opened the camera.

Zoomed in. Framed them pressed together, body to body.

Took over a dozen high-definition shots.

Then I tapped into the album and backed every single one up to the cloud.

Before, if I'd seen something like this, I would have stormed over, demanded answers, screamed and sobbed until I couldn't breathe.

But now there was nothing inside me. Not a single ripple.

I put my phone away and left.

That evening, I ordered my son his favorite pizza.

Then I told him I was running to the store for some toiletries and headed downstairs.

I went straight to the open-air barbecue stall outside the complex.

Chloe Bennett was already there waiting for me.

The table was loaded with skewers and a row of ice-cold beers.

I sat down, cracked a bottle open, and tipped it back, draining nearly half in one go.

“You're really going through with it?” Chloe handed me a skewer and asked quietly.

“Yeah. Already shipped everything out.” I bit into the meat. It tasted incredible.

“Does Jeffrey know?”

“He still thinks he can have the loyal wife at home and the woman on the side. Living the dream.” I let out a cold laugh.

Chloe sighed and clinked her glass against mine.

“Honestly, good riddance. These last few years have been suffocating for you.”

“So what's the plan after?”

I swallowed the meat, chased it with another mouthful of beer.

“No plan.”

“I just want to take my son and get as far from that piece of garbage as possible.”

I drank three beers that night.

The buzz was just right.

No pain. Just my whole body loose, and the feeling that a new life was already on its way.

The morning of the third day of the exam.

I was carrying a few fried dough sticks and two cups of soy milk, strolling through the complex at an easy pace.

I'd barely reached the base of the building when I ran right into Jeffrey coming the other way.

He was still in yesterday's dress shirt, the fabric creased all over.

Dark circles hung heavy under his eyes. He clearly hadn't come home last night.

He spotted the breakfast bags in my hands and frowned.

“Where were you last night?”

He stepped closer, caught the faint smell of alcohol on me.

“You were drinking?”

His voice shot up instantly.

“Wendy, our son has his last exam today, and you went out drinking?”

“Do you even care about his future?”

“What if you'd been too hungover to get up and he missed the exam?”

I looked at that shameless, finger-pointing face of his.

“I had a few beers. And I was up at six buying breakfast.”

“Still better than someone who stayed out all night and couldn't even face his own son this morning.”

That landed. His mouth opened, closed. Color flooded his face.

“Last night I was……the hospital had an emergency. I couldn't leave.”

I didn't bother responding. I walked right past him into the elevator.

He hurried to catch up.

The moment we opened the front door, Jeffrey froze.

His hand stopped midway through changing shoes, eyes locked on the living room wall.

The oversized family portrait that used to hang there was gone.

He whipped around toward the balcony. All the plants I usually kept out there were gone too.

He strode into the bedroom and yanked open the closet.

Nearly empty. Just a few pieces of in-season clothing left to rotate through.

“Where did everything go?” He turned around, something close to panic flickering in his eyes.

I poked a straw into a carton of soy milk and handed it to our son, who had just gotten out of bed.

“Out with the old, in with the new.”

“Once the exam's over, we're starting fresh somewhere else. No point keeping useless stuff around.”

I waved it off like nothing.

His shoulders dropped. He pitched his voice louder, overcompensating.

“Right, once our boy's done, we'll move somewhere bigger.”

“And hey, he's gonna be wiped out after all this.”

“I'll take some vacation days—take all of you overseas. The whole family. How's that sound?”

He strolled over to the table and bit into a fried dough stick.

“Switzerland. The one you've always wanted.”

I let him finish the act. Then I reached into my bag and pulled out a document I'd had ready for days.

“We can talk about the trip later.”

“Sign this first.”

I slid the papers in front of him and set a pen down beside them.

Jeffrey glanced at the thick, bound document.

“What is this?”

“A joint international study program our son's interested in.”

“The school requires parental consent forms and proof of assets.”

I lied without a flicker of expression.

Jeffrey started to flip it open and read.

I cut in immediately.

“Deadline's today. Has to be submitted right after the last exam this afternoon.”

“If you don't have time to go through it, forget it. I'll just tell him to drop the whole thing.”

The moment he heard that, Jeffrey pulled his hand back from the page.

Anything to perform fatherly devotion in front of his son.

He grabbed the pen, flipped straight to the last page.

And signed “Jeffrey Delgado” in a bold, sweeping hand.

“My son's future comes first. Of course I'm going to support it.”

He pushed the document back across the table with a satisfied look.

I picked it up and checked his signature carefully.

Once I was sure everything was in order, I slipped the papers back into my bag with care.

“Thanks for the support.” I smiled at him.

Five o'clock that afternoon, the bell for the final exam rang out.

I was waiting at the back gate of the exam hall when my son came through with the crowd.

He had a relaxed smile on his face.

“How'd it go?” I stepped forward and took his backpack.

“Solid. No issues.” He gave a confident little raise of his brows.

“Good. Then let's go.”

We flagged down a taxi and headed straight for the train station.

Eight o'clock that evening.

Jeffrey Delgado pushed open the front door, carrying an expensive cake.

“Honey, Ethan, I got your favorites……”

His voice echoed through the empty living room.

No response.

He set the cake down, confused, and walked into the bedroom.

The bed was stripped bare. Every personal belonging was gone.

It finally hit him that something was wrong.

He rushed back to the living room and saw a document sitting on the dining table.

The very one he'd signed that morning in his own hand.

His hands trembled as he flipped to the first page.

Across the top, in heavy bold print：DIVORCE AGREEMENT.

Jeffrey Delgado panicked completely.