Cecil, though, assumed this was like every other time—that I'd throw a fit and then talk myself back around.

He followed me into the study looking rather pleased with himself and asked, in the most wounded tone,

"Sweetheart, why didn't you come pick me up last night?"

"Weren't you afraid something happened between me and Lillian?"

I handed him the new agreement.

"Whatever's between the two of you is none of my business anymore."

Cecil saw it at a glance—the asset split had gone from fifty-fifty to forty for him, sixty for me.

He looked at me, full of disappointment, then slammed the desk and roared,

"I only asked you to pay twenty thousand, and you're scheming for ten percent of my assets? You think I'm some sucker you can bleed dry?"

"I just don't get it—we had a good life, and you had to go and get petty and jealous over nothing!"

"Just because you wouldn't apologize, Lillian cried all night! I spent the whole night calming her down, came back to give you a way out, and you take a mile!"

"They were right about you. I really have spoiled you rotten! This is the last time I explain myself. I'm exhausted!"

Then he slammed the door and left.

He didn't know that I was the one who was truly exhausted.

I wouldn't chase after him this time, block his way, make him swear up and down that he'd keep his distance from Lillian.

An hour later, Cecil came back.

He stormed in, grabbed me, and started dragging me out.

"Doris! You're angry at me, so why did you have someone shove Lillian?"

"You're going to the hospital to make up for what you did!"

He hauled me to the hospital by force.

It wasn't until we were inside the blood donation room that I understood what "making up for it" meant—he wanted me to donate blood for Lillian.

I refused to cooperate, so he pinned me down and told the nurse to just draw it.

"Doris, this is what you owe Lillian! If anything happens to her because of you, you can sit and rot in prison!"

The bite of the needle hurt, but not as much as being held down, unable to move.

The last time he'd pinned me down like this, we'd been in a car accident.

The moment the danger came, he'd thrown himself over me without a second thought, shielding me with his own body.

Now he was holding me down to have my blood drawn—for his little childhood sweetheart.

I stopped struggling.

I'd just call it repaying him for saving my life back then.

As the blood bag filled, sharp waves of pain began rolling through my stomach.

The nurse noticed something was wrong with my face and moved to stop the draw, but Cecil snapped,

"Keep going!"

By the time two bags were full, I was seeing stars.

Cecil couldn't wait—he grabbed the blood bags and ran, leaving me to crumple to the floor, drained and doubled over with cramps.

Watching his back disappear as he ran, I laughed until tears came.

The nurse made me a cup of warm honey water and asked, worried,

"Ms. Henson, are you all right?"

I shook my head, took the cup, and drank it down in one go.

The warmth eased the cramping a little.

I thanked the nurse and left on my own.

To my surprise, Cecil—who was supposed to be taking care of Lillian—had gone home.

He dropped a chicken into the kitchen sink and looked at me, worn out.

"Doris, you saved Lillian, but you still have to apologize to her."

"Make a pot of chicken soup, and the two of us will take it to her together—"

"I did nothing wrong."

I cut him off, my voice cold.

"Even if you donated blood for Lillian, that doesn't cancel out the fact that you had someone shove her!"

Cecil looked at my pale face, sighed, rolled up his sleeves, and went to work in the kitchen.

"I'll make the soup. In a bit, you're coming back to the hospital with me to apologize in person! I'm not carrying your burden for you anymore!"

He actually called a night of having fun with his childhood sweetheart "carrying my burden"?

Watching his busy figure at the counter, something in my nose stung without warning.

Last year, when I broke a bone and was in the hospital, I said I wanted chicken soup. He told me he'd never cooked a day in his life, and that learning from scratch would take longer than just buying some.

But now, the man who kept himself far from any kitchen was following a video tutorial on his phone, cooking with his own hands—for Lillian.

The smell of chicken soup filled the whole apartment before long.

Cecil ladled out a bowl, sprinkled it with green onion, let it cool to the right temperature, and brought it over to me.

"Doris, have some too, build your strength back up. And tell me how it tastes."

He looked at me, full of expectation.

I didn't touch a drop.

Instead, I pushed the divorce agreement across the table to him again.

His face went black as the bottom of a pot in an instant.

"Doris Henson! Haven't you had enough? I cooked chicken soup for you with my own two hands, and you're still not satisfied?"

I let out a scoff.

This soup was obviously made for Lillian.

Because I never eat green onion.

"Sign it."

Our eyes met, and for no reason he could name, Cecil felt a flicker of unease.

The next second, his phone buzzed.

It was Lillian.

"Cecil, I already apologized to your wife. She had someone push me down the stairs and I didn't even hold it against her—so why is she still having people call me a homewrecker!"

The look Cecil turned on me went sharp as a blade.

He softened his voice to comfort her.

"There, there. I'll make sure she's punished for it!"

His gaze slid down to the divorce agreement. He picked up the pen and signed.

When he was done, he took a photo and sent it to Lillian.

I forced down the corners of my mouth, careful not to let him see that divorce wasn't a punishment to me. It was a gift.

Lillian hung up, thoroughly satisfied.

Cecil grabbed my arm on the spot and marched me straight to the county clerk's office.

"Since divorce is what you want, then I'll grant it!"

Once the paperwork was submitted and the acceptance receipt in hand, he said coldly,

"Thirty days from now. Whoever backs out is a dog!"

I didn't look up. I marked the divorce on my phone calendar, thirty days out.

He glanced over and marked it on his own schedule too.

Then he posted the acceptance receipt to his social media, hit the gas, and was gone.

The moment I stepped out of the clerk's office, a June downpour came out of nowhere.

Soaked through, I stood outside trying to hail a cab for the longest time. Nothing.

All I could do was buy an umbrella at a convenience store and walk through the rain to the nearest subway station.

After a few transfers, I finally made it home—only to slip at the gate of my complex and go down flat on my face.

A security guard I knew heard the thud and hurried out to help me up, asking if I was all right.

Seeing me clutching my stomach, my brow knotted tight, he quickly dug out Cecil's number and called.

"Mr. Gilbert, your wife has taken a fall. It looks pretty bad—"

Cecil laughed under his breath.

"Doris, it's too late to regret it now! We're divorced. If something's really wrong with you, call yourself an ambulance!"

The line went dead.

The guard tried to reassure me.

"Miss Henson, why don't I get you a cab to the hospital to have it looked at?"

I couldn't even straighten up from the pain, so I didn't refuse his kindness.

On the way to the hospital, thanks to Cecil's post, one acquaintance after another kept messaging to lecture me.

【Doris, this time you really are hopelessly in the wrong! Cecil and Lillian are completely innocent—how could you carry on to the point of laying hands on Lillian and even filing for divorce!】

【You'd better go smooth things over with Cecil, fast, or there's no taking the arrow back once it's loosed. Divorce for real and you'll have nowhere left to cry!】

……

A whole crowd of them, blaming me for pushing things too far.

My belly ached so badly I just ignored every one of them.

The moment I reached the hospital, my mother-in-law called too, opening with a scolding.

"Doris, what is the matter with you? You're nearly thirty. Instead of trying to conceive, you spend your days sulking and picking jealous fights and threatening divorce. Do you truly not want this marriage anymore?"

"If you've got it in you, hurry up and give Cecil a child, and then his heart will settle on you all on its own!"

"Come by the old house tonight. I've got another fertility remedy for you to try!"

What my mother-in-law didn't know was that the car accident had injured Cecil's abdomen. The doctors had said whether he could ever father a child was anyone's guess.

But out of guilt, out of blaming myself, I'd kept trying to conceive all along.

Every strange remedy my mother-in-law dug up, I forced myself to swallow, all so I could give Cecil a child.

Just thinking about those foul-tasting medicinal soups she kept summoning me back to drink turned my stomach.

I hung up, stumbled to the bathroom, and threw up until the room spun.

Then I remembered that my period, always right on time, was already two weeks late, and that my lower belly had been aching for no reason. My whole body went rigid.

I registered at once and had blood drawn.

The results came back fast. I really was pregnant.

But between all the blood they'd taken and the fall I'd had, there were now signs of a miscarriage.

The doctor advised me:

"In your condition, it's best to be admitted so we can try to save the pregnancy."

I hadn't expected fate to toy with me quite like this.

The child's arrival made a heart I'd already made up waver again.

Just then my phone's photo album pushed a notification: a montage of on-this-day-in-past-years.

Some impulse made me open it, and the memories of a love we once had came back to life through those pictures.

Before Lillian came back to the country, Cecil and I had been joined at the hip. Who didn't call us the model couple of Southport?

He'd accomplished so much so young, and apart from not being able to cook, he handled every bit of the housework.

On holidays he'd prepare grand surprises, and in ordinary days there were all kinds of little ones.

He'd made me truly feel how happy it was to be loved.

But after Lillian came home, I learned that his love could be transferred.

The kind where, even when I was sick, one phone call from Lillian was enough to call him away.

Having seen him at his most loving toward me, I lived in dread, on edge.

We'd fought, we'd had scenes, all just to stop his love from flowing toward Lillian.

At the worst of one fight, he said:

"It's not like I've got anything to do after work, so why can't I go out with friends? It's not as if I'm like everyone else, with a kid to go home to."

If there had been a child, would everything have been different?

I don't know how I ended up outside Lillian's hospital room.

I looked down at my still-flat belly and thought that whether I kept this child or not, I had to let Cecil know.

But from inside the room came Lillian's coy little voice:

"Cecil, are you really going to divorce Doris? Or are you just saying it to scare her?"

Cecil scoffed.

"Who has time to scare her? I have to divorce her once, so she learns that away from me she's nothing, and then she'll come crawling back on her knees to beg me!"

The whole group burst out laughing, all praising him for finally growing a spine.

But Lillian said:

"Cecil, what if your wife sees you're serious and refuses to sign after all? After all, she's done so much to hurt me..."

"That's exactly why we have to divorce!"

"And when she comes back to beg me, she has to admit first that she's a dog! Then she apologizes to you and owns up to her wrongs, promises she'll never meddle in my social life again, and does a couple of dog barks on her social media. Then I'll consider taking her back!"

Applause broke out all around.

Lillian suddenly asked him:

"Cecil, and if Doris is pregnant? Would you still divorce her?"

Cecil said scornfully:

"Then for the sake of giving the baby in her belly a whole family, she should reflect all the harder on what she did wrong! Otherwise I'll just wait for her to have the kid on her own, and then remarry her!"

The next second, a message landed on my phone.

【Doris, are you sure you still want to come in and humiliate yourself? Unless you're actually pregnant right now. Maybe then Cecil would spare you another glance.】

Through the glass of the hospital room, my eyes met Lillian's.

So she'd seen me coming and said all of it on purpose, for me to hear, so I'd see clearly just how Cecil felt about me.

Watching Cecil carefully slice fruit and feed it to her, then gently wipe the corner of her mouth with that tender, doting look, I took a step back.

Lillian was right. I shouldn't go in and humiliate myself.

And this child shouldn't come, either.

I gripped the report tight, turned, and went back to find the doctor.

"This child, I don't want it. Please arrange the procedure for me."