I married a woman who was beautiful, wealthy, and untouchable. The real deal. My mother had been so proud.

But eight years into the marriage, whatever we'd had between us had worn down to almost nothing.

When my mother lay dying in the hospital, all she wanted was to see my CEO wife and her grandson one last time. Neither came. She closed her eyes with that wish still on her lips.

I didn't notify my wife's family. I handled the funeral quietly, back in my hometown, alone. Then I called Serena Henson and told her I wanted a divorce.

A man's voice answered instead：“Sorry, Mr. Gilbert. She's exhausted. Fell asleep at my place. Do her a favor and don't disturb her rest.”

It wasn't until the next morning that she texted back, one lukewarm line：“Fine. Have it your way.”

——

A few days later, she came home from her business trip.

I saw her walk in. I didn't rush over the way I always used to, clinging to her like some eager dog. I just kept watching TV.

“Go pick out a nightgown for me. I'm tired.” Serena gave the order the same way she always did, then started stripping off her clothes on the way to the bathroom.

Nobody else was home. She peeled off one piece after another and dropped them on the floor, revealing that flawless figure, skin like porcelain.

Before, I would have lost all restraint. I would have followed her in, fawning, offering to scrub her back.

Now I felt nothing.

She finished her shower, pulled open the bathroom door, and found me still sitting on the couch in front of the TV. A small frown creased her brow.：“Why didn't you get my nightgown? Just grab the one with the cartoon print. You know, your favorite.”

“When are we getting divorced?”

My voice was flat. No heat. No pleading.

“Stop this. When you called the other night it was late and I was already asleep.”

Serena's tone was dismissive, unbothered.：“Finn Dickerson is my assistant. He answered my phone for me, that's all. I already talked to him about it. Can you please stop being jealous?”

“Jealous?”

She still thought this was what it always was. Me, insecure. Me, fighting for scraps of her attention.

She had no idea that something inside me had already died.

“Enough. Go get my nightgown. I'm really exhausted. Let's turn in early. We'll visit your mother at the hospital tomorrow.” Serena said.

Those words drove into me like a needle, straight through whatever was left.

I looked at her, and my eyes were cold.：“Visit my mother? Where exactly do you plan to visit her?”

“The hospital, obviously.”

She said it like it was the most natural thing in the world.：“Oh, and while I was away, I actually looked into it. There's a great hospital in New York. I can have someone arrange a transfer for her. The facilities there are much better……”

“My mother is dead!”

I didn't let her finish. The words ripped out of me before I could stop them.

Serena flinched at the sound of my voice……

She stared at me, disbelief written across her face, as though she half-suspected I was lying.

“You……your mother……why didn't I know about this?”

Serena asked.

“Does it even matter now whether you knew or not?”

I stared her down.：“When my mother was alive, she begged to see you and her grandson just once, and she couldn't even get that. Now you want to visit her? Do you have any idea how hollow that sounds?”

My voice silenced her.

She didn't say another word. She walked out of the bathroom without looking at me and disappeared into the closet.

A moment later she came back out, wearing the nightgown with the cartoon print, the one she knew I liked. She stood at a distance and looked at me.：“I'm sorry. I really didn't know.”

She said it, then turned and went back to the bedroom.

The ache in my chest twisted tighter……

Serena and I met in high school. It's almost funny, looking back. We were in the same class. She was class president. I was vice president.

In the beginning, she was always the one ranked first in our class.

Then one day, my total exam score came within a single point of hers.

She marched right up to me and started talking trash：“Even if it's only one point, I'll always be better than you. Just like how I'm class president and you're only the vice.”

I had no idea why she felt the need to provoke me like that.

But she lit a fire in me that wouldn't go out.

I started spending every spare minute studying. Late at night, often past eleven, I'd text her asking if she was still awake.

That wasn't me being thoughtful.

It was reconnaissance.

I wanted to outwork her by one more minute, outscore her by one more point, and prove myself.

She seemed to be thinking the exact same thing. She'd text me too, asking if I was still up. She was a girl, sure, but she was every bit as competitive as I was.

We'd push each other past midnight, both of us determined to squeeze in one more minute than the other.

But everything taken to extremes eventually breaks. Our vicious cycle of one-upmanship, with no real sleep, left us drowning in exhaustion during the day.

A day or two was manageable. Weeks of it were not.

Finally, she caved and came to find me：“We need ground rules. Lights out at ten-thirty every night. No sneaking in extra study time, not even one minute!”

I looked at her skeptically：“Fine by me. I just hope you don't cheat.”

“Please.”

She scoffed：“You think I'd stoop that low? When I beat you, it'll be fair and square.”

I didn't keep my end of the deal.

Every night at ten-thirty on the dot, we'd text each other, confirming we were done for the night.

But I'd keep going for another half hour after that. Even if it was just thirty more minutes of reading, I believed down to my bones that every extra minute of effort would pay off.

The next round of exam results came out.

No surprises.

I beat her by two points.

She was furious. After school, she told me to meet her at the bubble tea shop outside campus.

The second she walked in, she ripped her test paper to shreds right in front of me, then threw the pieces in my face and demanded to know if I'd been studying past the cutoff.

Faced with her interrogation, I felt a twinge of guilt and admitted that I'd been sneaking in an extra half hour every night.

I expected her to explode. Instead, she went completely silent and walked out without a word.

By the time the next mock exam rolled around, she still hadn't overtaken me. She cried in the classroom that day, really cried, and our teacher and classmates all gathered around trying to comfort her.

That evening, she asked me to meet her at the little park nearby.

She confronted me again about whether I'd been cheating on our deal. I admitted it openly: yes, I was still studying an extra half hour every night.

She burst into tears.

That was when I finally understood. She was crying because she'd been secretly studying until one in the morning every single night, and she still couldn't beat me.

We were both so young and naive back then. I just stood there watching her pour out all her frustration, with absolutely no idea how to make it better.

Another exam came around.

I deliberately got two questions wrong and let her win.

The mistakes were painfully obvious. My teacher called me out in front of the whole class and hauled me into the office for a lecture.

While I was getting chewed out, Serena slipped over to my desk, looked at my test paper, and realized I'd thrown the exam on purpose.

She asked me to meet her that weekend.

But when the time came, she never showed. She wasn't answering her phone either. I went looking for her and finally found her cornered in an alley by two punks.

I threw myself in without thinking. I got her out of there, but I took a beating bad enough to land me in the hospital.

For the next few days, she came to see me every afternoon after school. She'd bring her class notes so I could catch up, and we'd sit together doing homework and studying side by side.

We ended up at the same college.

She was the one who confessed first. She came to me.

It wasn't until we were together that I found out she was an heiress……

The day we graduated, we decided to stay together, but her family was fiercely against it.

Her sister especially looked down on someone like me, some nobody from an ordinary family. Ruby Henson's words dripped with contempt, and she didn't even bother hiding it in public, calling me a pretty boy who'd latched onto their wealth like a parasite.

But only Serena and I knew the truth.

What we had started as a pure friendship that grew into love. Through all of it, I had no idea she came from money.

That stretch of time broke something in me.

Serena, wanting to protect my feelings, defied her family. She snuck out their household documents and we got our marriage certificate in secret.

Her parents were furious when they found out. It wasn't until Serena showed them the pregnancy test results that they finally, grudgingly, accepted it.

But they never stopped looking down on me. Time after time I showed up with warmth and got nothing back but cold shoulders and cutting remarks. No matter how hard I tried, her family stripped me of every shred of dignity.

In the beginning, Serena would comfort me, encourage me.

But gradually, as the years passed, especially after the baby was born, she grew distant. The gap between us widened until I could barely see her on the other side, and then there was her assistant, with their relationship that neither of them could quite explain.

I tried so many times to close that distance, made myself softer, more attentive, more present.

None of it worked. If anything, it repelled her. She started picking me apart, finding fault in everything I did. Sometimes she'd hold Finn up like a mirror and point out all the ways I fell short, until there was nothing left of me worth mentioning.

Then my mother died in that hospital, and the last ember went cold.

That was when I finally understood. The pure feeling we once shared had been diluted by time until nothing recognizable remained. Whatever made us special to each other was gone.

The relationship had soured beyond saving. There was no reason to hold on.

I stayed up until well past eleven that night. The habit was old by now.

I didn't go back to our bedroom. I chose a clean break instead.

At this point, even sharing the same bed meant sleeping in different worlds.

The next morning, Serena and I opened our doors at almost the exact same moment, face to face across the hallway.

She looked at me, caught off guard for a second：“Why didn't you come back to the room last night?”

“Do you really think there's a point?”

I asked.

Serena's expression hardened：“You're always so petty. You never even try to understand what I'm going through!”

“Right. I don't understand you.”

“When my mother was in the hospital, begging to see her grandson one last time!”

“When your assistant told me you'd fallen asleep at his place!”

“I've been racking my brain trying to figure out how to understand you! How to forgive you! But I've thought about it for so long, and I can't. I just can't!”

I turned and walked straight for the door. At the threshold, I stopped and looked back：“The divorce papers. Are you hiring a lawyer, or should I?”

Serena stood where she was, watching me in silence：“Do whatever you want!”

The weekend came.

I went to a law firm and had an attorney draft the divorce agreement.

When that was done, I drove back to the Henson residence.

I had the key out, ready to unlock the door, when I stopped.

Maybe I never wanted to set foot in this place again.

I pulled the key back and went home instead. My real home.

The house was hollow. After my mother passed, I was the only one left.

I pulled open a drawer and dug out a photograph from a few years back.

It was a picture of me, my mother, and my son. In it, my mother was beaming, her smile warm and gentle. But my boy wore a tight little frown, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else.