Terrence immediately pulled Sienna into his arms, his voice dripping with concern.

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

His gaze swept anxiously over her body before he carefully brushed away a smudge of dirt from her calf.

Sienna bit her lip, insisting she was fine, yet her timid eyes kept darting toward me.

After confirming several times that she was unharmed, Terrence finally turned to me, his brows furrowed.

"Denise, you've gone too far! Sienna already apologized. Why won't you let go of the past? Besides, those things back then were done by others—Sienna was at most just a bystander!"

Hearing his biased words, my fists clenched tight. My nails dug so deep into my palms that only the pain kept me from breaking down.

"A bystander?" I scoffed.

Of course Sienna never dirtied her own hands.

As the queen bee, she only needed a single glance, and countless classmates would rush to do her bidding.

Terrence knew the truth—every last detail of it. Yet with just a few words from her lips, he dismissed my years of suffering as if they were nothing.

"Come on, don't fight. It's all in the past."

Standing behind him, Sienna played the part of the peacemaker, her lips speaking persuasion but her face was clouded with mockery.

I swallowed my fury and knelt to gather the scattered belongings on the ground.

She pretended to help, then deliberately stepped on the model plane.

Crack.

The fragile toy shattered into pieces.

Staring at the broken remains, I couldn't hold back anymore.

My hand shot up, ready to slap her—but Terrence was faster. His foot slammed into my shin, sending me crashing into the pile of precious keepsakes I had just gathered.

Sharp plastic pierced my back, pain flaring hot and raw.

"Enough! Why do you keep targeting Sienna? What's the point?"

He didn't notice the blood seeping through my clothes. Didn't notice my lips turn pale, or my trembling frame.

"That was my brother's things!" My voice cracked. "And she destroyed them like that!"

For a moment, Terrence froze. But quickly, his expression hardened again. "It's just a model. I'll buy him a better, more expensive one."

I looked up at the man I had known for seven years—and felt as if I were staring at a stranger.

He had forgotten.

Forgotten that he was the one who gave my brother that model for his birthday. Forgotten that Denver's dream was to become a dashing airline pilot.

But my brother was gone.

A new model plane could never reach his hands again.

The will to argue drained from me. Silent, I turned to leave. But by then, Terrence was already behind the wheel.

Seeing me walk away, he quickly pulled the car in front of me to block my path.

"I told you, stop being stubborn. Look at you—so pale. You must've skipped breakfast again, didn't you? Come on, let's grab lunch together."

I pressed my lips shut. With the divorce certificate already being processed, I didn't bother fighting him.

Numbly, I slid into the backseat.

The passenger seat had long since become Sienna's throne.

Even the car's perfume had changed—sweet, cloying, nauseating.

Inside, only their voices filled the air, her silvery laughter like needles piercing my ears.

In truth, ever since Sienna returned to the country, I hadn't had a single night of peace.

To take my place, she came at me relentlessly. She bribed servants to slip allergens into my food. Sent packages of dead rats, drenched in blood, to our home to terrify me to divorce Terrence immediately.

She even went as far as drugging me unconscious, staged compromising photos, and spread them across social media. Even kidnapped my brother, forcing me to sign a divorce agreement.

Each time, Terrence swore he would make her pay. Each time, he promised me it would never happen again.

And yet, in the end, he climbed into bed with the woman I hated most.

Leaning back, I closed my eyes. The pain in my back made it impossible to focus.

Suddenly, a piercing screech of brakes tore through the air.

My eyes flew open—a massive truck was barreling straight at us from the side.

Terrence jerked the steering wheel, but the collision was unavoidable.

The violent impact sent the entire car into a brutal shake, airbags bursting open in an instant.

My head slammed against the seat, dizziness flooding my senses.

Instinctively, I wanted to check if Terrence was safe. But he didn't spare me a single glance.

Every shred of his attention was on Sienna. He even used his body as a shield, holding her tightly in his arms.

"Sienna, are you still with me?" His voice trembled with panic I had never heard before, blood dripping down his forehead that he didn't bother to wipe away.

In his arms, Sienna whimpered, shivering like a wounded bird. "Terrence, my hand hurts... my head too..."

They were performing their tragic love story in the front seat.

And I—the one hurt the most—sat forgotten in the back.

Without the protection of an airbag, the force of the crash threw me hard against the door, then slammed me back again.

My head smashed into the window, glass shattering into glittering shards. The wound on my back tore wider, warm blood soaking rapidly through my clothes.

Only then did Terrence glance toward the rear seats.

Hesitation flickered in his eyes... but in the next heartbeat, he turned back to Sienna.

Sirens wailed in the distance, drawing closer. Onlookers rushed forward, prying at the mangled doors, shouting for help.

"Save Sienna first!" Terrence's urgent cry cut through the chaos, as if he had completely forgotten that I was still trapped, bleeding, barely conscious.

My vision blurred, crimson flooding every corner. I struggled to scream for help, to make him remember me.

Just once—I wanted the man I had saved years ago to save me in return. But Terrence carried Sienna carefully out of the car, murmuring soft reassurances.

He didn't look back. Not once. Not even for a single heartbeat of hesitation.

The numbness of blood loss crept through my limbs.

As darkness closed in, one last bitter thought surfaced: He once promised, when proposing, that he would never let me get hurt. Yet he couldn't keep that vow for even a single year.

...

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a hospital bed.

"You're awake!" The nurse's voice quivered with excitement. "If you haven't woken up soon, Mr. Hanson was ready to buy out the entire hospital just for you!"

Her eyes softened with envy. "You're so lucky to have a husband who loves you this much. He even had people redecorate your ward so you'd feel more comfortable. And every day, he brings fresh flowers—never the same kind twice."

I turned my head.

On the bedside table, the vase was brimmed with blooming crabapple blossoms—the one flower I hated most.

"Really?" My lips curved in a cold smile. "He loves me that much?"

Oblivious, the nurse pulled out her phone and eagerly showed me a video that had gone viral online.

"Of course! Look—this proves how much he cares! He risked his life to pull you out of the wreckage."

The shaky footage, taken by a bystander at the crash scene, showed Terrence cradling someone from the passenger seat, carrying her out with painstaking care.

Her face was hidden, but her delicate frame was unmistakable.

The comments overflowed with admiration—praising him as a true man, a devoted husband, a lover who cherished his wife above all else.

Yet the woman he rescued so tenderly... wasn't me.

While the internet envied the love I supposedly had, I had been left bleeding and dying inside that car.

A bitter laugh escaped my throat. "Yes... he really does love me."

The nurse's smile faltered. She quickly excused herself and slipped out of the room.

Moments later, Terrence entered, carrying yet another fresh bouquet.

The moment he placed the flowers into a vase, I shoved them violently to the floor. "Get out! I said get out!"

Shards of glass scattered across the tiles.

Terrence didn't get angry. Instead, he crouched down and began picking up the fragments. A sharp hiss escaped his lips when one of the shards sliced his finger.

Instinctively, he looked at me. But I didn't spare him even a glance. My face was turned firmly toward the window.

A heavy silence pressed against him.

Finally, he stood, moved to sit by the window, and forced my face into his hands.

"I know you're angry with me," he said lowly. "But at that moment, I could only save one person."

"Sienna was closer. So I pulled her out first."

"Besides—look at you. You're fine, aren't you?"

As if to sweeten his excuses, he pulled a piece of chocolate from his pocket as though it were some magic trick. "Eat something sweet. It'll make you feel better."

He unwrapped it and tried to feed it to me.

With disgust burning in my veins, I slapped his hand away. "Are you deaf? I told you to get out!"

The chocolate rolled across the floor, spinning several times before coming to a stop.

Being cursed at again and again stripped away the little guilt he had left. His expression hardened as he sprang to his feet.

"Keep this up, and I'll cut off your brother's treatment!"

I raised my trembling hand and pointed toward the door. "Get. Out."

This time, he slammed the door behind him.

I buried myself in the blankets, sobbing until my throat was raw, until my lungs burned.

During my hospital stay, Terrence came almost every day.

And every single time, I threw him out.

The fights grew sharper, uglier, louder.

He was the one who broke every principle, yet to outsiders, it looked as though I was spoiled and unreasonably difficult—as though I was the wife who never knew when to stop.

I pressed my palms over my ears, whispering silently to myself, 'Fifteen more days. Just fifteen, and I'll finally have that divorce certificate.'

But I never imagined that on the day of my discharge... Sienna would dare show up.

She looked as radiant as ever, wearing flawless makeup, and elegant clothes. But the venom in her smile hadn't changed a bit.

Her eyes swept me up and down, then she clicked her tongue in disdain. "A pheasant will always be a pheasant, even if it flies onto a branch and pretends to be a phoenix."

"Denise, why is your life so disgustingly lucky? First, you played the part of the fragile little flower and seduced Riguel. Then you latched onto Terrence when he was still just a promising nobody."

Her sweet face twisted with malice. "But none of that matters. I crushed you once, and I can crush you a thousand times more."

Sienna sneered as she waved the video she had cherished for years right in front of me.

“Back then, didn’t you look just like a gutter rat dragged into the light?”

On the screen, my face was pale green with shame, my body stripped bare.

Countless phones pointed at me, flashing, as waves of laughter crashed over me.

Some even reached out, mocking me with their hands.

I had thought I’d already left the past behind. But when the nightmare replayed itself, I shook uncontrollably. The old wound beneath its scab began to burn and itch.

My gaze flickered to the fruit knife resting on the table.

"What's wrong?" Sienna's voice dripped with mockery. "Uncomfortable?"

"I heard you developed depression after being expelled and even had suicidal tendencies?"

Her laugh rang like a death knell. "You're crazy, and your brother is a dead cripple. No wonder you're siblings."

She leaned closer, shoving the phone against my face, forcing me to watch.

"Do you know? I have so many of these videos. When I was abroad, I watched one every night before bed."

Her smile curved sharper, her words slow and deliberate, savoring my pain. "Oh, and one more thing. Something you probably don't know..."

She paused, enjoying my trembling silence. "The day your brother died... I was in bed with Terrence."