My mom was pleasantly surprised by my sudden change of heart.

She had often advised me that Charles wasn't a good man.

But I thought I had found true love and was determined to be with Charles no matter what.

I was even willing to sacrifice my dignity for him.

Now, I had finally come to my senses and stopped tormenting myself over Charles.

Just as I hung up the phone, a message came through.

It was Anna.

[Cora, even Tommy isn't that smart. Charles waved a knife, and it didn't even dodge!]

[Next time, don't raise such a dumb dog. Maybe get a smarter one... who knows, it might taste better!]

A surge of anger shot up within me!

Five years ago, I found Tommy at the corner of a street, barely alive.

He was filthy, locked in a truck bound for a meat market, looking dazed.

I couldn't bear it and was about to pay for him when Charles stepped in ahead of me.

He took Tommy to several pet hospitals, not minding how dirty he was at all.

I thought that anyone who could be so kind to an animal couldn't be a bad person.

Feeling a strange flutter in my heart, I asked Charles for his contact information.

After we became friends, I found out that Charles already had a girlfriend.

Looking at the photos of Charles with a genuine smile, it felt like my heart was being stabbed repeatedly by a dull knife.

Perhaps fate heard my wish because they soon broke up.

Anna left the country with a rich guy for the money.

Seeing photos of Charles drunk in his Facebook posts, I couldn't hold back my secret hopes anymore and went to the bar to find him.

Under the dim lights, the once proud young man broke down in tears before me.

As I gently patted Charles' trembling shoulders, I made a silent vow.

"I'll be good to you."

Under my persistence, we naturally ended up together, and we adopted Tommy, who had barely survived.

I knew Anna was still a thorn in Charles' heart, but I didn't mind.

I took Charles hiking. I watched sunsets with him, and went skiing, slowly helping him move past Anna's shadow.

When Charles emotionally hugged me and whispered that he loved me, I felt like the happiest person in the world.

When Anna reappeared by Charles' side, I couldn't lie and say I wasn't nervous.

But Charles assured me, saying Anna was in the past, and I was the only one in his heart.

He changed all his social media to couple avatars, and every photo was of us, silently declaring my place in his life.

I had a happy home, a loving partner, and a cute pet.

I thought we would keep walking hand in hand forever.

If only I hadn't found Charles' secret account.

On a platform I didn't know about, he had been meticulously documenting every little moment with Anna.

Even when I threw the evidence in his face, he just stared at me coldly.

"How many times do I have to explain? She's in the past!

"If you don't believe me, then just break up!"

He easily spoke the cruelest words to me.

To save the relationship, I swallowed my pride and lived like Charles' servant.

Even when mutual friends showed me evidence of him going out with Anna, I could only laugh awkwardly and cover for him.

I was covering up our miserable relationship.

Charles became more brazen. On my birthday, he even went to an amusement park with Anna.

The photo showed them embracing at the top of a Ferris wheel, captioned, "No matter where I go, it's always you!"

I thought getting married would make him change. I even came back early from a business trip to win his heart again.

But all my hopes turned into nothing but bubbles.

I cleaned Tommy's fur and laid him in his favorite little bed.

"Is this your way of reminding me, Tommy?

Reminding me that the person in front of me isn't worth trusting?"

I opened Charles' secret account again. After I found it, he didn't even try to hide anymore. Instead, he became more blatant.

Just ten minutes ago, he posted a picture of the vast ocean.

The caption read, "Never waste time on people who aren't worth it."

I laughed bitterly at myself.

So, all along, my one-sided feelings were nothing but a waste of time in Charles' eyes.

I reached out and liked that post.

Maybe I should never have tried to force things from the start.

I wiped away my tears, my calves numb from standing too long.

"Charles, if you can't let go of Anna, then I'll let you have her."

I took Tommy's remaining body to the crematorium and came back with a small box of ashes.

The once lively and playful Border Collie was now sadly confined to this tiny box.

Holding the box, I returned home feeling heavy-hearted, only to unexpectedly find Charles there.

Seeing me, he frowned in displeasure.

"Where have you been messing around? The house is a mess, and you haven't cleaned it.

"Do you still want to live like this?"

He sat at the dining table, which was still littered with trash just as I'd left it.

Yet even so, Charles showed no intention of cleaning up.

Even though my heart felt cold, I still smiled submissively.

"I went to send Tommy off for the last time. Bear with me for a bit."

Charles raised his eyebrows in surprise, seemingly caught off guard.

He knew how much I cherished Tommy.

I never spared any expense when it came to Tommy's care, tending to him meticulously.

All because I saw Tommy as a symbol of our love.

Since my whole heart was set on Charles, I naturally treated Tommy like a treasure.

Now that Tommy had died because of him, my continued docile demeanor unsettled Charles.

At the very least, I should have been hysterically questioning him.

But now, there was only a dead calm in my eyes.

Charles, a little flustered, reached out to stop me from cleaning the table.

"Cora, it's not necessary, is it? It was just a dog.

"We're about to get married. We can just get another one, right?"

He truly didn't understand why I was making such a big deal out of it.

What he didn't know was that my interest in him had all begun with Tommy.

Now that the source of my love was gone, how could anything last?

I smiled without revealing my thoughts and avoided his hand.

"After all, I had him for five years. I need to send him off properly."

My face remained calm, as if I truly didn't care about Tommy's death.

But it was precisely my attitude that made Charles feel even more uneasy.

Like performing a magic trick, he pulled out a glass bottle from behind him, filled with shimmering sand.

"Cora, I got this sand from the beach just for you. You love the beach, don't you?"

I looked at the bottle, with tiny seashells scattered inside. It was indeed beautiful.

But I was overwhelmed by a sense of bitter irony, and tears began to fill my eyes.

He only knew that I used to love the beach, unaware that it was because Tommy loved playing in the water.

The sand he had supposedly collected just for me had actually been casually gathered during his trip to the beach with Anna.

In fact, just five minutes ago, Anna had posted an update on Facebook.

"Even sand that a dog doesn't want can make some people happy for a long time!"

In his eyes, I would always be the cheapest.

Even though I had already given up on Charles, I still couldn't stop my tears from flowing at that moment.

Yet Charles thought he had hit my weak spot, and his arrogant attitude returned.

"Huh! I knew what you were up to. You just wanted to get my attention!"

I held back my tears and looked at him. His face was full of disdain and smugness, but there wasn't the slightest trace of regret.

He had never regretted the way he hurt me.

"Charles, you really are beyond saving."

As if he sensed that he had me under his control, Charles finally spoke condescendingly, "Anna's been bored lately. Have your mom give her a job at the company.

"It should be a high position, but an easy one, so she won't get bullied!"

I was stunned for a moment before I realized that Charles was asking me for a favor.

Seeing how he acted like it was perfectly reasonable, I couldn't help but laugh in anger.

"Charles, we're about to get married, and you're always hanging out with Anna. But now you can't even show my mom some respect?!"

When Charles had struggled in his career, it was me who begged my mom to give him a job at her company.

The company was hard to get into, and Charles being given a position caused rumors to spread internally.

But Charles had no awareness of his privileged entry, and he openly bragged at the company.

If I hadn't begged my mom, he would have been fired long ago.

Now, how did he have the audacity to want to bring Anna into the company?

Seeing that I didn't respond, Charles impatiently threw something into my lap.

It was a cheap ring made from a soda can tab.

"Fine, all this fuss over a pair of rings? You're so petty!

"Your hands are ugly anyway, so it doesn't matter what you wear!"