It had been six years since the wedding. Chasel Ford and I quarreled again, and then he went abroad to meet his old flame.

I looked at the stack of divorce petitions from previous years in the cabinet and suddenly understood.

These days were quite pointless, so I resolved to go to the court as he expected.

From then on, I only saw Chasel in my dreams.

——

When I was moving house to the newly rented house, Chasel posted a photo on Instagram sharing a romantic moment.

And the caption was: [We're meant to be together.]

The photo showed ten interlocking, with a pink diamond ring on her ring finger.

I held the phone and felt like I had seen this ring before.

After Enlarging the photo, it became clear that the style of the ring was my idea.

Before our sixth anniversary, I happily picked out a new pair of rings and showed them to Chasel.

Seeing this, he replied casually, "Is this necessary?"

His words choked me and dented my enthusiasm.

I comforted myself that there was indeed no need to purchase another pair of rings.

But this ring appeared on someone else's finger on our anniversary.

It struck me that it was not because it's unnecessary to buy the ring, but not for me.

In the chat groups, our several mutual friends joked.

Friend 1: [Hey, are you taking Hilary to travel abroad?]

Chasel: [I am with Serena.]

Friend 1: [Today? Are you crazy?]

Chasel: [No big deal. It's Hilary who are unwilling to get divorce.]

Chasel did it on purpose.

Today was our sixth wedding anniversary.

I mocked myself and watched popups generated from the group chat.

I knew it's no longer appropriate for me to stay in that group chat and clicked exit silently.

The moment I exited the group chat, Chasel seemed to have also left my world.

I felt so calm that I thought I had gotten over it.

I was no longer obsessed with our affections, no longer obsessed with Chasel.

Joyce Lewis called me, and she was silent for a long time on the other end of the phone before she started to ask, "Hilary, are you okay?"

This was not the first time that Chasel had an affair in public.

But I wavered and forgave him again and again. My best friend Joyce gradually turned from being indignant to remaining silent.

My suppressed emotions collapsed under Joyce's sudden concern.

We've come through the high school days, college years, and six years of marriage together.

He has occupied almost half of my life.

Even if I wanted to be relieved, I couldn't make it immediately.

My nose felt sore. I shook my head subconsciously. But I remembered that she couldn't see it at all and added, "It's okay, we're divorced."

"What?" Joyce couldn't believe her ears and asked again.

"We're divorced. I've had enough of waiting for him to come back."

The first time I met Chasel was at a physics competition in my first year of high school.

We are classmates, so we compete fairly for advancing to the finals.

There was no love at first sight, only the determination to win.

None of us was willing to give in to the other.

It was the only one question, Which I got right, and he failed.

Since then, I got the chance to compete in the finals, and got a clingy Chasel.

He had been purchasing me for seven years.

During those days, he bought me breakfast every day and waited outside my dormitory.

In order to take the same class with me, he asked all the roommates to help select the courses.

He initiatively helped me collect information for my urgent group assignment when I was having a fever.

He would prepare flowers and gifts for me on every anniversary.

Later, after graduating from university, we got married without a doubt.

After marriage, Chasel was busy managing the company left by his father, while I stayed at home to help take care of his sick mother.

I was afraid that the care worker couldn't nurse perfectly, so I did almost everything myself.

During the first four years of our marriage, we've been such a loving couple although we didn't have any children.

Chasel's family was rich, and Anna was a kind person who always put me first.

No matter how busy he was, he would always find time to cook for us in person every week.

He would also take me to travel on weekends and anniversaries.

I felt like I was dating Chasel all the time.

However, my world turned upside down only a week after Anna's death. He brought Serena back to our home.

He held Serena's hand in front of me.

Looking at my red eyes from wailing at the funeral, he said blankly, "Hilary, I don't love you anymore. Let's go to the family court."

I sat on the sofa in a daze. My ears were buzzing and I couldn't believe what he said.

My cheeks were still wet. I stared at Chasel with my swollen eyes and confirmed with him, "What did you say?"

But he didn't dare look at me but turned back.

He irritably swept the vase in the hallway, emitting a harsh noise.

Our relationship fell apart like the broken vase.

Serena tried to placate Chasel and patted his shoulder.

Serena took out a divorce petition from her bag and showed it to me.

She raised a sweet smile.

"Let me introduce myself. I'm Serena. Chasel and I are childhood sweethearts."

"We've discussed before we came here. We are grateful for your kindness in attending his mom over the past few years. He would like to transfer all the shares in the company to you, plus a villa on Maple Street and 5 million dollars in cash, as long as you agree to go to the court."

Childhood sweethearts?

I suddenly understood something and burst into laugh.

We've been through meeting, love and marriage. I never found Chasel having any childhood sweetheart, let alone hear him mention someone.

Her name didn't even appear on the wedding invitation, but now she stood in front of me and said they were the true love.

I felt ridiculous and slowly calmed down.

I was sure that something had happened to Chasel, and he wanted to conceal it from me.

"Chasel, can we have a talk?"

He had his back towards me, without even turning his head, and spoke in a stiff voice as he had made a draft beforehand, "There's no need. It's a good deal for you if you to get divorced, you'll be better off than you are now."

I intended to grab him, but Serena blocked my way.

"Ms. Ellison, whatever you want to say, you can talk to me."

"Chasel doesn't want to have anything to do with you anymore."

I looked at Serena.

I had to admit that she was much prettier than me.

With well-endowed features and perfect makeup, wearing a costly suit, she was outstanding both in appearance and temperament.

But there were no distracting thoughts in her eyes. And they didn't behave like a couple in love.

"How much did Chasel pay to hire you?"

A hint of surprise flashed across Serena's face, but it quickly disappeared.

She smiled, appearing appealing and proud.

"You misunderstood. We are really childhood sweethearts. Anna has always been against us being together, that's why Chasel married you. People around him were afraid that mentioning me would make him sad, so they never did that."

"The person he loved all along was me. He doesn't dare to face you because he feels guilty about it."

"But guilty don't equal to love."

"Ms. Ellison, you have to think twice. We are willing to compensate you now because we feel guilty."

"We don't want to deceive you anymore."

"If you have any objections to the division of property, you can raise up. We are willing to do our best to compensate you for your efforts over the past years."

Hearing such a long string of words, I restrained myself and questioned Chasel, "Is what she said true? You've been pretending to love me these years?"

"Yes. I want to live with Serena honorably from now on."