“All right then…… Sis, if you change your mind, come to the store yourself. Miles and I will be waiting inside.”

After they left, the engine went silent too.

I sat in the back seat in my heavy, soaked clothes, sticky all over, watching the two of them walk off hand in hand.

The air conditioning faded fast. The 104-degree heat and the damp weather turned the car more and more stifling, and before long I was drenched through again.

I tried the door, only to find they'd locked me in.

After a moment, I texted Miles.

“When are you two coming back?”

Ten minutes. No reply.

I sent another. Still nothing.

Half an hour later, I chose to call the police.

When the officer smashed the window, Miles came walking out under an umbrella with Julia.

I was soaked in sweat, my body limp as I climbed out of the car, and a female officer steadied me, her eyes full of worry.

“Gabriella, have you lost your mind?” Before I could even find my footing, Miles's cold voice came from behind me.

“Sis, if you wanted to go shopping too, you could've just texted Miles. Why smash his car? The Research Institute assigned him that car……”

It took me a long while to clear my eyes. I lifted my head and looked at Miles, who stood off to the side with Julia held tight against him.

Then, all at once, I laughed. “So I never texted?”

Miles's face stiffened, and his hand tightened around his phone without thinking.

He'd seen it. He just hadn't wanted to answer.

The female officer couldn't stand it either. Her brow knit tight. “In heat like this, being locked in an airtight car can kill a person!”

“As her family, do you really not know something this basic?”

Julia's expression changed, and she glanced at Miles without meaning to.

Sure enough, a rare trace of guilt showed in Miles's eyes.

He took a few steps toward me on instinct, reaching to wipe the sweat from my temple, but I dodged him.

“Gabby, I didn't see the messages in time……”

I didn't answer. I only thanked the officers quietly, then got into the patrol car.

By the time I came back from the station, it was already eight at night. The apartment was still pitch dark.

Miles had probably gone back to the Research Institute again.

In the ten years I'd been with him, apart from the occasional visit home to see my parents, he spent nearly all his time in the lab.

After my shower, I was about to toss my wet clothes into the washing machine when I found a pair of black lace panties.

Not mine.

My skin was sensitive. I hadn't been able to wear anything but pure cotton for years.

And just then, a familiar voice came from outside the bathroom.

“Miles, I think I left my panties here last time. Have you seen them?”

“If you left them, you left them. I'll buy you new ones……”

“You're awful! You're not planning to keep them for yourself, are you?”

“Am I that much of a pervert?”

“You were way more of one in bed before……”

I gripped the clothes in my hands hard, my eyes locked on the bathroom door.

My heart felt like it had been smashed apart by an iron hammer, the pain so sharp I could barely breathe.

“Cough, stop it. We broke up a long time ago. Gabriella is my wife now.”

Miles's words sent a sudden flare of hope through me.

Did he, maybe, still care about me?

But Julia's tone dropped cold. “Didn't you get close to Gabriella just to win me back?”

“Professor Henson, don't tell me you've actually fallen for her?”

My face went white, and in an instant I remembered the day Miles confessed to me.

Miles and I went to the same university. I majored in English, while he was the campus's famous prodigy in biology.

His striking looks and formidable command of the field made him the secret crush of half the girls on campus the moment he enrolled.

I was one of them, of course.

But I never imagined we'd have anything to do with each other.

Not until sophomore year, when I found him near the night market, drunk out of his mind.

That little flutter I'd kept so carefully hidden away chose that moment to surface.

I took him to a hotel nearby and sat with him through the whole night, quiet as some lovestruck fool with her first crush.

When he woke the next morning, Miles looked at my exhausted eyes, still bright with surprise, and suddenly he smiled.

He really did have a beautiful smile. It dazzled me so much I didn't even catch what he said.

I just kept nodding.

It wasn't until he kissed my forehead that my face went scarlet and I shoved him away.

"What's wrong, my little girlfriend?"

Only then did it register that he'd just confessed to me.

I should have been confused, bewildered, full of questions. But in the end I only ducked my head, shy.

There was nothing left in me but joy.

It wasn't until later that I learned he'd broken up with his first love that very day.

All that loss of control, all that mess, had been because of Julia.

So when he confessed to me back then, it was because I bore a faint resemblance to her.

And the coldness that came later was probably because my temperament was nothing like hers.

Julia was radiant and bold, and I was quiet and ordinary.

I looked nothing like her.

"If you've really fallen for her, I'll leave right now and never show my face to you again!" Miles's silence only made Julia's tone turn nastier.

She slapped him hard across the face, her voice going colder and harder.

"Fine, then. I wish you and my cousin a long and happy life together!"

And with that she turned to leave.

Miles caught her hand on reflex, a coaxing note slipping into his voice.

"Julia, you know perfectly well..."

Through the gap in the bathroom door, I watched Miles, the man who had always been cold and proud in front of me, bow his head and grovel to Julia with the greatest care.

And I, his brand-new wife, was crouched in a corner spying on them like some rat.

Miles, what exactly do I mean to you?

The humiliation and shame made me want desperately to storm out and confront them, but reason kept dragging me back.

What could I even do if I went out there?

Nothing but bring more shame on myself.

I tugged at the corner of my mouth and sent my lawyer a text.

"Hi. Could you please draw up divorce papers for me?"

Better to see it clearly. I'll just call these ten years wasted on a lie.

Early the next morning I received the papers my lawyer had prepared.

"Ma'am, the other party committed adultery during the marriage. You're entitled to a larger share of the assets. Are you sure you only want half?"

"I'm sure."

In all the years Miles and I were together, he never once shorted me on material things. Apart from spending his life in the research lab, he really was a decent partner in every other way.

Every holiday and anniversary, a gift would arrive at the door. Even when my family got sick, he'd show up to visit, gift in hand.

And in all those years, not a single other woman ever appeared at his side.

Even when a junior researcher in his lab who had feelings for him confessed, he turned her down in the coldest terms.

In everyone else's eyes, he was the perfect boyfriend.

But only I knew none of it was for me.

It was all for Julia.

The holiday and anniversary gifts were standing orders he'd placed with the shop on a fixed schedule. Every year, flowers and a necklace.

I'd already received nearly twenty of the same identical necklace.

And when my family got sick, the only reason he came to visit was that he happened to be passing my hometown while traveling with Julia.

I already knew all of it, really.

There had been a time when I wanted to tell him plainly and cut things off for good, but the flicker of tenderness he showed once in a while always left a sliver of hope alive in me.

Now, though, I'd stored up enough disappointment. It was time to let go.

The day before our honeymoon was set to leave, I texted Miles and asked him to meet me at a café.

For the first time, he answered in a heartbeat. Just one short word, "Fine." And still, it sent a ripple through my chest.

But in the end, it came down to me sitting in that café for an entire day, right up until a barista reminded me they were closing, and I finally rose stiffly and walked out.

The signed divorce papers in my hand never made it into Miles's hands after all.

That same day, I called in a moving company and had them take my things away.

The company had expanded into overseas markets two years ago, and they'd been wanting to send me to one of the foreign offices for a while.

But I'd turned them down again and again, because I couldn't bear to leave Miles.

Now I put in for the transfer myself, and in the span of a single week every last piece of paperwork was done.

The day I left happened to be the exact date we'd booked for the honeymoon.

I laid the divorce papers on the nightstand together with that black lace thong, then turned to look at this home I'd lived in for years.

So empty it looked as if no one had ever lived here at all.

The knot of resentment that had sat lodged in my chest all these years suddenly loosened and drifted away.

My phone chimed.

A message from Miles.

"Why are you dragging your feet? The plane's already taken off. Julia and I went ahead. Book yourself a later flight and come out."

I scrolled through my feed. Ten minutes earlier, Julia had posted something.

【The Egypt trip I've been dying to take. Somebody once said no sun could ever burn as hot as I do.】

I gave it a like.

Then I replied to Miles.

"I'm not coming. Have fun, you two."

Once I'd sent it, I pulled the SIM card out of my phone and snipped it to pieces.

And I threw it into the trash, along with that whole humiliating relationship.