Because there were no family members left at home, there was no funeral that needed to be arranged.

I stayed by my father’s hospital bed for a while, told him about Mom, and told him about myself.

I spoke intermittently until dawn. Before leaving, I looked at my unconscious father and, with a choked voice, said:

“Dad… I’m tired.”

Early the next morning, my mother’s body was cremated.

I placed the urn into a box and carried it home.

Along with it, I brought back the divorce agreement I had someone draft for me.

The moment I walked in, I ran right into Liam and Vanessa laughing together at the dining table.

“Sign it.”

My voice was cold as I slammed the divorce papers onto the table.

“So you escaped in the middle of the night just to get this divorce agreement?”

“Clara, you’ve really lost your mind!”

I clutched the urn tightly against my chest, my head lowered.

“Liam, let’s let each other go.”

“I don’t love you anymore.”

Before, I would still argue with Liam, and when things got heated, we even resorted to physical fights.

I would point at his nose and ask if the love he swore he had for me back then had been nothing but a joke.

Most of the time, I still held onto a sliver of hope—hoping he would forgive me, hoping we could fix our marriage.

So when he said he liked boldness, I tried to please him during dates.

When he said he liked innocence, I put on the clothes he loved to make him happy.

But after Vanessa moved in, my heart grew quieter and quieter.

Those tricks meant to please him became my shame—and became the outlet for his humiliation.

“What’s this that fell out, sis…?”

“Gregory Nicholson?”

Vanessa picked up the business card I had dropped and read the name on it.

So it was Gregory.

Liam’s lifelong rival, the nemesis he’d had since childhood—the one I’d never met, who lived across the ocean.

The next second, Liam’s face darkened, and he slapped me hard.

“You say you don’t love me anymore because you found someone else outside?!”

“Do you even know what kind of person Gregory is?!”

A roaring sound filled my ears, my body swayed, and I couldn’t stand steady.

The urn in my hands shattered on impact.

Watching the ashes scatter through the air, I stood there unable to react.

Instinctively, I knelt on the ground, wanting to gather them back.

But no matter how I tried, it was useless.

Vanessa even grabbed a carton of milk from the side and poured it onto the floor.

The ashes immediately turned into sticky clumps.

“Ah!”

Something snapped in my mind.

I lost control entirely and swung a stool straight at Vanessa.

Liam had no time to react—Vanessa was already on the floor, clutching her head.

“Liam… it hurts…”

“Liam, it hurts so much…”

Someone called an ambulance.

Liam gripped my wrist tightly and forced me to stay at the hospital.

“If anything happens to her, you’ll die with her!”

That day, I was forced to give Vanessa blood transfusions—again and again—until even the doctors said I couldn’t give any more.

Only then did Liam let me go, saying I had brought it all on myself.

For the next few days, I hid inside my father’s hospital room and didn’t leave.

“So this is where sis is hiding! Thanks to that hit you gave me, Liam is treating me so well now.”

“And this is sis’s dad? Why isn’t he moving?”

Pampered and favored, Vanessa spoke with arrogance in every step she took, every word she said.

She poked at my father’s oxygen tube repeatedly, curious about what it was.

“Don’t touch that!”

I shoved her away, and she stumbled back, holding her head.

The next second, she lunged forward, yanked out my father’s oxygen tube, and smiled as she toyed with it in her hands.

“Do you think Liam will blame me for this?”

The next second, Liam walked in.

He froze for a moment as he took in the scene, his eyes shifting back and forth between us.

After holding it in for a long time, he finally said:

“Shuhan is still young and doesn’t understand things. Your dad’s condition was hopeless anyway. Ending it earlier is better.”

“I’ll give your mom more money from now on.”

The beeping sound beside me continued, and each beep announced my father’s death.

I stood there in a daze.

Besides sadness and grief, what I felt even more was a kind of release.

Liam didn’t care about me anymore.

He picked up Vanessa and walked out.

Collapsed on the floor, I kept apologizing to my father, over and over, but I no longer knew who in this world owed me an apology.

I took out the business card and dialed the number.

“Mr. Gregory, come pick me up tonight.”

The same cremation—I went through it again.

This time, I left my father’s ashes on the memorial stand in the mourning hall.

When I returned home, Liam wasn’t back yet.

Vanessa whispered in my ear that Liam was furious and that I was doomed.

I ignored her.

She kept pestering me, asking whether I really wanted a divorce.

I didn’t answer.

I only opened the door.

“Choose. Everything in here belongs to you now.”

Hearing that, Vanessa rushed inside, immediately rummaging through everything.

Only a few photos of Liam and me from our youth scattered onto the floor—ignored by everyone.

I locked myself inside my room and stayed there until nightfall.

During that time, Liam sent the housekeeper to check on me, but I only asked the housekeeper to deliver my divorce agreement.

“How long is this going to go on, Clara? Are you still not done playing?”

Liam tore the divorce papers into pieces.

“Don’t feed her! She’ll get food only when she stops acting out!”

Liam thought my demand for divorce was fake, thought my confession that I didn’t love him anymore was fake too.

But love—can truly run out.

Ten years.

I really couldn’t love him anymore.

Now that I had nothing left, what was there that I couldn’t walk away from?

That night, I climbed out of the window and got into Gregory’s car.

The next morning, Liam didn’t see my busy figure in the dining room.

There were no little wontons he loved to eat, no coffee I brewed by hand, and none of the neatly ironed and matched clothes on the rack.

Liam rushed upstairs and opened my room door, only to find it completely empty.

He picked up a few photos scattered on the ground, panic flashing in his eyes.

“Housekeeper! Where is Clara?!”

The housekeeper rushed over, spatula still in hand, glanced at the empty room, and shook his head—he didn’t know.

“I’ll call her mom.”

The housekeeper froze and instinctively replied:

“Young master… didn’t Clara’s mother already pass away? She was cremated the next day.”

Liam’s mind flashed back to the scene of me holding the urn that day.

His breath stalled for a moment.

He bent down to pick up another photo, his pupils unfocused, as if all life had been drained from him, leaving only an empty shell.

In his hand was a photo of the two of them in their early twenties, taken on a street in Paris.

Back then, they had just gotten together, and he didn’t even dare put his arm around her shoulders.

But she had seen through his shyness and leaned her head against him.

Liam carefully wiped the dust from the photo.

He tried to smooth out the wrinkles, but no matter how hard he tried, it was useless.

In ten years, he had never imagined that Clara would really leave him.